Zoefuturism

Zoefuturism takes its name from the Greek word for life, zoe (ζωή, zoí). It is a futurism of connectedness, engagement, and relationality, a futurism of ‘life-becomings.’ Inspired by the study of zoetology that was coined by Prof Roger Ames[1], and the fact that DNA in all living things are bringers of change, zoefuturism explores the reality of human nature as human ‘becomings’ (instead of ‘beings’) where constant change rooted in all nature is acknowledged as fundamental to living. Though this inspiration is from ancient East Asian philosophy, zoefuturism doesn’t belong within one culture or philosophy. It is a concept that is shared throughout innumerable teachings around the world that is ancient and new, encompassing many philosophies, knowledge systems, teachings, way of lives, and religions.

For example, zoefuturist stories would warrant explorations from indigenous knowledge, borrowing this quote from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s preface in Braiding Sweetgrass: ‘a braid of stories meant to heal our relationship with the world.’[2] Zoefuturist stories might also comment on what Tyson Yunkaporta notes in Sand Talk, that humans’ evolution has created ‘a global diaspora of refugees [domesticated humans] severed not only from land, but from the sheer genius that comes from belonging in symbiotic relation to it.’[3] Or, zoefuturist stories could relate to the awe projected by Stephen Jay Gould’s research and writing, where he tells us that

…if anything in the natural world merits a designation as ‘awesome,’ I nominate the continuity of the tree of life for 3.5 billion years. The earth experienced severe ice ages, but never froze completely, not for a single day. Life fluctuated through episodes of global extinction, but never crossed the zero line, not for one millisecond. DNA has been working all this time, without an hour of vacation or even a moment of pause to remember the extinct brethren of a billion dead branches shed from an evergrowing tree of life.[4]

We are made through all the interactions we have with our world, conscious and unconscious, purposefully and not, intangible and tangible. These interactions constantly shape us and our world through changes and ‘life-becomings’, regardless of how static we might believe things to be–a misconception that has been planted through an assumed binarism or ‘ontology [that] privileges “being per se” and a categorical language with its “essence” and “attribute” dualism, giving us substances as property-bearers, and properties that are borne, respectively.’[5]

~~~~~~~~

[1] Roger Ames, ‘Zoetology: A new name for an old way of thinking,’ Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements, 93 (2023)
[2] Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass (UK: Penguin Random House, 2013), p.x
[3] Tyson Yunkaporta, Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World (Australia: The Text Publishing Company, 2019) p.3
[4] Stephen Jay Gould, The Richness of Life (UK: Vintage, 2007), p.16
[5] Ames (ibid)