Attached to Paper Session
Meeting Preference
Beginning with an insistence on hydrosocial pluralities of fresh waters, this paper presents a comparison among three kinds of narrative futurisms: Octavia Butler’s 1993 parabolic futurism (from Parable of the Sower) of the arid southern California of 2024; Andrea Ballestero’s ethnographic future anterior as watery ontologies are negotiated between the regnant concepts of commodity and human right; and the increasingly- geopolitcally-influential mainstream Anthropocene Fresh Water futurisms. I argue against five specific totalizing dangers and evangelical fervor of mainstream fresh water futurisms, suggesting instead that the social ontologies and narrative multiplicities offered by anti- and decolonial speculative fiction writers (Butler) and contemporary social scientists (Ballestero) are necessary for thinking and relating to fresh waters.
Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)
Beginning with an insistence on hydrosocial pluralities of fresh waters, this paper presents a comparison among three kinds of narrative futurisms: Octavia Butler’s 1993 parabolic futurism (from Parable of the Sower) of the arid southern California of 2024; Andrea Ballestero’s ethnographic future anterior as watery ontologies are negotiated between the regnant concepts of commodity and human right; and the increasingly geopolitcally-influential mainstream Anthropocene Fresh Water futurisms. I argue against five specific totalizing dangers and evangelical fervor of mainstream fresh water futurisms, suggesting instead that the social ontologies and narrative multiplicities offered by anti- and decolonial speculative fiction writers (Butler) and contemporary social scientists (Ballestero) are necessary for thinking and relating to fresh waters.