In need of new narratives

Abstract

In the face of global ecological crises, the need for approaches that transcend the limiting thought-structures of Anthropocene discourse and connected (grand) narratives of modernity is more urgent than ever before. Hence, these “mixed-up times” (Haraway) demand alternative epistemologies that can emerge with and from subversive patterns of reading, writing, and thinking. Ustopian fictions, such as Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam (2013), Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods (2007), and Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl (2002), can become tools to think-with and provide empowering alternatives to preconceived frameworks and grand narratives, thus helping to change cognitive structures and prejudiced schemata. The need to overcome anthropocentric discourse and its practices of exploitation resonates in the novels’ themes and forms. Ustopian possibilities relate to SF temporalities and sympoiesis in these novels, whose focus on relations, collaborations, and storied matter help transgress binaries and open up viewpoints beyond despair or hope without accounting for simple solutions. By entangling New (Feminist) Materialism and concepts such as Haraway’s Chthulucene, LeGuin’s narrative carrier bags, or Barad’s agential realism with these ustopian narratives, this chapter reveals how speculative fictions can allow for the emergence of new patterns of thinking and living.