Investigating the societies and environments of the solarpunk genre.

Abstract

This thesis investigates what characterises the societies and the environments that are portrayed within the literary genre solarpunk. The environmental crisis is a large crisis in the world today, with many different ideas from various people, on how to deal with it. The genre solarpunk has a special focus on this crisis and though the stories do not always portray environmental issues, the environment is important in almost all stories. Therefore, I found it interesting to look closer at a genre that tries to give its answers on how one should solve or live with the environment and the environmental issues. To enlighten this genre, I sought in this thesis to answer the following overarching question: What type of societies does the literary genre of solarpunk present and how do these societies relate to the environment and environmental issues? This question, in addition to other relevant research questions for each of the theoretical approaches’ deep ecology, social theory with an emphasis on ecology, and posthumanism, have helped enlighten the topics I wanted to investigate. To answer the overarching question, I have divided nine different short stories, from three anthologies, into the three theoretical approaches mentioned above. The approaches functioned as my lenses to how I analysed and discussed the different novels. The short stories were also analysed through the method of close reading, by the narrative elements of plot, character, and setting. The findings from the analyses and discussions showed that the relationship between the character and community, of which that character is part, is very important. Almost all the short stories show that the actions of one person can be of great importance to society. Another central finding is that the setting, that is place, is very important in the genre. This is for example seen through, that in many short stories, the characters are affected by the place they live, where they often may struggle with drought or other environmental issues. The last finding, I want to highlight here, is the different ways that solarpunk seeks to solve the social- and environmental issues they have. This is among others expressed through posthumanistic traits, individual creativity and maybe most important of all, through collaboration.