The uninhabited land: A slave ship and Spaceship Earth as the patterns for a postcolonial ecology

Abstract

The paper focuses on the postcolonial research on the environmental studies in a broader context of shaping the future in the global South. Malcolm Ferdinand’s concept of decolonial ecology is juxtaposed with speculative fiction depicting the space habitats of tomorrow (C. Smith, M. Leinster, K. Boruń, A. Trepka), and the futurological approach to the idea of space colonization (K. Ciołkowski) as well as the Spaceship Earth project (R. Buckminster Fuller). The article discusses a slave ship, Noah’s Ark and Spaceship Earth as the patterns for a postcolonial ecology as well as the modern afrofuturistic practices of decolonizing future and the ‘Africanization’ of the world of tomorrow. In conclusion, the author summarizes the main challenges for the critical, prognostic thinking in the Global South.