As more and more writers use science fiction to not only interrogate the institution of colonialism, but also to explore questions of gender, race, and identity, a distinct subgenre has emerged: that of postcolonial science fiction. With its emphasis on presenting marginalized figures and groups, its interest in the relationship between power and identity, and, of course, its focus on colonialism, postcolonial science fiction blends the central theoretical concerns of one literary discipline—postcolonialism—with the imaginative possibilities of one of the most enduring literary genres.
In her 2007 work Science Fiction and Empire, Patricia Kerslake poses the following intriguing question: “Is SF designed as the handmaiden, the smoking gun or the nemesis of the imperial project” (63)? Kerslake’s question identifies the contradictory positions that science fiction has taken regarding the imperialist project: on the one hand, science fiction has been a chronicle of imperialistic possibility and inevitability, a celebration of mankind’s ability to subdue and civilize beings not just on Earth, but into the far reaches of space. On the other hand, science fiction has frequently, and loudly, criticized the practices of imperialism,i both on Earth and throughout the galaxy, exposing in particular imperialism’s racism and brutality, its disregard for other cultures, and its firm belief in its own rightness and superiority. In “Invaders,” John Kessel interweaves two narratives: the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs with the arrival of drug-addicted aliens to modern-day America. The relationship between the two narratives is clear: the Spanish are no better than the cocaine junkies from another world, and while the Spanish use physical violence to subdue the Aztecs, the aliens use humanity’s own greed against them, buying priceless pieces of art and even, in one instance, offering to buy Chile. In a stunning ending, a modern-day American travels back in time in a machine provided by the aliens to shortly before the arrival of the Spanish, and alerts the Aztec to this looming threat. This knowledge allows the Aztecs to meet the Spaniards as they arrive, and slaughter them “to the last man,” resulting in a “happily ever after” (850). Pat Murphy focuses specifically on the sexual violence inherent in imperialism in “His Vegetable Wife.” A farmer purchases a “vegetable wife,” a semi-sentient plant in the form of a human woman whose express purpose is to serve him sexually. When she resists his advances, he proceeds to rape her, rationalizing his actions on two levels: first, she is his wife, so it is impossible for him to rape her, and second, her inferior status, coupled with her inability to verbally communicate with him, places the “blame” for the conflict between the farmer and his “wife” on her shoulders. The farmer firmly believes not only in his wife’s inferiority, but his superiority as a man and more civilized form of life, and as such, the vegetable wife is subjected not only to sexual violence, but physical violence, in order to subdue her. In the end, however, she successfully resists, killing the farmer, and planting him in the soil, leaving his body to rot, just like his ideas about his superiority.
Even in texts that appear to be roundly critical of imperialism, however, one can discern a lingering ambivalence about imperialism; in other words, in certain science fiction texts, such as the popular television series Stargate: SG-1 and its spin-off, Stargate: Atlantis, one can see how science fiction is both the handmaiden and nemesis to imperialism at the same time. For eight years of the original series’ ten-year run, the stargate team protected the Earth and numerous other civilizations from the Goa’uld, a parasitical race of beings who physically invade and take over bodies. The Goa’uld are also parasites of technology; they do not create, they steal. This is in direct contrast to the Asgaard, the “little green men” whose incredibly powerful technology and benign natures are presented as clearly superior to both the villainous Goa’uld and the often clumsy, even “childish” Earthlings. While the Goa’uld are also technologically superior to Earth, because they use that technology to dominate and oppress, indeed, to enslave people who believe the Goa’uld to be powerful gods, they are hardly different than the super evil Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation, whose rhetoric of adaptability is a thin guise for the physical and cultural genocide they commit on a regular basis. The Goa’uld are more than just villains, however; their overt imperialism serves to deflect attention away from the more subtle imperialism of the stargate team, which, in protecting civilizations from the Goa’uld, is also presenting those civilizations with an alternative that is not just preferable, but decidedly American in its ethos. Furthermore, the presence of the Goa’uld, and in the last two seasons of the show, the Ori, allows Stargate: SG-1 to “reveal things about ourselves that are intensely uncomfortable,” but without having to point the finger directly back at ourselves (Roberts 27). In other words, the Goa’uld and the Ori serve as proxies for a postcolonial reevaluation of the imperialist history of the West and its science fiction.
