Afro-solarpunk
When I first started this blog, I made an intro post about solarpunk and related movements to it. Though it is not limited to this particular futurism, I named afrofuturism as a sister movement that would have an inevitable intersection with solarpunk.
On July 23 2019, there was a panel about exactly this topic! The panel moderator has also written two short essays on these genres, and how they should work together to form something greater.
Here’s an intro blurb:
Afrofuturism and solarpunk have been around long enough to have met in a crowded SOHO bar and taken a selfie together. Yet here we are. What follows is an examination of the barriers between the two and how we might break them. But first, let’s get better acquainted with our subjects on their own terms. This essay, part one, will explore Afrofuturism: the name, the need, its position within or adjacent to science fiction, and some of its characteristics that I believe make for a fruitful pairing. The following essay, part two, will do the same with solarpunk, try to understand the barriers, and discuss possibilities for bringing these subgenres together.
Part 1: Elements of Afrofuturism
The arc of history does not naturally bend towards justice. Neither does the trajectory of science fiction. Both must be bent. Producing and disseminating Afrofuturist stories and integrating them with sci-fi are integral to that great feat of emotional labor. However, there is no just future built atop (or buried under) the dystopian wreckage of an environment in freefall. Make way for Afro-solarpunk.
Part 2: Social Justice is Survival Technology
Despite diverse admins, you have to scroll pretty deep into the membership before you count more than ten black faces in these platforms and communities. The Facebook group actually has a breakaway called “Solarpunk But With Less Racism.” And while, relative to mainstream sci-fi, people of color are overrepresented as main characters in solarpunk, the majority of authors who write them are not. It is difficult to see how this explicitly anti-racist movement can develop without direct engagement with those whose collective recent experience involves pulling themselves off the pointy end of Western utopic aspirations. The solarpunk anti-racist mission is in grave danger otherwise, and there are real-world consequences.
...If the “solar” stands for hope, then the “punk” part of the equation is the kernel of open source programming that maintains the genre’s anti-racist, pro-social justice drive, despite the inherent pressures of the (mostly affluent, White, English-speaking) community in which it was created. For solarpunk to grow into what it truly wants to be, it needs Afrofuturism.
Part 2 is a very good explanation as to why solarpunk is not compatible with things like cottagecore, green capitalism, and other utopian dreams. We should instead be reaching out to marginalized creators and futurists of color in order to properly build an anti-racist, decolonial genre.