Post-Ancestrality: Dissolved Temporalities Between Ancestrality, Science Fiction, and Cybernetics

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of post-ancestrality as a theoretical tool to rethink the relationships between past, present, and future, articulating ancestry, science fiction, and cybernetics. Critiquing temporal linearity and hegemonic narratives, it explores ancestry as a dynamic process, influenced by contemporary technologies, ecologies, and cultures. Post-ancestrality dissolves traditional chronology, reinscribing the past into the present and projecting it into the future through practices such as Afrofuturism, cyberfeminism, and Derrida’s hauntology. The analysis reflects on cultural identity through Stuart Hall’s work, highlighting the fluidity of identities in globalization. Science fiction and Afrofuturism are explored as spaces for reinventing reality, where past and future intertwine. Authors like Octavia Butler and theorists such as Donna Haraway and N. Katherine Hayles discuss the interconnection between biology, technology, and culture, emphasizing hybrid bodies and informational circuits that challenge the boundaries between the natural and the artificial.