What, then, does “postcolonial” mean? If, as the term more immediately suggests, “post” as in “after,” then has science fiction reached a point where it is “over” colonialism, that colonialism is finished? The obvious answer is, of course, no. Just as mankind has yet to move past colonial practices and mindsets, so too is science fiction still intimately invested in both the narrative and philosophical richness that the problem of colonialism and empire provides. Rather than think of “postcolonial” as signifying a point in time, Ella Shohat offers a more useful way to think about the “post” in “postcolonial.” Recognizing that the term is imbued with an “ambiguous spatio-temporality” that assumes shared experiences of imperialism across what are widely different colonial histories, independence movements, and cultures (102), Shohat prefers to think of “post” as referring to “beyond,” which suggests an attempt to interrogate and trouble the ideologies and assumptions that undergird colonialist practice. David Spur, in The Rhetoric of Empire, offers further clarification of the term “postcolonial:”
I shall refer to the postcolonial in two ways: as an historical situation marked by the dismantling of traditional institutions of colonial power, and as a search for alternatives to the discourses of the colonial era…in neither the historical nor the cultural sense does the postcolonial mark a clean break with the colonial: the relations of colonizer to colonized have neither remained the same nor have they disappeared. (6-7)
Michelle Reid, in defining “postcolonialism,” the term used to refer to the intellectual study of the “postcolonial” condition, points out that challenging “the Western-centric focus of the literary canon and academic scholarship” is a major aspect to the discipline (256). Just as important is an “examination of the colonial process, the struggle for independence by former colonies, and their creation of distinct national identities” (256).
Finally, Uppinder Mehan, the co-editor of So Long Been Dreaming, offers a useful definition of the postcolonial individual:
[. . .] one who is a member of a nation that has recently achieved independence from its colonizers, but by shifting from the adjective ‘postcolonial’ to the noun ‘postcoloniality’ a more inclusive and I think truer definition comes into play. Postcoloniality includes those of us who are survivors—or descendents of survivors—of sustained, racial colonial processes; the members of cultures of resistance to colonial oppression; the members of minority cultures which are essentially colonized nations within a larger nation; and those of us who identify ourselves as having Aboriginal, African, South Asian, Asian ancestry, wherever we make our homes. (269)
Postcolonial literature and science fiction actually share much in common, from the genres’ use and refashioning of other genres to suit their own purposes, questions regarding their literary merit as well as those who write in these genres and to what end, to the deeply moral and ethical concerns in which each engage. Both postcolonial literature and science fiction are linked by their engagement with otherness, or alterity. In postcolonial studies, the “Other” is not only situated as the aberrant of the imperialist norm (a norm that is the same as that which marks difference i
n SF), but significantly by the denial of the “individuation” that is the right of the norm only (Loomba 52). The function of the “Other” is intriguingly similar in both genres: the “Other” consolidates difference as well as solidifies the norm; as both a theoretical concept and a tangible object, the “Other” is used to justify the exploitation and annihilation of peoples, whether red, black, or green; it is used to explain how repulsion and desire can exist concurrently; and it signifies an ever-looming threat of contamination (by sex or disease) as well as violence. As Michelle Reid usefully points out
Postcolonialism interrogates the complex Self/Other relationships created by the colonial encounter. SF imagines encounters with the Other (the alien, the strange newness brought about by change), typically from the perspective of the dominant Self. It perpetuates images of pioneering spaceship crews landing on other planets and exterminating bug-eyed aliens, but also questions and undermines the supposed manifest destiny of space exploration and the oppression of the Other as alien. (257)
