Archaizing Futurism: Decolonization and Anarcofeminism in "De cuando en cuando Saturnina"

Abstract

Drawing on the description of De cuando en cuando Saturnina by Alison Spedding as “native anarco–feminist science fiction” announced on the back cover of its first edition (2004), this article proposes an interconnected reading of these four axes (futurism, Aymara logic, anarchism, and feminism). I argue that the structure of this “oral history of the future” conveys  a critical resolve to avoid positing the reinstatement of Qullasuyu as the utopic horizon of an idyllic society, while the text as a whole remains  committed to a radical decolonization of Bolivia anchored in an autonomous cultural grammar. In this sense, the novel offers a critical vision not only of the coloniality that Aymara culture has endured but also of certain challenges internal to Aymara society itself, particularly in regards to gender hierarchy.