Published In
The Climate Fiction Issue from Grist/Fix Solutions Lab
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-28-2021
Subjects
Environmental justice, Social justice, Racial justice, Native peoples, Indigenous futurism, Creative writing
Abstract
In lieu of an abstract, here is an excerpt:
Indigenous peoples often say that from maewizhah, or time immemorial, we have gazed upon ae-iko-dawo-dunnauk-mishi-geezhik and created stories that are maumikaud-kummik. In other words, throughout our histories, Native peoples have looked to the heavens, pondered the universe, and composed fantastical tales that, translated literally, are “out of this world.”
This is the very definition of speculative fiction.
To us, storytellers are artists and medicine people who provide mishkiki: medicine, healing, and sometimes even solidarity — or, as we say in Anishinaabemowin, inauwinidiwin, which means collectively becoming a “group walking in a body.” When these creatives place frontline communities and characters at the heart of their stories, readers can challenge themselves to become inauwinidiwin, or the coming together as one body-mind on our beautiful yet beleaguered Mizzu-kummik-quae, or Mother Earth.
About the author:
Grace L. Dillon is a professor in the Indigenous Nations Studies Program at Portland State University, and is of Anishinaabe and European descent. She edited Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction and coined the term Indigenous futurisms.
Rights
© Grace Dillon, Fix/Grist
This story was originally published by Fix, Grist’s solutions lab. To discover more climate solutions and visions of a greener future, subscribe to Fix’s biweekly newsletter.
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/38951
Citation Details
Dillon, Grace L., "Why Intersectionality in Fiction Matters" (2021). Indigenous Nations Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations. 20.
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/38951
Description
Fix, Grist’s solutions lab, presents its inaugural magazine issue: The Climate Fiction Issue.
Fiction is how we imagine a different future, even in times when that future feels unreachable. In this issue, explore the power of climate fiction to help far-off visions become realities, and experience what happens when you live in someone else’s imagined future.