It is clear that identification with the “Other” is a significant marker of postcolonial science fiction. In The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury offers the reader the voice of the Other in several stories, a voice in some ways more familiar than strange, that encourages identification with the Martians: they have families, engage in silly domestic spats, and even enjoy boating. At the same time, he points out to the reader what makes the Martians different: they wear masks to show emotions, they have golden skin, six fingers, and are shorter than humans. In this complex mixture of similar and alien, Bradbury moves away from H. G. Wells’ more one-note presentation of invading Martians in War of the Worlds as insectlike, technologically advanced menaces. The Martians are not the only counter-voices Bradbury provides, however. In “And the Moon be Still as Bright,” a member of the Fourth Expedition, Spender, learns that the majority of the Martian population has been decimated by the chicken pox brought by the Third Expedition. His response is sympathetic, and, I would suggest, postcolonial: he describes to his captain how the cities, mountains, and canals will lose their “proper” Martian names in an attempt to “change [Mars] to fit ourselves” (54). But “no matter how we touch Mars, we’ll never touch it” (54). His captain does not understand Spender’s shame at what is to come, and as such, disagrees with Spender who states “I imagine they hate us” (54). “They accepted what came to them,” Captain Wilder tells Spender, and “they probably don’t mind us being here any more than they’d mind children playing on the lawn” (54). This conversation, and Spender’s refusal to participate any further in the expedition (he retreats to the hills and kills some of his former comrades in an attempt to protect what is left of Mars, only to be killed himself by his captain) is one of several examples in the Chronicles of the melding of postcolonial concerns with science fiction tropes.
The texts discussed so far suggest that there are two basic “types” of postcolonial science fiction: 1) science fiction created by postcolonial artists, as in the So Long Been Dreaming anthology; and 2) science fiction in which postcolonial concerns are an integral part of the plot and theme of the narrative. In the former type, postcolonial issues may or may not be integrated into the narrative; in the latter, postcolonial artists as well as non-postcolonial artists may use science fiction as the medium through which postcolonial concerns are addressed. “The Ice Age Cometh” by noted Indian SF writer Jayant Narlikar, is set in Bombay, which is experiencing a blizzard brought about by a sudden ice age. An Indian scientist had long warned of the event, and it is this scientist to whom the superpowers of the world turn for a solution. This story is actually an example of both basic types of postcolonial science fiction: a science fiction story produced by a postcolonial writer, and a science fiction story in which challenges to Western intellectual and scientific superiority is presented in the form of an Indian scientist who saves the day and the planet. Similarly, in Amitav Ghosh’s 1995 novel The Calcutta Chromosome the superiority of Western science is once again under fire: The discovery of malarial transmission no longer belongs to Nobel Prize winner Ronald Ross, but to the work of the Indians who guided him throughout the process.
Finally, the 2009 film District 9 provides another clear example of postcolonial science fiction. A group of aliens, derogatorily referred to as “prawns” because of their resemblance to large shrimp, are stranded in a shanty town in Johannesburg, South Africa, after their ship breaks down in the skies above. For twenty years the skyline of Johannesburg has been dominated by the aliens’ ship, and below, the refugees struggle to survive in makeshift shelters. The refugees are to be relocated to another camp outside of the city; the human residents have grown increasingly wary of the aliens’ presence, despite the fact that the violence to be found in District 9 is primarily the work of an opportunistic Nigerian warlord. A government representative, Wikus van de Merwe is given the task of relocating the aliens, and in his attempts to do so, he is exposed to an alien substance that begins to reshape his DNA, turning him into another “prawn.” His firsthand experience of the deprivation, brutality, and indifference experienced by the aliens eventually leads him to defend and identify with the aliens: indeed, he has no other choice, and must rely on one of the aliens, “Christopher,” who has repaired the ship, to return in several years’ time with a cure that will restore Wikus to his human state.
