Xenohydrological Futures: Decolonial Ecologies and More-than-Human Contact Zones in Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon
This paper argues that Nnedi Okorafor's *Lagoon* reimagines Lagos as a decolonial "borderland" where the convergence of Yoruba cosmology, digital technology, and alien encounter destabilizes anthropocentric and nationalist binaries to forge new, relational ecological and political futures.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
Imagine a city where the ground beneath your feet is not the only thing that matters. In the study of how humans relate to the natural world, there is a growing recognition that water is not just a backdrop for human stories, but an active participant in them. This field, often called the "blue humanities," suggests that oceans and rivers have their own histories and ways of shaping life, independent of human control. When we add the idea of "decolonial" thinking—which seeks to understand the world through the eyes of people and cultures that have been marginalized by Western history—we get a new way to look at how different species, technologies, and even spirits might live together. This perspective asks us to stop seeing nature as a resource to be used and start seeing it as a community of beings with their own voices. It is a shift from asking how humans can survive on Earth to asking how all life on Earth, including the water itself, can thrive together.
In this spirit, two researchers, Sumit Saha and Amar Chakrabortty, have examined a science fiction novel by Nnedi Okorafor titled Lagoon. Published in 2014, the book is set in Lagos, Nigeria, a bustling coastal metropolis. The story begins when an alien spaceship does not land on a runway or a desert, as is common in many science fiction tales. Instead, the ship submerges into the lagoon off the coast of the city. The researchers argue that this specific choice of setting is not just a plot device, but a profound statement about how we understand knowledge and life. They propose a new way of thinking they call "xenohydrology." This term combines the idea of the "alien" or "strange" with the study of water. It suggests that the water itself is the medium through which this first contact happens, and that the water is an active witness to the event, not just a passive stage.
The researchers found that the novel treats the ocean as a living, knowing entity. In the book, the arrival of the aliens is first noticed not by human radar or government officials, but by the creatures living in the water. A swordfish tastes the oil-fouled water and senses the change; a bat flying above the city feels the shift in the air; even the roads and the water itself seem to develop a kind of awareness. The authors of the paper explain that this "distributed witnessing" means that knowledge about the alien arrival is shared among many different beings, human and non-human alike. It challenges the old idea that only humans are capable of understanding the world or that only humans matter in the story of our future. The water, in this view, is a place where different ways of knowing—scientific, spiritual, and alien—can mix and create something new.
A key finding of the paper is that the novel uses this water-based contact to break down the barriers between humans and nature. The alien visitors, led by a being named Ayodele, do not come to conquer or rule. They arrive to live, and in doing so, they force the human characters to change. One of the main human characters, a marine biologist named Adaora, begins to physically transform. She grows gills and her body changes to allow her to breathe underwater. This is not presented as a horror story, but as a necessary adaptation. The researchers suggest that the book is showing us a future where humans must become more like the water and the creatures in it to survive. The boundary between "human" and "non-human" becomes blurry, much like the line between land and sea in a lagoon. The city of Lagos itself becomes a place where technology, ancient spiritual beliefs, and alien biology all exist side by side, creating a new kind of community.
The paper also highlights how the novel critiques the way humans have treated the environment, particularly the damage caused by oil extraction in the region. The water in the story is not a clean, empty space; it is a place that has been polluted by decades of oil spills and industrial waste. The researchers point out that the alien arrival does not magically fix this damage. Instead, the aliens arrive in a water that is already sick, and their presence forces the humans to confront the reality of that sickness. The story does not offer a perfect solution where the water is suddenly clean and everyone is happy. Instead, it ends with a city that is still struggling, still changing, and still dealing with the consequences of its past. The researchers argue that this lack of a neat ending is actually the book's greatest strength. It shows that the future is not a destination we arrive at, but a continuous process of adjusting and living together with the world around us.
By looking at the novel through this lens, the researchers show that Lagoon offers a powerful vision of what a future could look like if we stop putting humans at the center of everything. It suggests that true survival depends on recognizing that we are part of a larger web of life that includes the water, the animals, the technology, and even the spirits of the land. The book imagines a world where the ocean is not just a resource to be drained, but a partner in our story. The researchers conclude that this kind of storytelling is essential for imagining a future where different cultures, species, and ways of being can coexist without one dominating the others. It is a reminder that the water knows things we do not, and that listening to it might be the only way to find a path forward.
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