Postcolonial Speculative Fiction Main Menu Introduction to the Project Course Texts Other Course Media Author Resources This page will provide links to authors' websites and other information, such as interviews. Blogs by Dawn Hicks Blogs by Matthew Hicks Blogs by Kiisha Hilliard Blogs by Mary Laffidy Blogs by Chelsea Larymore

A Spider, a Girl, and a Guitar

10581
Spider the artist is a mechanical creature, one of many, whose sole purpose is to defend and repair an oil pipeline in Nigeria. Eme is a woman living in poverty in an abusive relationship. Her guitar is her only escape from her physical and emotional despair. When she can, Eme slips away from her house and plays her guitar near a pipeline that runs through her village. Spider was attracted by her guitar playing and built its own stringed instrument. The two develop a sort of relationship in which they have bonded over music.

The irony is that Eme’s husband, Andrew, makes some portion of his income by stealing oil from the pipeline—a dangerous prospect.
There’s an interesting interplay between the machine and Eme, who is a member of an economically colonized culture. They engage in a very tender and loving relationship, even though the nature of the machine is to kill humans who get too close to the pipeline. There are many of these mechanical spiders, all a sort of A.I. They don’t seem to have any freewill, yet, spider chooses to befriend Eme. The spiders are slaves, they represent an extension of their masters’ will, the master being the pipeline company that built and ostensibly controls them. Spider the Artist defies that. In fact, Spider saves her life from a spider ambush against oil thieves.

Has Eme stumbled upon a truth that our nation didn’t learn until many years too late, the truth of agency? The prevailing wisdom, once upon a time, was that African slaves were chattel, legally defined as such. They were objects to be used, extensions of their slaveholders’ will. Despite that belief—arguably still held by some—they were thinking and feeling beings. Eme wasn’t in the power position and, consequently, was able to recognize the “humanity” in the victim of control.

In the end, the spiders set a trap for oil thieves. They allow a large group to congregate near a leak in the pipeline and use fire to kill many.  Okorafor doesn't make it clear if this is the will of the spiders or the will of the spiders' controllers. In fact, the controllers are never identified. It's clear that the spiders are capable of learning and adapting, but is that what happens here? It seems to me that, probably, the spiders were instructed to do something by the pipeline owners. Maybe they were left to their own devices to decide what to do, but they were told to do something. Spider the Artist makes a choice to save Eme, despite the instructions. He/It demonstrates some level of agency by defying the will of the masters.
 

This page has paths:

  1. Blogs by Matthew Hicks Rhonda Knight
  2. Blogs about Petrofiction Rhonda Knight

This page has replies:

  1. Humanization Kiisha Hilliard You create a distinction between the will of the robots and the will of their masters. The humanization of the spider robots is an interesting perspective. Many works often posit artificial intelligence against humanity, so I like how you show that the assumed issue between the two stems from the creator of the technology. Artificial Intelligence mainly takes on the ideologies and functions provided by their creator. What you eloquently show with Okorafor's work is the way she shows that there is a human part of technology that cannot be influenced by the creator or master. There is a hybridity in the robots with the AI and the humanity. The humanity part allows the robots to make choices. Would you agree that in a way these robots have more choice than the African Slaves that you mentioned?

This page references: