“Changing Landscapes”: Ecocritical Dystopianism in Contemporary Indigenous SF Literature

Abstract

Contemporary Indigenous sf writing demonstrates how modern interactions with landscapes, waters, and ecologies are troubled by socioenvironmental problems as current social processes increasingly drive future changes to places recognizable in the present day. In the resulting ecocritical dystopias, a focus on geographical traces relatable to the real world permits Indigenous writers imagining the future to connect their narratives more urgently and tangibly to issues relevant today. Social dynamics drive and are driven by the alterations to environments and places within such Indigenous sf works. In its speculative presentation of environmental, geographical, cultural, and other shifts from the time of modern society, this body of fiction draws from a variety of concerns to ponder why our actions today might produce dystopian futures—and to consider how better choices and futures might be possible. Through a reading of recent Indigenous sf writing and a focus on the cases studies of Harold Johnson’s Corvus (2015) and Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God (2017), this paper will examine ecocritical dystopianism through the lens of contemporary Indigenous sf writing.

Keywords

• ecocriticism
• dystopia
• dystopian fiction
• indigenous
• chippewa
• louise erdrich
• harold johnson