Literatura como tecnologia ativista: o poder transformador do imaginário afrofuturista na obra de Lu Ain-Zaila

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the transformative potential of Afrofuturist literature as activist technology, focusing on the work of writer Lu Ain-Zaila. From a critical and decolonial perspective, the study reflects on how the Afrofuturist imaginary can reconfigure hegemonic narratives and promote the valorization of Black epistemologies. The research is justified by the need to confront epistemicide and structural racism in Brazilian society, especially in the field of knowledge production. The study is part of the Technology and Society research line, drawing on theoretical references such as Sueli Carneiro, Silvio Almeida, Kabengele Munanga, Aníbal Quijano, Walter Mignolo, Andrew Feenberg, and Yuri Lotman, among others. The methodology is qualitative, with a constructivist-interpretative approach, combining bibliographic review and dialogic discourse analysis, based on Mikhail Bakhtin’s concepts of dialogism, chronotope, and carnivalization. The analysis, using the work “Sankofia” as a philosophical and epistemological basis, focuses on the short story “A Caixa da Senhora Futurista,” exploring how its narrative elements — characters, settings, discursive strategies — construct an Afrofuturist imaginary that challenges colonial logic and proposes new possibilities of existence. The results reveal that Lu Ain-Zaila’s literature, exemplified by the short story, functions as a symbolic technology of resistance, articulating ancestral voices, present consciousness, and collective action to subvert authoritarian discourses and reimagine the future through memory and ancestry. The narrative is structured in a polyphonic manner, highlighting the sankofic chronotope, which merges past and future in a space of critical reconstruction. Carnivalization strategies are employed to invert hierarchies and valorize peripheral knowledge, while Lotman’s concept of semiosphere is used to understand the dynamics between hegemonic center and insurgent periphery. The conclusion indicates that Afrofuturist literature, by operating as activist technology, contributes to the construction of a counter-imaginary capable of affirming Black cosmologies, promoting reexistence, and legitimizing new forms of knowledge. The work reaffirms the importance of including Afrocentric perspectives in academic production and education, highlighting the role of art and literature as tools for social and political transformation.