Worldviews #3
- Alice
- Aug 13, 2021
- 4 min read
Afrofuturism & beyond
Reflecting on today’s lecture, your viewing of Black Panther, and the notes made using the viewing guide & discussion, select 1-3 UNSDGs as a framework to analyse the success of Black Panther as a work of Afrofuturism.
What did it do well? What were its weaknesses and limitations?
In this week’s session of DES231: The Future of Work and Play, we had the time to watch Black Panther as part of this week’s topic of ‘Afrofuturism’.
“A literary and cultural aesthetic that uses the tools and tropes of science fiction, as well as references to African and non-Western mythology, as a means to confront and analyse the present-day issues faced by people of colour.”
- Mark Dery
Afrofuturism is a concept similar to indigenous futurism explored in the previous week where it refers to the African culture to develop a futuristic outcome based on the current issue faced by the African race. Black Panther, personally, is a film that I enjoy watching - watched about five times now - as it has a tremendous visual allowing my eyes to enjoy as well as the right type of music for the culture that is represented (in my opinion) and includes a diverse cast with many people of colour. With the help of the viewing guide provided by the lecturers, I was able to witness the different UN SDGs incorporated in the film and learn the different values that the film interprets.
Gender equality is clearly shown throughout the film as although the main protagonist - Black Panther - is a male character, the supporting characters around him are all-female casts. Shuri, the sister of T’challa, the Black Panther and the King of Wakanda, is a leader of invention and technology within Wakanda therefore able to develop her own technology and unravel her intelligence to advance the technology in Wakanda. She later also becomes Black Panther herself in the Marvel comics showing that there are no limitations for women to hold such a high leadership position in Wakanda. In the final battle scene in the film, the movie shows an all-women team fighting the battle alongside the Black Panther against a team of men. This scene personally felt really thrilling and intriguing to watch as this is not often presented in Hollywood films. The inequality problem that people of colour face, especially women is proven to still encounter discrimination. With this article from Brookings as evidence, it can be seen that women of colour are underrepresented at a professional, high status. Therefore, the fact that the film Black Panther represents women as strong, independent characters shows the ideal future for all women and people of colour.
With reference to Afrofuturism as an example of a Pluriversal approach to speculative design/fiction, and considering the cultural issues it addresses, describe how you might like to approach the design of a world
or scenario set in the future.
As analysed in the previous blog post, pluriversal design is an approach to allow inclusion for all communities and cultures to provide a desirable future. Afrofuturism would be the framework that shows the desirable, ideal future of Africans and non-Westerners which links to the overall framework of the Pluriversal approach. If I were to design for a scenario set in the future, I may have the same goal as others - the ‘ideal’ future. In one of the exercises that we had done during the DES231 course, we were assigned to write a diary for a day set sometime in the year 2031. I set myself at home, comfortable and away from stress living my day relaxed. As my current days have been so chaotic with school, work and other commitments I felt very in distress. This kind of future where one is for example enjoying their cup of coffee is displayed a lot in media as it is the ‘desirable and ideal’ future for many of us. Although being unique is great, I personally want to design a future where it is more laid back and less living on the edge.
What do you see as problematic with the term ‘Indigenous Futurism’ and how could you define the term
‘Pluriversal Futurism’ in a way that presents more scope for envisioning futures which are inclusive to
different modes of being, knowing and doing?
Indigenous Futurism itself limits the variety of the cultures that could be explored for a designer as the framework mainly focuses on the ‘original’ aspect of the certain ‘indigenous communities. Pluriversal Futurism however is more spread out in terms of the limits that the designer would have for their framework. Just searching up the term ‘Pluriversal Futurism’ itself on Google, it does not show many qualified results that people could easily access. The goal and the framework to me personally feel like the right structure that I could follow however there are not enough resources to actually follow up on it. Therefore, in order to present wider scope and be inclusive, it will need more accessible sources especially online during this pandemic.
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