"Space to Dream": Queer Speculative Disability Narratives & Their Liberatory Value

Curatorial Statement

This project focuses on and centers queer speculative disability narratives. I have chosen to focus exclusively on these narratives because I believe strongly in their transformative power for all marginalized communities, particularly for queer and/or trans disabled communities of color. I am informed by and indebted to the work of theorists in queer theory, disability studies, Black feminism, speculative pedagogy, and more. I am equally indebted, however, to writers, artists, activists, and performers who are creating and sharing these narratives in the world. I chose these narratives because of their imaginative power and ability to destabilize and reimagine the ways that we move through and think about our present and our future. But what exactly is a queer speculative disability narrative? And what makes it so special?

Speculative fiction is often used as an umbrella term for all “non-realist” narratives. Some examples of speculative fiction are: 

Speculative fiction is defined and understood differently by different communities. For the purpose of this project, I am defining speculative fiction as any media that has some narrative structure and where anything strange happens. This is purposefully vague and open-ended. What I am most interested in discussing and thinking about is the way that speculative elements provide space for queer, disabled folks to create, lead, sustain, and dream of a future or alternate world that centers queer, disabled experiences. Because of that desire, I explore and welcome all forms of narrative. I feel that the pieces I am presenting here demonstrate this space for possibility for queer disabled communities (and other multiply marginalized communities). Some may do this more or better than others. Some may not feel like they are creating that space at all. I welcome your thoughts, ideas, feedback, etc. You can find a suggestion box here where you can suggest pieces to add, remove, or other ways that this resource could be more equitable and useful.

This project is indebted to the scholars, writers, activists, thinkers, and communities who have long advocated for the imagined as a space of possibility. Speculative narratives do not have to follow the rules of reality. In fact, they are built entirely to counteract, contradict, and/or dream beyond our known reality. It is this openness that creates space for possibility. This space of possibility can be powerful for anyone, but is particularly so for marginalized communities. Speculative narratives allow marginalized communities to imagine or build a world in which oppression or marginalization is altered, lessened, reimagined, or removed altogether. Speculative narratives ask us to investigate what creates marginalization and oppression in our reality, and how we can dismantle those forces to create a more just and liberatory future for all marginalized folks.

In her essay, “Black Feminist Futures: From Survival Rhetoric to Radical Speculation,” Caitlin Gunn argues that speculative narratives allow for Black communities, particularly Black women, to “imagine futures, reclaim histories, and create alternate realities” (Gunn 16). She advocates specifically for “radical speculation” rooted in Black feminism: “Speculation is radical when we imagine futures unbound by ideologies and structures designed to delimit black lives. Radical speculation is therefore a framework fit for dismantling white supremacy” (Gunn 16). Gunn emphasizes the power of “radical speculation” as a reclamatory tool capable of “dismantling white supremacy.” This reclamation and dismantling is possible because Black communities can “imagine futures, reclaim histories, and create alternate realities” in speculative narratives, creating the space for radicalization. Gunn focuses exclusively on speculation as liberation for Black communities, particularly Black women. Her thinking is important firstly because centering BIPOC voices in the fight for liberation is essential; additionally, Gunn’s thought is relevant to other marginalized communities as well. While the focus of my project is not explicitly on Black feminist imagined futures, in order for queer disabled futures to be possible, we must first ensure that Black futures, particularly Black, queer, trans, disabled futures, are possible. 

Dr. Sami Schalk explores intersections of disability, race, and queerness in her book Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about these intersections. Dr. Schalk does some incredible exploration of what speculative fiction offers to Black, disabled, queer communities. Schalk particularly examines the flexible nature of speculative form, and what this flexibility provides for us in the now: 

Speculative fiction’s nonrealist conventions can be used to highlight the socially constructed, and therefore mutable, nature of concepts like (dis)ability, race, and gender. By reimagining the meanings and possibilities of bodyminds, speculative fiction can alter the meanings of these categories, requiring readers and critics alike to adapt our modes of reading, interpretation, and analysis or develop new ones. (Schalk 9)

Schalk intentionally refuses to place critics or theorists apart from the authors of these works and their readers. In her approach, she allows for and emphasizes the real-world implications of and uses for these narratives. These ideas and concepts have a real impact in the now. Schalk places the reader, the writer, and the critic on even ground, emphasizing that the collective future we can build will be with and for all of us.

