Indigenous Futurisms across Literature, Film, and New Media

Kagaba Amina G.

Faculty of Business, Kampala International University, Uganda

                                                                                           ABSTRACT
Indigenous Futurisms is an interdisciplinary framework that reimagines the future through Indigenous epistemologies, temporalities, and creative practices across literature, film, and new media. Emerging as a response to ongoing settler colonialism and cultural erasure, it challenges linear, Western conceptions of time by foregrounding cyclical, relational, and non-linear understandings often articulated through the concept of transmotion. This study examines how Indigenous artists and writers employ speculative and science fiction modes to assert sovereignty, cultural continuity, and agency while engaging histories of colonization and envisioning decolonized futures. In literature, Indigenous Futurisms reclaims narrative authority through storytelling that intertwines past, present, and future, emphasizing resilience, memory, and world-building. In film, it utilizes visual and narrative strategies to represent layered temporalities and Indigenous cosmologies, while fostering community engagement and collaborative production. In new media, including digital art, interactive platforms, and virtual environments, Indigenous Futurisms expands participatory storytelling, enabling co-creation, knowledge sharing, and the preservation of cultural protocols. Across these media, the framework highlights the importance of ethics, representation, and community-centered methodologies. Ultimately, Indigenous Futurisms operates as both a critical lens and a creative practice that advances decolonial thought, reclaims Indigenous presence in futurity, and fosters global dialogues across the Global South and Global North.

Keywords: Indigenous Futurisms, Transmotion, Decoloniality, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Speculative Media.

CITE AS: Kagaba Amina G. (2026). Indigenous Futurisms across Literature, Film, and New Media. Research Output Journal of Arts and Management 5(1):41-50.
https://doi.org/10.59298/ROJAM/2026/514150