The film is directly inspired by South Africa’s history of apartheid, and in particular events that transpired in District Six, in Cape Town. In that regard, then, District 9 is a science fiction allegory of apartheid. It also combines specific elements of postcolonial analysis, namely hybridity and subalternity, into focus. Wikus’s transformation has turned him into a physical hybrid: a “prawn” on the outside, but still human within. The concept of hybridity focuses especially on what Michelle Reid describes as “cross cultural fertilization,” which emphasizes the cultural changes wrought upon the culture and identity of the colonized, creating a third, “hybrid” identity. The prawns themselves are subaltern figures: marginalized both physically and socially, the aliens are given no voice in their relocation, nor are those who supposedly “represent” them, including Wikus at the beginning, truly interested in the aliens’ interests and needs.
What this final reading points out is that science fiction itself is ripe for postcolonial analysis; in other words, postcolonial tools, such as hybridity, mimicry, Orientalism, and the subaltern, to name a few, provide useful ways for analyzing science fiction’s relationship with imperialism and those touched by it. Postcolonial science fiction goes even further by giving postcolonial writers the opportunity to rewrite an entire genre still haunted by its own colonial collusion, while also providing a rich imaginative space for these writers to explore the very nature of identity, power, and representation.
Works Cited
Bradbury, Ray. “And the Moon Be Still as Bright.” The Martian Chronicles. Grand Master Editions. New York: Bantam, 1979. 48-72.
Ghosh, Amitav. The Calcutta Chromosome: A Novel of Fevers, Delirium and Discovery. New York: Harper Perennial, 2001.
Hopkinson, Nalo. “Introduction.” So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy. Eds. Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan. Vancouver, BC: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004. 7-9.
Kerslake, Patricia. Science Fiction and Empire. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2007.
Kessel, John. “Invaders.” The Norton Book of Science Fiction. Ursula K. LeGuin and Brian Attebery, eds. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1993. 830–850.
Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. New York: Routledge, 2005.
Murphy, Pat. “His Vegetable Wife.” The Norton Book of Science Fiction: North American Science Fiction, 1960–1990. Ursula LeGuin and Brian Attebery, eds. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993. 628–632.
Narlikar, Jayant V. “The Ice Age Cometh.” It Happened Tomorrow: A Collection of 19 Select Science Fiction Stories from Various Indian Languages. Ed. Bal Phondke. Delhi: National Book Trust,
1993. 1–20.
Reid, Michelle. “Postcolonialism.” The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction. Eds. Mark Bould, Andrew M. Butler, Adam Roberts, and Sheryl Vint. New York: Routledge, 2009. 256–66.
Rieder, John. Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2008.
Shohat, Ella. “Notes on the Postcolonial.” Contemporary Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. Ed. Padmini Mongia. London: Arnold, 1996. 321–34.
Spurr, David. The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration. Post-Contemporary Interventions Series. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1993.
Notes
It is important here to define not just “imperialism,” but “colonialism,” a related, but distinct term. John Rieder, in Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction, defines colonialism as “the entire process by which European economy and culture penetrated and transformed the non-European world over the last five centuries, including exploration, extraction of resources, expropriation and settlement of the land, imperial administration and competition, and [later] postcolonial renegotiation of the distribution of power and wealth among the former colonizers and colonized” (25). Imperialism is defined as the “rule by proxy governments or bureaucratic administrations (the British in Australia versus the British in India)” (25). While Rieder separates “imperialism” from “colonialism” by use of the word “proxy,” and, as seen in the definition of colonialism, Rieder situates imperialism as a practice of colonialism, it is important to note that “rule by proxy governments” oftentimes entailed similar practices of resource extraction, land resettlement, and the forcible suppression of “native” resistance to “imperial administration.” Both imperialism and colonialism are rooted in similar beliefs: namely, the superiority of Western culture, and the implicit inferiority, even barbarity, of non-Western cultures and peoples. Only through the “intervention” of the West, then, can a colony, such as India, for example, be brought to the light of civilization and progress. This sort of rhetoric helped to justify the truth of colonial practice and imperial interest: land, resources, wealth, power. “Imperialism” as it is being used here, then, is as a “catch-all” term for what Rieder has identified regarding both terms: the “entire process” of cultural penetration and transformation of other cultures and peoples, Terran and otherwise, whether that occurs through direct interaction or by proxy.
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