All language subtitles for Masterclass N. K. Jemisin Teaches Fantasy and Science Fiction Writing - 05.Micro.Worldbuilding Power Dynamics And Cultural Appropriation

[MUSIC PLAYING]

N. K. JEMISIN: You want
to start asking yourself

a series of questions.

How would powerful people
act in this society?

How would less powerful
people act in this society?

These things will
affect the character

that you ultimately decide
to tell the story through.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

We're reaching the point where
you can no longer just write

down things on
the sheet of paper

that you've been kind of
putting together your--

your world and your
culture on, because this

is starting to get too complex.

Human beings are impossible
to kind of define

through a single sentence
or a single piece

of sociological detail.

Here you want to segue from
kind of making decisions

or-- or jotting things down.

You want to start asking
yourself a series of questions.

So a typical example would be
what are the-- the roles held

by people in the society.

What are the
punishments for people

who transgress those roles?

What are the ways
in which people

use these roles to determine
how to treat one another,

and what are the rewards
for good performance

of those roles?

Who's got power in the society?

Who is trying to
maintain their power,

and who feels threatened
by anyone that

steps outside of their role?

These are all kinds
of questions that you

should be asking
about any society,

including your own, the
one that you live in.

But since you're
creating this society,

you want to make sure
that you've come up

with a set of social rules
which may be influenced

by the element X, which may be
influenced by the environment

that the society
is developing in,

or it could come
out of whole cloth.

You can just make something up.

But start asking
yourself these questions

about how would powerful
people act in the society,

how would less powerful
people act in the society.

And then when you
are about to decide

who's going to be your viewpoint
character for the story,

ask yourself, who
is the person that

has the greatest
ability to accomplish

the goals of your
story in the society,

and who's the person for
whom it is the least likely

that they'll be able to
accomplish their goals.

And which would be the more
interesting story to tell,

the person who has power, who
then goes forth to make changes

in the world, or the person
who is effectively powerless,

who then goes forth
to do the same thing.

I tend to lean towards
the latter, but you know,

lots of people can go
different directions on that.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Now, in the sociological
sense, we're

talking about power as the
ability to affect other people.

Power, for example, is--

is not necessarily
about, you know,

who's controlling
the energy resources.

It is about who is controlling
the labor resources

of a society, the morals
and laws of that society,

the enforcement of
those laws, all of that.

So in a lot of cases, people
who have power in our world

are able to create laws that
apply to them in one way

but apply to another group of
people in a very different way.

They're able to dictate how
other people in that world

use their time or their space.

So for example, many of
you, I'm sure, have jobs.

You've had bosses.

Who in your workplace
has the ability

to just show up
when they feel like,

versus the people that have to
be there at certain set hours?

In a factory, who has to
punch in on a time clock,

and who shows up at whatever
time they kind of feel like?

That's going to be the
CEO in the latter case

and the regular line
workers in that factory

in the case of the punch clock.

So that's time control.

Control over space.

Who's got the ability to
spread out and take over

every possible surface nearby?

As another example of the
ways in which different groups

assert power over others,
let's talk about man spreading.

[LAUGHS] So I live in New York.

I ride subways all the time.

People on subways will
often take up more space

than they actually need to.

And there's a
pattern to the ways

in which certain kinds
of people do this,

and one is that we've noticed
that men will spread their legs

and take up as much
space as they possibly

can, in some cases, making
it difficult for other people

to sit near them, or
forcing women near them

to sort of bunch up and take
up less space, and so on.

People who have less
power in our society

tend to take up less
space in our society.

They scrunch themselves, or
they-- they lean to one side,

or they huddle.

And people who want to assert
that they have more power

will take up more space.

They'll spread their arms out.

They'll spread their legs.

They talk louder
in a lot of cases.

So these are ways in
which we-- we see power

demonstrated in our society.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Now let's segue into
talking about role.

Now, power plus role
together are power dynamics.

And role, in the sociological
sense here, is social role.

And the reason that
we use the term role

is because it's actually sort
of taken from the theater.

It's a performance.

It's something that you do to--

to convey information
to other human beings

so they know how to treat you.

So in our society, we talk
a lot about gender roles

and what women are
expected to do versus

what men are expected to do.

We're slowly starting
to figure out

that there are more genders out
there than just women and men,

and those roles are muddled
by those new groups of people,

and that offends some folks.

