Pumzi; the labyrinth of futureS

ABSTRACT

Future signifying a space-time yet to come (re)shapes the cultural specificites and, thus, is mutated into more than a sheer temporal indication and, inevitably, engages semantics, practices, objects, and objectives; equally impacting and forming meaning and matter. As such, Pumzi is a 2009 sci-fi short movie by Kenyan film director Wanrui Kahiu. Her 20-minute movie is a noteworthy literary instance, which meticulously depicts the salient complications of the future in contested and nebulous nets of futureS. This (con)text aesthetically stages the polyphonic future, thus futureS, while shedding light upon tangles and entanglements of past, present, and future which ultimately renders a labyrinth-like characteristic to the concept. In doing so, and in a dialogue with Pumzi, these questions arise: How is the plurality of the future discerned and depicted in Pumzi? To what ratio do futureS interact and negotiate with one another? And lastly, what is Black about futureS in Pumzi? In parallel fashion, I deploy Susan Arndt's account on the concept of futureS and FutureS in order to accentuate the intrinsic polyphony and multiplicity within the term and to be able to discern between future as category of practice and category of analysis respectively. Moreover, I mobilize the theoretical outlines of Wendell Bell to literary studies so as to better diagnose the ground upon which futureS in Pumzi are imagined – including the wide scope of possibility, probability, and/or preferability. The Black poetics of Pumzi and some of the Black visions of and for future are then discussed in the final section.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Susan Arndt who always teaches me the audacity to think and act beyond – analytical and practical – (b)orders, after all this is where futureS reside. This research as well as the author are greatly indebted to her impeccable brilliance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Herein, I make use of “futureS” and “FutureS” set afore by Susan Arndt, so as to respectively accentuate the multiplicity of it and the analytical purchase of the term. In “Dream*hoping Memory into futureS”, Arndt aptly begins her argument by advocating for both “futureS” and “FutureS” instead of “future” for two reasons; (1) futureS represents the polyphony of future (in the wide realm of those that happened and those that did not); whereas (2) FutureS marks the “category of analysis”, designed to analyse the performances of competing and complementary futureS. Also, cf. Arndt, Susan. “Dream*hoping Memory into futureS, or: How to Read Resistant Narratives about Maafa by Employing FutureS as a Critical Category of Analysis”, here in this journal. Arndt argues against Barbara Adam's premise of the singular and thus univocal use of future in “Future Matters” that is rather tantamount to using it as “category of practice”, cf. Adam, Barbara. “Future Matters: Challenge for Social Theory and Social Inquiry” Cultura e comunicazione 1: (2010) 47–55. Web. 1 Feb. 2017; cf. Adam, Barbara and Chris Groves. Future Matters: Action, Knowledge, Ethics. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Arndt, Susan, Deborah Nyangulu, and Peggy Piesche, eds. FutureS Matter. Rereading Future as a Critical Category of Analysis. (in preparation). In doing so, Arndt thinks in line with Rogers Brubaker's (and Frederick Cooper's) account on differentiating between “categories of analysis” and “categories of practice”. On demarcating the categories of practice from the categories of analysis for social political terms, Brubaker opines that despite of their “close reciprocal connection” and “mutual influence” (“Beyond” 4), “unintentionally reproducing or reinforcing such reification by uncritically adopting categories of practice as categories of analysis” (5) should be avoided; cf. Brubaker, Rogers and Frederick Cooper. “Beyond ‘Identity’” Theory and Society 29.1 (2000): 4–6. And also, cf. Brubaker, Rogers. “Categories of Analysis and Categories of Practice. A Note on the Study of Muslims in European Countries of Immigration.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 36.1 (2012): 1–8.

2. In this regard, Lasswell likewise notes: “Expectations about future may rest upon the extrapolation of past trends into the future” (“The Garrison” 456).

3. Noah Sow's keynote is made available in the Special Issue.

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Notes on contributors

Shirin Assa

Shirin Assa has been engaged with the study of diasporic identities as conjectural spaces; futures studies and cultures of migration and is intrigued by non-exclusive practices of communities. Currently a PhD candidate at BIGSAS, she pursues a comparative study on future-narratives of Europe at its intersection with migrants' futures. Born in Iran and living in Germany, she won the DAAD prize in 2016 and is being nominated for the GAPS award 2017. Assa has also contributed to and collaborated with African Literature Association, The Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies, The Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies, Future Migration Network for Cultural Diversity and Shanghai International University among others.