Towards new future terrains: Reorienting Asiatic femininities in the speculative imagination

Abstract

This thesis investigates Asian feminist imaginations of the future through the lens of speculative fiction. It aims to revise binary techno-orientalist understandings of Asia and its subjectivities predominant in Western heteronormative visions of tomorrow. I intervene in the West’s exclusionary claims for futurity dependent on the subjugation of Asia as a feminised, machinic and passive site. Instead, I argue for rearticulations of alternate speculative futurities attending for more multiple, nuanced and irreducible becomings for racialised, gendered citizens. Through close readings of two key texts, Jennifer Phang’s 2015 film Advantageous and Larissa Lai’s 2002 novel Salt Fish Girl, I locate narratives of transformation, resilience and survival for Asian feminine subjectivities, unpacking themes around reproductive technologies, maternity, racialised biotechnological regimes and queer desire. I investigate how their narratives embolden agency for Asiatic femininities and demonstrate the potentialities embedded within their temporalities.