Speculative narratives don’t just allow for these imagined futures. Imagining our future is required in order to reach it. Marie Jakober insists on this in her essay, “The Continuum of Meaning: A Reflection on Speculative Fiction and Society”: “While facts can persuade us, sometimes emotions and shared experience can persuade us more effectively. However, even if we wish to work for change, we cannot move in directions we do not see. We cannot work for a future we have not imagined” (Jakober, “The Continuum” 30). Jakober insists that working towards a more just future requires us to speculate. By imagining, speculating, and dreaming, we are providing a map for the future that we desire. In order to ensure that our future is the collective liberation state that we dream of, we must not just make the map, but ensure that marginalized communities are leading the march into the future. We don’t just need to follow any map that we imagine--we need to follow the maps being imagined and created by marginalized folks. Caitlin Gunn argues that this speculation and imagination provides an opportunity for Black communities to “move beyond survival to assemble the alternative futures we desire, made in our own image and manifested on our own terms” (Gunn 19). Racial justice is essential to an equitable and liberatory future. In order to work towards this, BIPOC voices must be at the center of our future dreaming. White people must commit to consistent un-learning of white supremacy and be accomplices to people of color. The future that will be just and joyful for us all must be led by leaders from marginalized communities, and privileged communities must step back, listen, and advocate. We must understand that privilege is always present, but can shift based on the conversation, and that who we center can and will change based on the particular element of our future that we are designing.

This project centers intersectional queer, speculative disability narratives. I intentionally include pieces from varying intersections of these identities, including but not limited to trans voices, genderqueer voices, neurodivergent voices, Indigenous voices, physically disabled voices, chronically ill voices, Black voices, bisexual voices, Latinx/e voices, lesbian voices, asexual voices, and more. That being said, I am undoubtedly missing representation from this project. Part of the ways that I hope this project will grow is to broaden the intersections of representation found in this project, and to continue uplifting and advocating for one another. Racial justice is an essential part of this advocacy. Centering and uplifting people of color is a core goal of this project, as well as thinking about and advocating for the ways that the speculative can function as an intersectional racial and disability justice tool. 

The speculative narratives included in this project approach liberation in a number of ways. Because of this, I have found that the easiest way to categorize these narratives is by their particular speculative tool or approach. The sections that I have come up with are as follows: (Embodied) Magic, The Supercrip & the Superhero, (Beyond) Queer Crip Time, “Cripping the Apocalypse,” Space is an (Inaccessible) Place, and Mirrored & Layered Universes. Each of these sections examines how a set of narratives interrogate, question, or reimagine liberation utilizing the above-mentioned speculative tools or tropes. (Embodied) Magic examines instances in which magic is located within the body, and what this means for both the characters in the narrative and marginalized folks in the now. The Supercrip & the Superhero explores the intersections of “supercrip" and superhero stories. This section particularly examines how these narratives subvert or expose intersections of “superhuman-ness” and disability and queerness. (Beyond) Queer Crip Time focuses on narratives that challenge chronological understandings of time. This section is particularly informed by Alison Kafer’s definition of queer crip time, but explores the ways that the works of authors like Rivers Solomon present a more nuanced and POC-centered take on Kafer’s term. “Cripping the Apocalypse,” titled and informed by the essay of the same name by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarinsinha, asks who has a place in the apocalypse, and the value of queer disabled voices in such a future. Space is an (Inaccessible) Place parses the ways that ableism informs how we imagine the physical spaces of our future, and the impact of this on disabled communities in the now. Lastly, Mirrored / Layered Universes asks how alternate realities provide opportunity for more nuanced understandings of disability, gender, and sexuality.

This page has paths: