1 0:00:11,500 --> 0:00:20,230 Hello world, I'm Tomasino. This is Solarpunk Prompts, a series for writers, where we discuss 2 0:00:20,230 --> 0:00:28,580 Solarpunk as a literary, artistic, and activist movement. Or, as Rowanna Silva describes it, 3 0:00:29,340 --> 0:00:36,280 Solarpunk is a genre of ecologically oriented, speculative fiction, characterized both by 4 0:00:36,280 --> 0:00:44,720 its aesthetic and its underlying socio-political vision. In each episode, we look at one story 5 0:00:44,720 --> 0:00:52,220 prompt using that genre lens, offering commentary on the prompt, some inspirations from the world 6 0:00:52,220 --> 0:00:59,720 today, and some considerations for writers. Most importantly, we consider how that story might 7 0:00:59,720 --> 0:01:06,660 help us to better envision a sustainable civilization. If this is your first time here, 8 0:01:07,120 --> 0:01:12,900 I'd recommend checking out our introduction episode first, where we talk about what Solarpunk is, 9 0:01:13,440 --> 0:01:21,720 why you should care, and why this series came into being. This episode's prompt is titled, 10 0:01:22,340 --> 0:01:32,280 The Refugee Camp. There is a full-fledged town built from a refugee camp, which was set up there 11 0:01:32,400 --> 0:01:40,190 two decades ago. The inhabitants speak their own creole, a mix of more than five languages, 12 0:01:40,970 --> 0:01:47,490 and a very shaky relationships with their neighboring communities or states, each of which 13 0:01:47,490 --> 0:01:56,960 considers it a lawless territory, and might be plotting to take over. I think the refugee camp 14 0:01:56,960 --> 0:02:03,280 is a fitting place to start our prompts. They are the standard setting in our world for communities 15 0:02:03,280 --> 0:02:10,160 just coming through tragedy. When there is war, famine, flooding, or any number of challenges 16 0:02:10,160 --> 0:02:16,220 to a people, they often find shelters in foreign lands, sometimes thrown together with other groups 17 0:02:16,220 --> 0:02:24,180 fleeing their own hardships. Refugee stories are also plentiful in science fiction. Superman is a 18 0:02:24,180 --> 0:02:34,320 refugee from Krypton, the Doctor is a refugee from Gallifrey, or Arthur Dent, a human refugee from 19 0:02:35,120 --> 0:02:40,740 Krypton. These are all individual stories, though, and not the camp and community we're striving for. 20 0:02:42,490 --> 0:02:48,610 Instead, we might look to Battlestar Galactica, or Babylon 5, or the Nantucket trilogy, 21 0:02:48,970 --> 0:02:55,970 for example, of entire communities of refugees. And indeed, those are vibrant and capture a bit 22 0:02:55,970 --> 0:03:02,000 of the colorful characters and internal conflicts that arise in such places. But Solarpunk can 23 0:03:02,000 --> 0:03:10,150 depart from this view of refugee camps as places of despair. In our prompt, the camp has grown 24 0:03:10,150 --> 0:03:17,490 into a full-fledged town. That suggests a thriving regrowth emerging from this mixed culture 25 0:03:17,490 --> 0:03:24,120 and reflected in their Creole dialect. Is that a realistic vision to take, though? 26 0:03:24,970 --> 0:03:32,020 Is this just Solarpunk being naive and blindly optimistic? Let's take a look to real refugee 27 0:03:32,020 --> 0:03:40,000 camps in South Sudan and Uganda, where the rogue agency, a Berlin-based nonprofit, has been working 28 0:03:40,000 --> 0:03:46,440 with communities to help them develop innovation hubs. Five of these communities have linked 29 0:03:46,440 --> 0:03:53,310 together to form AskNet, a program that offers training in open source hardware and software, 30 0:03:54,290 --> 0:04:00,260 entrepreneurship, media production, gender equality, and financial literacy. They also 31 0:04:00,260 --> 0:04:07,260 run repair cafes, giving hands-on experience and learning, and reducing waste, and preserving 32 0:04:07,260 --> 0:04:14,640 natural resources. And that's just one program that's built and run by small community organizations. 33 0:04:16,120 --> 0:04:22,770 So how about Humanitaire? It was founded by individuals who saw the amazing rebuilding 34 0:04:22,770 --> 0:04:28,090 efforts after natural disasters like the 2004 earthquake in the Indian Ocean, 35 0:04:28,390 --> 0:04:35,160 which caused the deadliest tsunami in history. The world responded with one of the greatest 36 0:04:35,160 --> 0:04:42,020 relief efforts in record time all at once, but then medicine spoiled before they could reach the sick 37 0:04:42,020 --> 0:04:50,080 and food rotted before it could find the hungry. This failure of local logistics is what inspired 38 0:04:50,080 --> 0:04:58,840 the organization. What do they do now? Well, they don't intervene. Instead, they provide spaces 39 0:04:58,840 --> 0:05:05,080 where communities can implement their own plans and choose from a variety of tools and models that 40 0:05:05,080 --> 0:05:11,480 Humanitaire makes available. They provide teaching, processes, toolkits, and most importantly, space. 41 0:05:12,730 --> 0:05:18,210 They empower the communities to build their own futures. And now they're up and running in Haiti, 42 0:05:18,570 --> 0:05:26,980 Nepal, Greece, and the Philippines. And these are both stories of information sharing and empowering 43 0:05:26,980 --> 0:05:34,720 local communities. They succeed by building together both local talent and infrastructure 44 0:05:34,720 --> 0:05:43,800 and focus on sustainability. They even mean sustainability in many forms. There's 45 0:05:43,800 --> 0:05:49,660 environmental sustainability, processes that can work with a unique local environment. 46 0:05:50,610 --> 0:05:57,600 There's also economic sustainability, processes that can continue without ongoing external funding 47 0:05:57,600 --> 0:06:05,010 or donations, and cultural sustainability, respecting and empowering the local cultures. 48 0:06:06,640 --> 0:06:11,840 When you start thinking of these refugee camps as places where people are building new things, 49 0:06:12,520 --> 0:06:18,780 new homes, new lives, new opportunities, then the writing opportunities open up for you as well. 50 0:06:20,060 --> 0:06:26,780 Gone are the two-dimensional sketches of a dirty camp full of broken people. These people are alive 51 0:06:26,780 --> 0:06:34,230 and empowered. In a different genre setting, we might lean into the shantytown aesthetic or the 52 0:06:34,230 --> 0:06:39,810 lawlessness of the area might become an easy setting for crime stories. But I challenge you 53 0:06:39,810 --> 0:06:46,660 with this prompt. See a clear of these well trodden paths. Focus on the community as a vibrant 54 0:06:46,660 --> 0:06:54,080 living thing. And speaking of shantytowns, I'm reminded of Cory Doctorow's setting in the book 55 0:06:54,300 --> 0:07:00,220 Makers with its unique community of hackers and their unique way that they use language. 56 0:07:00,850 --> 0:07:08,970 It brings us to our next aspect of this writing prompt, Creole. According to Collins English 57 0:07:08,970 --> 0:07:14,670 Dictionary, a Creole is a language that has developed from a mixture of different languages 58 0:07:14,670 --> 0:07:22,100 and has become the main language in a particular place. These are fascinating growths of blending 59 0:07:22,400 --> 0:07:27,020 culture and can powerfully illustrate the fundamental aspects of a community, 60 0:07:27,850 --> 0:07:35,950 who they are, what they believe in, and how they respond to a changing world. Think of the unique 61 0:07:35,950 --> 0:07:43,980 flavor of the Belter language in the expanse. Every odd word choice or word borrowed from Chinese 62 0:07:43,980 --> 0:07:51,730 or Indic or Slavic is a reminder of what these people are. In some cases, this unique language 63 0:07:51,730 --> 0:07:58,560 use even extends to meaningful gestures with hands and shoulders. The way these languages 64 0:07:58,560 --> 0:08:04,020 develop is so interesting in its own right that there's an indie card game where you can 65 0:08:04,020 --> 0:08:11,240 collaboratively create one with friends. It's called Dialect, and it won IGDN's Game of the 66 0:08:11,240 --> 0:08:19,550 Year in 2019, along with a host of other awards. In that game, you and two to four of your friends 67 0:08:19,550 --> 0:08:25,630 will create what's called an isolation, basically a community set apart from others for some 68 0:08:25,630 --> 0:08:32,190 interesting reason, and then play out their history across three different ages. The game 69 0:08:32,190 --> 0:08:40,020 then ends with the isolation no longer being isolated, whether for good or for bad. As the 70 0:08:40,020 --> 0:08:47,300 game description says, Dialect is a game about an isolated community, their language, and what it 71 0:08:47,300 --> 0:08:53,560 means for that language to be lost. It's a fascinating way to spend three to four hours 72 0:08:53,560 --> 0:09:02,170 with friends and incredibly insightful into this exact process. Now, before we go, 73 0:09:02,950 --> 0:09:12,620 let's take one more look at that prompt. The refugee camp. There's a full-fledged town 74 0:09:12,620 --> 0:09:19,840 built from a refugee camp, which was set up there two decades ago. The inhabitants speak their own 75 0:09:19,840 --> 0:09:26,880 Creole, a mixture of more than five languages, and have very shaky relationships with their 76 0:09:26,880 --> 0:09:31,960 neighboring communities or states, each of which considers it a lawless territory, 77 0:09:32,900 --> 0:09:41,320 and might be plotting to take over. Okay, it's time to wrap up. Let's review our 78 0:09:41,320 --> 0:09:49,540 guidelines for solar punk writing one more time. Number one, community as protagonist. 79 0:09:50,000 --> 0:09:58,060 Remember, there's no chosen one. Number two, infrastructure is sexy. And remember, 80 0:09:58,460 --> 0:10:05,650 there's no simple solutions. And number three, the human environmental context. 81 0:10:06,630 --> 0:10:14,650 It's not man versus nature. Thanks for joining me today. I hope you'll join me for the next 82 0:10:14,650 --> 0:10:28,610 solar punk prompt. Music in this episode is from X memory solar grid from the album 83 0:10:28,610 --> 0:10:30,770 solar punk, a brighter perspective.