Posthuman Feminism

Pariahs, Defectors, Parvenus and Rebels in Science Fiction Novels of Three Galician Women Writers

Abstract

In a system of binary thought, the periphery conditions the existence of the center, the hegemonic culture and subjects are defined by exclusion, but at the same time such figures as pariahs, dissidents and defectors (Varikas 2017) define themselves by means of the non-ascription, non-belonging and disobedience with respect to hegemonic discourses and practices. The above figures of exclusion come from contemporary political theory (Arendt 2004; Leibovici 2011; Varikas 2017); however, literary production is particularly suitable for rewriting, individualizing and embodying these figures, as well as the mechanisms of marginalization and estrangement that construct them. Thus, this article emphasizes the figures of exclusion to analyze the ideological dimension of three critical dystopias written by Galician science fiction women writers: Despois do cataclismo, by María Alonso Alonso (2015); Natura, by Iolanda Zúñiga (2018); and Cobiza, by María Reimóndez (2021). We will analyze the means by which of narrations of marginalization and the destabilization of inside/outside categories are represented and negotiated in these dystopian science fiction novels, in a period marked by border porosity and dramatic migration flows, extreme precariousness, the reconfiguration of urban spaces, but also for considering that periphery as a non-hegemonic space of opportunity.