From Indigenous Gothic to Indigenous Futurisms: Charting generic decay and renewal

Abstract

This article investigates the capacity for genre fiction to function as a site for decolonial and politically transgressive storytelling through an examination of the emergence and evolution of “Indigenous Gothic” and “Indigenous Futurisms.” I trace the definition and development of each genre and interrogate how these labels arise through an active dialogue shaped by creative works, political activism, market trends, and critical inputs. Rather than viewing Indigenous Futurisms as a replacement of the Indigenous Gothic, the article argues that Futurisms expand and exceed the Gothic’s parameters, absorbing and recontextualizing Gothic tropes while unsettling expectations informed by Western genre conventions. Drawing on a decolonial comparative approach that foregrounds Indigenous scholarly perspectives, the article closes with a close reading of Brandon Hobson’s The Removed (2021) to illustrate both the generic shift proposed and the ways Indigenous genre fiction provides a flexible mode for articulating what Dillon (2007) terms “practical humanism,” through its engagement with tropes from both genres to explore historical and contemporary concerns. The article contends that decoloniality is central to the evolution in genre, demonstrating how Indigenous authors redefine and extend the possibilities of genre through Indigenous methodological and epistemological frameworks.