Beyond the Story With Iris M. Crawford

In the June issue of Sojourners, climate writer and journalist Iris M. Crawford identifies how some Indigenous nations are finding hope and solidarity through a collaborative solar energy initiative. She spoke with editorial assistant Liz Bierly about Afrofuturism, movement journalism, and what energizes her own work. Read Crawford's story, "Harnessing the Sun to Become Sovereign Again." 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Liz Bierly, Sojourners: You got your start in science journalism because of your experience in grassroots climate justice organizing. How do you integrate that [experience] into your writing now?

Iris Crawford: I grew up in New York City, so I experienced Hurricane Sandy back in 2012. When I was an undergraduate student, I got the opportunity to write about climate justice and how it particularly affects Black and brown communities. Pulling from those experiences, being first-generation Guyanese, remembering Hurricane Sandy, and then writing that first story back in my undergrad years solidified that this is something that I kind of enjoy. That led me to my first organizing roles with the NAACP, and then I really got to understand how climate inequality and working toward racial and social justice all sort of intertwine. Through that, I got to learn and meet and build relationships with really great activists and people doing a lot of incredible things that are working to make our world better and more equitable, and I wanted to be able to tell those stories.

How do you make topics you care about into things that are accessible for your readers? That's a good question. For example, for this article that I wrote for Sojourners, the first thing I did when I made contact with my sources was ask, “What is the story that you would like to tell about Indigenized Energy? What is not being told?” That’s usually how I try to go into my story and how I approach sources. I would call this practice movement journalism, where instead of reporting on communities, I report with and for them.

In grad school, some of my work also involves breaking down complex science topics to make them more accessible to readers. That’s a practice I’m trying my best to implement into my work.

Can you expand on Afrofuturism and how that intersects with your identity? As someone who is a Black person and someone who also identifies as Afrofuturist, I think climate justice, art, and culture are sort of things that are interrelated. As an Afrofuturist, or just a futurist in general, I think I’m always trying to explore—whether it’s through my writing or connecting with people or things that I read—the African diaspora and how that intersects with science and technology. Afrofuturism does away with racism, imperialism, and patriarchy, and everyone sort of co-exists in a new world. It’s a question of, “How do you use the past to inform the future? What does the world look like beyond the multiple oppressions that we’re dealing with now, in this current state?” When I can, I put that into my work by highlighting the stories, people, movements, and solutions that are making our world better and working toward the new future.

What was it like for you to work on the Indigenized Energy Initiative (IEI) profile for the June issue? I enjoyed writing the story. Everyone at IEI was very helpful, very welcoming, and very kind to showcase the story of the Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne tribes, retelling their history and how they’re reliving it now fighting against fossil fuels.

I hope Sojourners readers take away from this piece more of an understanding of Indigenous history and how that informs American history. I also hope that they have more of an appreciation for renewable energy, its potential, what it can do for us, and how important it is to have people who have been previously marginalized or oppressed leading a new future: one that is clean, one that is equitable, and one that is full of justice.

Where do you find hope in your work? The world is currently dealing with a lot of tragedy, a lot of oppression, and a lot of bad things. But I think I take away hope from the people that I talk to, the people who are movement-building, and even the people who are just informing us about all of these things. They’re doing this work because they believe that there is hope, and there is, so I think that’s where I get a lot of my energy from as well.

What also gives me hope is that people are reading. I think this is the first time in a while that we see people really trying to be informed on what is happening, how they can help trying to build bridges, trying to understand more stories, and making room for people who previously weren’t able to tell those stories. All of those things give me hope.