Paper short abstract:

I explore how Indigenous speculative futures of thriving in apocalyptic climate change continue traditions and unsettle dominant settler-colonial conceptions of the world. I discuss lessons for times of crisis in viewing Indigenous-settler relationships through the lens of the monsterbiome.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I discuss human-monster relationships within my PhD on the resurgence of Aboriginal culture in Victoria. I am interested in themes of the known and unknown and the crossover between human and monster within the context of settler-colonialism and a relatively new norm of climate change disaster. Through the work of Indigenous writers and artists as well as interviews and participant observation, I explore Indigenous speculative futures that conceive of apocalyptic climate change as generative of freedom from settler-colonialism. Indigenous speculative futures creatively engage with contradictory ideas – such as flourishing in massively degraded landscapes, and societal collapse enabling forms of return to pre-colonial life. They unsettle settler relationships to the world as descending into catastrophic climate change, which often naturalise colonisation within a narrative of western progress gone too far. Indigenous speculative futures unveil settler-colonialism as a known and urgent threat. These imaginaries work within relationships between the past and future that open spaces for possibility and transcendence in the present. They continue traditions of engaging with the human and non-human world through embodied and emplaced relationships, and practices of casting forward into an unknown future to survive.

I argue that such imaginative projects, with their grounding in the harsh histories and realities of present life for Aboriginal people in settler-colonial Australia, are valuable means for exploring potentials for surviving and thriving in times of crisis and constraint. I will open a discussion of ideas raised by considering Indigenous-settler relationships through the lens of the monsterbiome.