Cartographies of Hope
Reading Becky Chambers’ Record of a Spaceborn Few as Utopia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12795/REN.2024.i28.1Keywords:
Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Hope, Utopia, Becky Chambers, Record of a Spaceborn FewAbstract
American author Becky Chambers has become well-known for her science fiction works that denounce social inequality while still enunciating kinder and more hopeful worlds. This research paper is centered around her third novel, Record of a Spaceborn Few (2018), which follows the Exodus Fleet, a group of spaceships that harbors the descendants of the last humans to leave Earth after a series of environmental catastrophes. The Fleet is presented as a somewhat literal vehicle of hope, as life inside the starships is organized according to Marxist principles of mutual support, solidarity and horizontal care. The aim of this paper is to examine Chambers’ alternative worlds as a site of hope, both physical and metaphorical, while exploring how Chambers hopeful speculation exemplifies the potential of science fiction as a genre to imagine different realities that not only question the nature of what is normal and possible, but also go beyond capitalist and neoliberal imaginaries.
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Accepted 2024-02-20
Published 2024-04-04
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