Solarpunk

Imagining Regenerative Futures

Solarpunk is a literary, artistic and philosophical movement that imagines futures in which humanity has developed more regenerative relationships with the natural world.

Unlike cyberpunk, which frequently depicts technological advancement alongside social inequality and environmental degradation, solarpunk explores how technology, ecology, culture and community might develop together.

What makes solarpunk particularly interesting is that it isn't simply concerned with imagining a greener future. At its most compelling, it questions the cultural, political and economic assumptions that shape how we live.

Given your interests in ethnoecology, place-based culture, regenerative economics and everyday relationships with the land, I think solarpunk offers a particularly useful field of literature to explore — although there are also aspects of the movement worth challenging.

For example, does solarpunk imagine genuinely different ways of inhabiting the world, or does it sometimes reproduce contemporary industrial culture with more vegetation, renewable energy and attractive architecture?

That question provides an interesting starting point for reading the literature.

The philosophy behind solarpunk

Solarpunk becomes especially interesting when considered alongside environmental philosophy, political ecology and cultural anthropology.

I would suggest exploring five intellectual connections.

Intellectual traditionImportant thinkersConnection with solarpunkSocial ecologyMurray BookchinEcological problems are inseparable from social organisation and hierarchy.Ecotopian literatureErnest Callenbach, Ursula K. Le GuinImagining alternative societies through their everyday cultural practices.Multispecies studiesDonna Haraway, Anna TsingHumans participate in ecological relationships rather than existing outside them.Commons and decentralised governanceElinor Ostrom, Peter KropotkinCommunities can develop collective arrangements for managing shared resources.Critical utopian studiesRuth Levitas, Fredric JamesonImagined futures reveal the assumptions and limitations of present societies.

One particularly interesting connection is with Ruth Levitas's concept of utopia as a method.

Rather than treating utopia as a perfect future society, Levitas approaches it as a way of investigating the social arrangements, institutions and assumptions through which societies are constructed.

This opens the possibility of using solarpunk literature not simply as entertainment or inspiration, but as a means of investigating contemporary cultural assumptions.

A critique of solarpunk from an ethnoecological perspective

I think there is an important tension between solarpunk's optimistic imagination and your emphasis on emergent, place-centred cultures.

Much solarpunk imagery presents remarkably similar futures: green buildings, abundant vegetation, renewable technologies, communal spaces and people enjoying environmentally harmonious lives.

But what is actually being imagined?

A technologically sustainable civilisation, or an ecologically situated culture?

These are not necessarily the same thing.

Consider a fictional solarpunk city containing solar panels, vertical gardens, electric transport and sophisticated recycling systems.

Its inhabitants might still:

  • Have little understanding of their local watershed.

  • Be unable to recognise changes in local biodiversity.

  • Depend on distant industrial supply chains for their everyday needs.

  • Have limited relationships with the materials, plants and animals around them.

  • Understand sustainability primarily through infrastructure and consumption choices.

The society might have become considerably more environmentally sustainable without its inhabitants developing substantially different relationships with their local ecology.

This is not an inevitable limitation of solarpunk, but it offers a productive way of distinguishing its different literary expressions.

For your interests, I would suggest an additional question:

What would solarpunk look like if its starting point were not an imagined future, but the existing relationships, knowledge, histories and practices of a particular community and landscape?

A solarpunk future for the River Trent catchment might look very different from one imagined for southern California, the Brazilian Atlantic Forest or the Scottish Highlands.

Its cultural expressions would emerge from different histories, materials, ecologies and social relationships.

This also suggests a distinction between imagining a desirable future and exploring the conditions through which desirable futures might emerge.

A final thought: Solarpunk versus ecological imagination

One area I think is worth exploring is whether solarpunk is primarily concerned with imagining alternative futures, whereas ethnoecology might offer ways of recognising alternative possibilities already present within existing cultures.

The distinction is important.

A community does not necessarily need to imagine a completely different society before it can begin developing more regenerative relationships with its surroundings.

Those possibilities might already exist in neglected skills, marginalised practices, informal economies, local knowledge and relationships that contemporary institutions struggle to recognise.

That leads to a question I think could underpin an interesting article:

Does solarpunk help us imagine a different future, or could it also help us recognise the different futures already emerging around us?

Short-story collections

Short fiction is particularly important within solarpunk. Many of its most interesting ideas have emerged through anthologies rather than novels.

Four collections worth investigating:

1. Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation (2017)

Edited by Phoebe Wagner and Brontë Christopher Wieland.

An influential early English-language anthology exploring ecological futures, climate disruption and the possibilities of collective action.

2. Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers (2018)

Edited by Sarena Ulibarri.

Explores communities adapting to environmental challenges through technology, cooperation and new social arrangements.

3. Multispecies Cities: Solarpunk Urban Futures (2021)

A particularly interesting collection that challenges anthropocentric ideas about urban life.

It asks what cities might become if they were understood as habitats shared by humans and other species, rather than environments designed exclusively around human needs.

4. Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World (English edition, 2018)

Edited by Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro.

An important Brazilian anthology whose original edition helped establish solarpunk as a literary movement.

5. Free literature and further reading

There are several useful places to explore the movement without purchasing books.

Solarpunk literature and resources

A curated collection of books covering solarpunk aesthetics, cities, practical approaches and theory.

Solarpunk: Against a Shitty Future — Los Angeles Review of Books

An accessible critical introduction to the movement's literary and political origins.

Solarpunk and the Pedagogical Value of Utopia

An academic article examining the educational possibilities of solarpunk and utopian imagination.

Solarpunk PhD Project — Literature and Fiction

A collection of literary references, academic resources and freely accessible stories.

Science Fiction Encyclopedia — Solarpunk

A concise historical overview of the genre and its literary antecedents.