This article conceptualizes âFutureSâ as a category of analysis, insisting on four semantic pillars that induce me to speak of âfutureSâ rather than âthe futureâ. The capitalized âSâ in both FutureS and futureS suggests that âfutureâ does not exist in the (simplicity of any) singular, and this is largely due to three reasons: First, the âSâ refers to the fact that futureS are causally intersected with both the past and the present. Second, it draws attention to the fact that futureS are intersected and molded by complexities and coexistences of glocal encounters of conflicting, competing, and complementary agencies, interests, contingencies, possibilities and options in the un/making and (not) sharing of futureS. Consequently, and third, futureS are made (as guided by agencies in power) and can be un*made (through resistance). In fact, agency is powerâs most virulent protagonist and antagonist at the very same time. This article will discuss agencies and their being triggered by dreams and hopes â and the memories they are pillared on. Delving into this thesis, this article compares two well-known conceptualizations of the integrative and causal intersection of past, memory and futureS: The German philosopher Walter Benjaminâs âAngel of Historyâ and the Adinkra philosophy of âSankofaâ. Thus framed, the article analyzes fictional and factual representations of memory-driven dream*hopes. First, Martin Luther King Jr.âs âI Have a Dreamâ speech will be compared with J. Coleâs hip-hop rereading of Black dreams against the backdrop of contemporary racial profiling in his song âBe Freeâ. Subsequently, the article delves comparatively into negotiations of Maafa with respect to the power of memory and dream*hopes in Audre Lordeâs âA Litany for Survivalâ and Fred DâAguiarâs The Longest Memory.
Future as a category of analysis: thinking futures as thinking beyond fact, fortune, and fate
The British sociologist Barbara Adam did extensive research on social narratives about time and future. Winding up a decade of research, she suggests that future is performed as fact, fiction, fortune, and fate.4 Indeed, future is a fact inasmuch as it bears notions of being in becoming. After all, it may be a fact that I cannot become 11 years old tomorrow and that we are all going to die, even the sun; or maybe not, since the universe keeps existing four-dimensionally, no matter what. Yet since we neither exactly know nor completely control what will be/come, could future ever be a fact-fact? The same goes for fate. There are certainly things that are beyond control, but fate is about the total absence of agencies and scopes of decision-making. Yet is there really something that exists beyond a total lack of decision-making? In other words, is there anything that is fate only? Moreover, future can also be explained and perceived as fortune â depending on our grade of happiness. However, fortune is never a mere âfortune-givenâ thing but wo*man-made as backed up by very earthly parameters. Therefore, anything we might consider to be fortune and fate is also very much about power and the privileges and options thus (not) granted. Hence, for instance, being born a princess or being born within the fortress of Schengen-Europe (or not) is less about fortune or fate than about power constellations that buy or disclose options of living into a self-determined future. Lastly, the fictional aspect of future holds true inasmuch as it does not exist beyond being imagined; and yet, this fictionalized meaning matters, because it creates social matters in a most powerful way. Therefore, the question is: do these concepts, as suggested by Adam, fully cover the complexities of âfutureâ?
When approaching this question, the advantage of distinguishing between the usage of a term/concept as âcategory of practiceâ and as âcategory of analysisâ comes to mind, as suggested by Frederick Cooper and Rogers Brubaker in 2000 and particularly in the latterâs article âCategories of Analysis and Categories of Practiceâ (2012). Employing the example of the term/concept âMuslimâ, Brubaker argues that âcategories of practiceâ are about meaning as linguistically performed by âlay usersâ and, as such, embedded in daily language, which codes and is itself coded by political, religious, and socio-cultural discourses. Yet these very discourses cannot be unraveled and deconstructed without transgressing the realm of practice and entering a meta-level or, once again, what Brubaker calls âcategories of analysisâ. Of course, âthe category of practiceâ is entangled with âthe category of analysisâ â the semantics of both keep reifying and resituating each other. Therefore, just as âthe category of practiceâ informs the scrutiny of âthe category of analysisâ, the latter keeps resituating the meaning of a term (on its layer as âcategory of practiceâ), including its impact on societal structures and discourses.
