The Archivists

Hello world, I'm Tomasino.

This is SolarPunk Prompts,

a series for writers where we discuss solar punk,

a movement that imagines a world where technology is used

for the good of the planet.

In this series we spent each episode exploring a single

solar punk story prompt, adding some commentary,

inspirations, and considerations.

Most importantly,

we consider how that story might help us better envision a

sustainable civilization.

If this is your first time here,

I'd recommend checking out our introduction episode first.

That's where we talk about what solar punk is,

why should care, and why this series came into being.

Today's prompt is, The Archivists.

A community of archivists, cartographers,

or wikipedia's is fighting to save as much unwritten lore

and knowledge as they can before the old generation passes

away.

They're not hired by any organization or university,

but connected by their love for the folktales and belief

that the natural medicine might be worth researching today.

Today's prompt is concerned with a loss of local and

indigenous knowledge, a form of cultural memory.

When most people think of archival work,

the mind goes to literature or archaeology,

or in more modern times we talk about archiving internet

content before it's lost to the ravages of time.

But this type of cultural loss can happen incredibly

quickly and be devastating to communities.

First of all,

UNESCO defines local and indigenous knowledge to be the

understanding, skills,

and philosophies developed by societies with long histories

of interaction with their natural surroundings.

We'll see you in the next video.

For rural and indigenous peoples,

local knowledge informs decision -making about fundamental

aspects of day -to -day life.

Decision -making based along long cultural interaction with

the local environment is like a magical potion of pure

bottled solar punk.

Yet this is rarely the recipe we think of when considering

the future.

Chi Lu writes in JSTOR's Daily,

Is there really only one way to build a modern society,

one based on Western ideology,

with progress through constant growth and consumption?

Is there only one kind of science we can use to truly

understand the world?

There's hardly an indigenous culture surviving that does

not struggle to preserve their traditional language and

knowledge against the overwhelming,

homogenizing influences of Western colonialism.

When knowledge does not take the scientific forms we've

come to expect from academic research, it's rejected.

But that's due to an unthinking bias about what value

traditional knowledge has to offer.

If it isn't in the form of a scientific report or paper,

but it's delivered in the form of a story,

it's regarded as unscientific and anecdotal folklore,

no matter what new information is being conveyed.

In our story,

we have a community of people trying to hold on to that

knowledge.

But knowing about these inherent biases from Western

colonial influence,

we could imagine the opposition that might face.

Is this the best use of community resources?

Shouldn't we be focused on the scientific studies?

Philip over there has found old manuals for tractor repair,

put your effort into decoding those.

But one can imagine a high stakes conflict between the

people who want to archive every scrap of dying knowledge

versus people who want to use the libraries to educate and

help stop further disasters.

In the true solar -punk way of internal conflict,

both parties are working toward the same positive ends for

the community,

but have very different ideas of how it should be done.

Whether our archivists are facing internal conflict or not,

there's also the question of how the work is being done.

Is there collaboration?

Is there technology being put to the purpose for the

benefit of the community?

There are very few pieces of fiction showcasing Wikipedia

or similar efforts,

and there are even fewer that showcase the drama that can

unfold in these spaces where everyone is trying to write

down knowledge without bias.

When everyone has the ability to edit everyone else's work,

and there is no one to step in and claim authority,

arguments get heated.

And perhaps people viciously typing at one another isn't

the greatest visual storytelling,

but that type of engagement can come to life in many forms

with a bit of imagination.

Perhaps the Wikipedia of the future involves a shared

physical space.

Our archivists are impassioned individuals doing this from

love, not from assignment.

They may take challenges to their work personally too.

I should mention one fascinating thing about Wikipedia

here.

It's a piece of cultural infrastructure and it's sexy as

hell.

I'm referring of course to our second guide to solar punk

that infrastructure is sexy.

What's utterly fascinating to me is that Wikipedia as an

idea is completely incompatible with cyberpunk.

