Societies, rules and norms can often determine who’s in, who’s out, and how outsiders are treated. Xenophobia, a fear or hatred of foreigners, has an ugly history in our world, and often shows up in fiction (literature as well as genre such science fiction, fantasy, mystery among others). The hatred emerges from a fear of the unknown as well as an awareness (real or perceived) of scarcity. When resources are or are believed to be scarce, beings find ways to horde them – individually or collectively through us/them definitions. Xenophobia feeds of this.
Examples of how its used in Science Fiction and Fantasy Worlds include:
- District 9, a film where aliens are kept in slums. A movie made in South Africa and serves as an allegory for racism in our time.
- X-men, where we fear our own mutations, and its threat to us as it represents our next evolution.
- Alien Nation, when a ship of former alien slaves, crash and take refuge on Earth, but are not always welcome.
These can provide a unique way of exploring our own racism and prejudices and how those assumptions structure worlds, access to resources and opportunities.
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