Adamâs reading future as fact, fortune, fate, and fiction seemingly corresponds to an everyday language semantics of âfutureâ and is hence all about Brubakerâs âcategory of practiceâ. When wishing to identify, deconstruct, and transcend what this âfutureâ as âcategory of practiceâ is able to narrate, a âcategory of analysisâ is needed that covers the wide realm of what will happen, might happen, has happened, might have happened just as much as what can happen and what could have happened, looking at reasons, causalities, and consequences in the context of âglocalâ interactions as framed by discursive and structural histories of power. This is where the potentials of âfutureâ as âcategory of analysisâ â hereafter referred to as âFutureSâ â are needed.5 This âcategory of analysisâ interferes into âfutureâ as âcategory of practiceâ, insisting on three semantical pillars that induce me to speak of âfutureSâ rather than âthe future.â While having the capitalized âSâ in common, the âFâ is only capitalized â hence, âFutureSâ â when referring to âthe category of analysisâ, while âfutureSâ is my term for talking about the subject of âfutureâ in a different manner that, in turn, corresponds to the term/concept FutureS (cf. Arndt, Nyangulu, Piesche).6
The capitalized âSâ in both âFutureSâ and âfutureSâ suggests that âfutureâ does not exist in the (simplicity of any) singular, and this is largely due to three reasons: First, the âSâ refers to the fact that futureS are causally intersected with both the past and the present. Second, it draws attention to the fact that futureS are intersected and molded by complexities and coexistences of glocal encounters of conflicting, competing, and complementary agencies, interests, contingencies, possibilities, and options in the un/making and (not) sharing of futureS. Throughout global histories, some futureS have buttressed each other, while some have deflated each other and others have prevented each otherâs existence; some have advanced and some hindered the other. There are futureS that neither did nor will ever happen, because one futurE thwarted the other â and in this instance the capital âEâ puts emphasis on this erasure of given pluralities. Consequently, and third, futureS (as molded by and molding the category of analysis âFutureSâ) are made and shared unevenly by power-coded agencies: âThe future is already here, itâs just not very evenly distributedâ, as internet visionary William Gibson suggests.7 Indeed, every struggle about power, freedom and justice is about futureS and every struggle about futureS is to strive for gaining access to power, freedom and justice. After all, futureSâ polyphony, complexity, reflexivity, and relationality are coded by the structures and discourses of power, along the grammar of racialization, gender, sexuality, religion, health, ability, age, and nation. The social positions thus coded decide, to a high extent, about the very impact and agency a person or collective may have in shaping (their own and other peopleâs) individual and collective futureS and their share of it. Ultimately, however, the struggle over futureS is not determined by power constellations alone. Rather, both power and futureS can be negotiated and un/made by agencies. Contextualized by power and powerlessness, privileges and deprivation, ethics and unscrupulousness, responsibility and the lack thereof, agencies desire and fear, fight and sustain, accept and negotiate, experience and forget, build and destroy futureS. In fact, agency is powerâs most virulent protagonist and antagonist at the very same time.
Thus framed, in the following, FutureS will be mobilized as a category of analysis for a postcolonial rereading of fictionalizations of futureS as performed by (resistant) fictive and factual dreams and hopes and their power to transgress future as fate and fortune, un/making alternate facts and fictions in the process.
Futures as narrated by (memory-driven) dream*hopes
The agencies of futureS operate in different complementary and entangled modes â and narration is one of them: we were, are and will be, what we narrate. Narratives, in turn, may bury or carry and hence mediate (or not) and disseminate (or not) dreams and hopes in given entanglements with memories â and I wish to describe given intersections thereof in the following.
First of all, the concepts of dreams and hopes are used as complementary terms in this article. For one thing, I use dreams as (verbal/visual) narrations of what is strived for, wanted and desired â excluding the connotational layer of nightmares. Thus coded, on the other hand, dreams share a number of denotations and connotations with hopes â particularly if they are addressing ideas about futureS. Yet while dreams may exceed what is seemingly plausible in the very now, hope is more grounded in translating it into actions for possible changes, as I argue somewhat in line with the famous suggestion that âhope is a waking dreamâ.8 When waking up and desiring to (make the) dream (come true), the dream has turned into a hope and keeps insisting on change as dream*hoping futureS. Therefore, in the following, I will speak of dream*hopes (the asterisk is to mark the complementary entanglement of both concepts), unless the reference is clearly to one of the concepts specifically or when one concept is favored over the other by an author or in a text that I talk about.
As a joined venture, dream*hopes express individual and collective needs and desires, featuring individual and collective thoughts, images and sensations in various states, ranging all the way from sleep to speech, from likeability to unlikeability, from the slightest possibility of becoming fulfilled to the highest form of fulfilment. Whether composed by the human unconscious or uttered intentionally, dream*hopes are very outspoken about their very source: âThe subject of the dream is the dreamerâ, as Toni Morrison puts it in Playing in the Dark (17). Then dreams are about the dreamers â and hopes about the hopers. These dream*hopers are socially positioned subjects who own power-coded agencies, and these very subject positions inform the dream*hopersâ very dream*hopes. Ultimately, though, the dream*hopes are much freer than their subjects, i.e. the dream*hoping person(s). Sure, dream*hopes, just like humans, can be silenced, but they cannot be censored, nor can they be imprisoned, nor killed. What is more, dream*hopes can narrate what should (not) be/come (anymore). Dream*hopes comment on something called ârealityâ, but they are freed from its very obstacles. Dream*hopes offer and enter futureS without being expected to map the road or hand out the tools or manuals needed to make them come true â which, nevertheless, applies (according to the above mentioned slight distinction of the two terms) to dreams even more than to hopes. Thus, freed from obstacles such as gravity-ruled spaces and chronology-b...