There's no place in that vision of technological oppression

for a community -contributed repository of knowledge,

simply for the betterment of humanity.

Wikipedia is a hundred percent solar punk.

But let's get back to our prompt again.

What are some ways we can frame the prompt,

which would give us a unique perspective on the effort?

If the effort to archive this information isn't creating

the conflict itself, perhaps it comes from outside.

If someone from a very different culture or community saw

or heard the stories of these people,

it might be their misunderstanding.

When they hear a fable or a micro -story setting designed

to educate by allegory,

the listener may hear literal things which offend, confuse,

or threaten.

How would they handle that interpretation?

How would the community try to settle the issue?

Or perhaps conflict is more than needed for this story.

Maybe it's a personal journey of a child who doesn't

understand the value of the old ones.

It's a lesson in a lesson when the children are given a

project to write about their family history.

Perhaps we can even mash up some of these ideas too.

What if the children aren't to create an essay but to enter

their family history into a community wiki?

Is this the teachers doing?

Or do we have another opportunity to show off the amazing

power of librarians?

This community may teach the children to research,

to archive, to do science, to investigate,

and to share that information with everyone.

Their greatest act of service to one another may be open

source knowledge.

Open source knowledge is absolutely a gift,

and one of the best possible things we can give to each

other today.

Just like we must unlearn the false devaluing of cultural

knowledge,

we must also release the idea of science as belonging to

the scientist.

Citizen science.

Citizen research provides invaluable data to the world.

Take the tsunami at Fukushima and the nuclear disaster

which followed.

There was little to no data on the radiation levels in

local areas.

Only and mass across the whole region.

That lack of knowledge, limited movement,

and insight into the region,

and public fear led to massive requests and supply issues

for Geiger counters.

An industry went from selling five machines a month to

requests for a thousand a day.

Then a non -profit stepped in, Safecast,

who were testing their new handheld,

a compact plastic box housed on our Dweeno board, a GPS,

a data logger, and a tiny Geiger.

The device's job was simple.

Replace the need for manual data logging.

Replace the need for data aggregation, cleanup, assembly,

and so on.

Just record all the data in real time and report it back

home immediately.

Every five seconds.

It was also designed to be used by everyday people.

In a month,

they put together over 18 million data points worldwide,

not just in Japan.

That data revealed that the evacuation routes in the

Fukushima area were wrong and needed to be adjusted.

And what of that data?

Was it hoarded as a proprietary company information to be

licensed for a fee?

No.

It's completely open to all and free.

Oh, and so is the hardware.

The specs are free and the components are off the shelf.

Anyone could build one and start collecting data,

which also goes right into that open data set.

Citizen science is powerful stuff,

whether it's tracking radiation or saving a cultural

language.

The Tlingit people of southeastern Alaska and western

Canada faced a problem.

In 2007,

research reported that there were fewer than 500 speakers

of the language left in the world,

and many of them were of advanced age.

By 2014, there were only two speakers in all of Canada.

Warning bells were sounded and the total number quickly

dropped to 200.

The C.

Laska Heritage Institute knew they wanted to do something

to stem the tide and save the language and culture it

represented.

They spent years and years collecting audio,

often by literally recording conversations with elders.

Then came painstaking efforts to edit, program,

and construct something tangible.

Finally, in 2016,

they released two free apps to learn the language.

Were those apps and materials collected all freely

available?

Language courses have begun as well.

With any luck,

those citizen scientists will save their language.

And as difficult as it may be to think about,

if they failed in their primary mission,

those recordings may be all that's left of the Tlingit

tongue.

The spoken language of an entire tribe, gone,

reduced to a few MP3s on a hard drive.

you That.

That feeling right there?

That's why your archivists are doing their work.

Nobody had to hire them to do it.

Now the hard part is for you.

How do you put that feeling into words?

Until next time, I'm Tomasino.

I hope you'll join me for the next Solar Pump Prompt.

Music in this recording is Sky Forest by Cyber Surfer 3D

a brighter perspective.

a brighter perspective.