Decolonising Futures: Afrofuturism and Indigenous Futurisms in Contemporary Latin American and Caribbean Literature

Latin American and Caribbean literatures have increasingly turned to speculative genres to confront crises of ecology, race, and identity. Moving beyond the hegemony of magical realism, writers across the region employ Afrofuturism and Indigenous Futurisms to reimagine futures historically denied to marginalized communities. This article situates these currents within the broader speculative turn in the Americas, tracing how Afro-Caribbean and Indigenous epistemologies reshape science fiction, fantasy, and dystopian forms. Through close readings of works such as Rita Indiana's La mucama de Omicunlé and Edmundo Paz Soldán's Iris, alongside anthologies like Prietopunk, the study demonstrates how Afro-diasporic spirituality and Indigenous cosmovisions function as speculative technologies, disrupting colonial temporalities and projecting decolonial imaginaries. Afrofuturist texts foreground diasporic hybridity, queerness, and oceanic memory, while Indigenous Futurisms emphasize cyclical time, ecological survival, and sovereignty. Their convergence signals a hemispheric movement where speculative fiction operates as resistance literature, rehearsing cultural survival against extractivism and ecological collapse. By reading these strands together, the article argues that speculative fiction in the Americas is a central site of decolonial thought and world-making.