Because they want
everybody neatly divided

and easy to
differentiate into what

they consider male
roles and female roles.

And one of the reasons this
happens is because in--

in the performance of role,
those who perform it poorly

or who don't perform
it in the expected ways

are often punished
by our societies.

They're treated as
rude, or they're treated

as somehow transgressive.

Somehow they are-- they
are doing taboo things.

And a lot of that has to do
with the maintenance of power

in our society.

If men claim that they
have power because they--

they are more assertive,
they're better at talking,

they're better at
decision making,

and then we have a woman who is
assertive and powerful and good

at decision making, then maybe
the men's maintenance of power

is not something that
makes a lot of sense.

And maybe then women should
challenge men for the power

that they have claimed in
our patriarchal society.

So the maintenance
of these social roles

is a protective measure on
the part of people in power.

Challenging those social
roles is one of the things

that less powerful people
tend to do in our society

in order to deliberately
push against those strictures

of power that are
already in place.

So in a lot of
cases in a society,

we'll see people
who are generally

ascribed less power
in our society,

people who are
called marginalized,

because of their skin color, or
their gender, or their ability,

or their sexual orientation.

In a lot of cases, those
people will deliberately

take up more space,
the way that men do.

Or they'll talk louder
and deliberately flout

rules the way that other
powerful people in our society

are allowed to do.

And they do that
as a way of kind

of holding up a mirror to
society and saying, hey,

it's okay when they do
it, but not when I do it?

How is that fair?

So these performances and this
push and pull of who has power

and who doesn't and how those
people should act or don't act,

these are all power
dynamics, and this

is part of any human society.

So if you've created
a society that exists

or that consists
primarily of human beings,

and you've created
a society that

wants-- that you want to feel
plausible to your readers,

it's got to have these
power dynamics present.

They don't have to be the same
power dynamics as in our world,

but they have to be some
kind of power dynamics.

These things will
affect the character

that you ultimately decide
to tell the story through.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It's important to remember that
the power dynamics of our world

are going to affect how
your story goes over.

Your readers are
coming to this--

this story with their own
embedded notions of how people

are supposed to act, how
power rules are supposed to--

are supposed to play out.

And in a lot of cases, those
readers are going to make

assumptions about your
characters based on how

you've described
them as looking,

what social role you've--

you've named for them.

I mean, they're going
to make decisions

about that based on their own
social roles, in some cases,

and on your social
roles as the writer.

They're going to make
assumptions in a lot of cases,

for example, that your--

your female characters should
behave in certain ways.

Or if they don't
behave in those ways,

they may be harsher to judge
those female characters,

because their society has
not given quite as much space

and time to novels or
stories that center female

protagonists.

And the same will apply
to you as an author.

If you were an author
from a marginalized group,

then in a lot of
cases, your readers

are going to make some
assumptions about why you've

decided to write this story.

It may not be right,
but they're going

to make those assumptions, and
you need to be aware of those,

and you need to anticipate that.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

All cultures, because
we are syncretic,

because we are
acquisitive people,

and we interact
with other cultures,

and we all tend to develop
or to incorporate aspects

of other cultures into our own.

The issue comes up
when that appropriation

becomes inappropriate.

[LAUGHS] And when you've got
members of a majority or very

powerful culture taking
characteristics or aspects from

a less powerful culture
and using those aspects,

either out of context or in
disrespectful ways or in ways

that sort of muddle the--
the meaning or value of those

cultural aspects to such
a degree that it's--

it's almost harmful, and it
can be harmful to that culture.

We see aspects of this in
our real world all the time.

There's a New
Zealand airline that

uses a Maori symbol as its
logo, but in a lot of cases,

there have been
issues of Maori--

and I may be mangling the name
of this-- but Maori flight

attendants who have ta moko and
other of these actual symbols

from this actual culture
worn on their bodies,

they have been unable to
either get or hold jobs.

So, you know, this
is a case where

if you're using the
symbol, but you don't

like the people that the
symbol are attached to,

or you don't treat the people
that the-- the symbol is

attached to in-- in a good way,
then there's something just

kind of grotesque
about taking and using

aspects of that culture because
you think that that culture is

cute, but you don't think
the people themselves

are worthy of respect or time.

And another thing that's
kind of important to remember

is experience and own voices.

