Realms of possibility: The ongoing Nakba and speculative futures

Abstract

As we continue to witness the unabating death and destruction of Palestinian lives and spaces, it would be easy to succumb to the bounds of expectations set by the dystopian world around us; however, Palestinians already offer us ways out of and through these unfolding dystopian realities. This article turns to these pathways presented and alluded to in the Palestinian speculative futures of Lyd and Palestine+100, a science fiction documentary and an anthology of speculative fiction short stories, respectively. This article argues that the ways in which these speculative imaginaries engage with the context and enduring impacts of settler colonialism offer guiding principles for building desired urban futures. The enduring nature of settler colonialism in Palestine is often understood as the ongoing Nakba; Palestinian dispossession and displacement that was part of constructing the Israeli state in 1948 continues today through legal, infrastructural, and political maneuvers. Focusing on how the producers and authors of Lyd and Palestine+100 grapple with the fragmentation and erasure of the ongoing Nakba, what emerges is how these speculative futures are intimately tied to the present, not only through the dystopian elements but more significantly in the enactments of better worlds. In its eliminatory mission, a central component of settler colonialism is to destroy the capacity to imagine an Indigenous future; however, these speculative imaginaries echo the details of desired futures already being enacted in the present.