14.02.2025 | Authors: Di Luong and Soledad Magnone
Para leer en español, cliquea aquí
JAAKLAC emerged in November 2020 to research and advocate for critical digital education and rights in Latin America and the Majority World. Soledad Magnone, JAAKLAC’s Director, and Cybelle O, Lead Technologist and Storyteller, officially launched Legado 2060 at the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) Forum in December, 2024. The AWID International Forum brings together individuals and groups working in feminist, women’s rights, gender justice, LBTQI+ and allied movements from around the world. At AWID, JAAKLAC was able to engage with a global audience, and used Legado 2060 as a storytelling tool to explore the tensions around climate justice in the digital age.
Rising together for more sustainable digital societies
Soledad and Cybelle hosted a workshop and podcast recording session at AWID. Each independent session explored the possibilities of creative storytelling to imagine a better relationship between tech, biodiversity and humans. This was achieved by channeling tech’s risks and opportunities oriented by different chapters of a sci-fi telenovela (soap opera). Results are openly shared in this blog and podcast publications.
For Legado 2060, each participant chooses a specific character, and takes over the narrative of their character throughout the sci-fi telenovela. Participants have a roster of descriptive and layered characters to select from, including a cyborg robot and inverted mermaid. Participants in this sci-fi telenovela are asked to improvise a narrative to determine where their characters and storyline would go from chapter to chapter, and face scenarios that may test their character’s relationships and lives. Each session becomes a new story and enables participants to forge new relationships and explores the theme of technology, climate justice, friendship, and love among others.
At the AWID experiences, participants quickly adapted to their roles and must contend with an imminent climate disaster. Participants decided their characters, faced with living in a highly polluted dystopia, would need to wear masks and carry their own oxygen. They also needed to probe into questions like how has technology evolved in their world?
The story unfolded with participants building out their world and weaving a richer tapestry for their characters to play in. Perhaps in this world there has been a massive extraction of natural minerals and e-waste from computers and other electronic devices? There would most likely be food scarcity and it would be expensive. In every dystopia there is hope. Participants also introduced heroes into the plot – perhaps to save the day. The Eater is a being that consumes electronic waste, the Healer cures natural resources, and the Advisor serves as a guide for those living under violence.
Participants decided their characters were not entirely good, nor were they entirely bad, as these are false binaries. Their characters may be living on the margins – outside of politics, economics, and society – but continue to grapple with questions like: Would love in a hostile environment be frowned upon? Is it possible to feel joy in a horrible time? The story concluded when the heroine of the story put her life at risk to develop a method for safeguarding crops from heavy torrential rain.
An environmentalist in an AI throuple relationship, 4 cyborg natives and a (s)hero elephant with a prosthetic leg
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Check the AWID podcast session with Liz Njambi (a.k.a super producer), Muthoni Muriithi, and Shruti Sharada.
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Below we share the notes from the AWID workshop including the participation of Raffi Niziblian and Mapa Herrera:
Chapter 1: A polluted and exploitative world
Character: a trans woman. During the day she is tall, long silky hair, purple fair skin. During the night she has scaly skin, she is bold and scary.
The environment is highly polluted, people wear masks and carry their own oxygen. There is high extraction of mineral resources and e-waste from by-products of the electronic/computer parts.
There is food scarcity, food is so expensive!
There are various forms of exploitation: workforce, sex…
Chapter 2: Drama between the Four Cyborg Natives
Characters: The Eater of electronic waste. The Eater of bad energies, harmful waves. The Healer of bodies (bamboo, other natural resources, repurposed tech). The Advisor / Guide on life under violence
Good vs Bad - false binaries? We live in the margins from outside “politics, economy and society”. How are these of interest?
Love in a hostile environment is something that should be frowned upon? Joy in a horrible time? Something that awes the characters of the story.
Chapter 3: Unexpected plot twist Is tech evil or prince charming?
Characters: Rusra is a 1st generation inverted mermaid (top fish, bottom human), parents are regular mermaids. She has a son, Aspergillus (Aspe), a mushroom.
Rusra hates nature. She is independent, fishy and stubborn. She once had an affair with a robot (Niger) and gave birth to a mushroom, Aspe.
She never tells the kid, yet Aspe has been traumatized and goes find the father.
Aspe finds his dad and marries microbes to heal the earth. Microbes are in love with mushrooms.
Chapter 4: Happily ever after between humans, technology and biodiversity
Character: Baria, the matriarch of an elephant community. Has a bionic/prosthetic leg and can understand through speech recognition.
When Baria returned to where they were hurt, the plants and humans, along with the other animal life, greeted them as (s)heroes. After all, Baria had to risk their life to safeguard the crop from the heavy torrential rain and in doing so was hurt.
The protection of animals with disability law allowed Baria to undergo a prototyping of an animal prosthetics. Months after rehabilitation, Baria has been now fully functional, taking care of the balance of the land and the feeding of the living beings.
The next Biomedical and Prosthetics Conference will be fully dedicated to the benefits of bionic solutions for wildlife, especially those in danger of extinction. This will establish their wellbeing and preservation for continued balanced ecosystems.
Baria has gone down in history as they make history.
To be continued…
This session’s chapter has ended, but the story for JAAKLAC’s Legado 2060 will continue. JAAKLAC plan to take their sci-fi telenovela on the road and continue the twists and turns with new players in the future. We hope you would be able to join us for another adventure next time!
Pictures from Unsplash