If you are a writer who
is talking about a culture

that you yourself come from,
or a group that you yourself

have actual lived
experience in, then you're

going to be able to
speak to that much more

easily than people who are
from outside of that culture.

However, in-- in the power
dynamic situation, again,

where you've got
majority writers, or--

or you've got centered
writers taking material

from marginalized
groups, or in some cases,

telling the stories of
marginalized groups, what that

ultimately result
in is you end up

having bunches of books
about Black people written

by white people,
or bunches of books

about queer people written by
cishet people, and it just--

it starts to get
kind of grotesque.

What it means is that
people who are actually

from those backgrounds can't
tell their own stories.

The people from the
majority culture

are taking up that space.

And that's a huge problem.

If we want more voices and more
rich, complex storytelling,

we're going to need to get that
from people who actually have

lived from those perspectives.

So it's important to
keep that in mind.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

If you do decide to
tackle an existing

culture in your fiction,
there's some things

that you have to
kind of keep in mind.

First of all, is this still
a living, active culture?

In the case of the "Dream
Blood" books, "The Killing Moon"

and the "Shadowed
Sun," I decided

to set it in,
basically, a fantasy

variation of ancient Egypt.

Well, ancient Egypt
doesn't exist anymore.

It's now several
thousand years dead.

The Egypt that exists these
days has a lot of similarities

to it, because
cultures are syncretic,

and many of the aspects
of ancient Egypt

are still very much a part
of that culture today,

but it's not a living culture
anymore, and the people who

created that language and--

and those gods and those belief
systems, for the most part,

don't exist.

There are people who still
worship Egyptian gods.

In many cases, those
are modern adherents

that have chosen to sort
of adopt these old faiths

and kind of revive them.

And I try to be
respectful of-- of people

who hold those belief
systems, even though I

don't share them myself.

But for the most part, the
fact that I wasn't writing it

on Earth, and I wasn't using
existing belief systems,

made a huge difference
and helped a whole lot.

Things that you want to keep in
mind if you are yourself going

to do this are, like
I said, first, you

want to make sure
that you're not

encroaching on a culture
that is actually living.

If you are, then
there are a number

of ways that you can
approach that culture

and try and make sure that
you're doing it respectfully.

You can reach out to
members of that culture

or to cultural sort of
touchstones, museums.

You can find books
written from perspectives

of people in that culture.

You can educate yourself
as much as possible on what

it's like to be a
member of that culture,

but you're still going to be
an outsider speaking to that.

And so another thing that
you might want to consider

is what kind of outsider
do you want to be.

There's a great book
that I recommend,

called "Writing the Other," by
Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward,

which touches on different
ways to respectfully approach

cultural appropriation.

And they talk about
the fact that when

you are coming in to a
culture as an outsider,

you can come in in a
lot of different ways.

You can come in as a tourist,
where you're at least welcome,

and at least you're
giving something back

for what you're taking.

You can come in as an
invader, and you just

show up, take what you
want, trash everything, do

a lot of harm, and then leave.

Or you can be an
invited guest, or you

can strive to be an invited
guest, where you're not

only coming in and
are at least welcome,

but you are doing
something that contributes

to the people that
are hosting you,

that have chosen
to welcome you in.

So there are a lot of techniques
that are recommended on--

on how to do this respectfully.

If you're approaching a group of
Indigenous people, for example,

you want to make
sure that you've--

you've asked someone to
read your work for you

and make sure that
you're not touching

on any material that is
sacred or secret or otherwise

important or--

or precious to that
group of folks.

This is a sensitivity reader.

This is someone who is
from that background, who

can read your work for
you and help you determine

whether you're doing
it in a way that

is respectful and non-harmful.

Now, you probably, ideally, want
to have multiple sensitivity

readers from that background,
because one person can't

speak for a whole culture.

But you've got to pay these
people for their time.

There are going rates
for sensitivity readers.

You want to try and
make sure that you are--

are putting a certain amount of
the money that you've got to--

or that you're-- you're putting
into creating your piece,

because you've got to put some
money and some time into it

in some way, whether you are
paying for a research trip

or paying for research
books or materials,

you need to set aside some funds
to be able to do that as well.

If you're a published
writer, your publisher

may help you with the process
of getting a sensitivity reader.

But this is a cost of
doing business as a writer,

and you're going to have
to keep that in mind.