Indigenous futurisms: re-reading contemporary Indigenous climate stories as guidance in the material world

This paper responds to Indigenous futures’ intersection with reading and reception practices. Indigenous futurisms have always been storied and cultural. We contribute to existing research by considering Grace Dillon’s Indigenous Futurisms paradigm in conversation Mary Graham’s relationality, bringing both in proximity to literary form and reception. ‘Indigenous relationality’ as proposed by Mary Graham, Elder Scholar of the Kombumerri clan of the Yugambeh Nation (2014) is a core principle in moving from an excavating close reading of Indigenous cultural texts. We interrogate sometraces of coloniality in reception of Indigenous cultural artefacts, practices that fail to recognize the energizing realities of Indigenous futurism as fundamentally relational. Finally, we offer some emergent modes of reading practice, with a particular focus on Lystra Rose’s young adult speculative novel Upwelling (2022). We reflect on the place of Country and generative reading in literary and cultural studies and critical Indigenous studies.