Mediating the Human and Nature Dynamic: Robots and the Posthuman in Becky Chambers’ “A Psalm for the Wild-Built”

The world today exists in an era of ‘posts’, according to Francesca Ferrando, one of which is the posthuman (21). Referred to as the next phase of human evolution, the symbolic move beyond the human, an understanding of the multiplicity of human experience, or an overall decentering of the human, the posthuman is an amorphous term negotiated with through various forms of discourse, in both nonfiction and fiction. Science fiction has proved to be a fruitful genre for discussing the posthuman, as for scholars like Donna Haraway, the boundary between social reality and science fiction is merely an “optical illusion” (Haraway 1985, 66). Isaijah Johnson takes this sentiment a step further, claiming that prefigurative fiction such as science fiction offers a promise “not simply that it may predict the future, but that it will produce it” (11) – that the ideas talked about in science fiction may inspire their very own existence in the real world. 

Science fiction authors have the capacity to imagine worlds extending beyond our own anthropocentric reality, with cybernetics and technological innovation as commonly occurring themes. One such work of science fiction that explores posthuman ideas is Becky Chambers’ novel A Psalm for the Wild-Built,  a solarpunk utopian narrative exploring a world where humans live alongside nature and sentient robots in a peaceful and constructive assemblage. The story takes place on the fictional moon of Panga, where a technological incident hundreds of years in the past led to a complete re-working of human society. As such, humans exited an era of environmental destruction and technological manipulation and entered a time of environmental consciousness and care. As a result, Chambers’ characters exhibit a general attitude of rejecting human exceptionalism and embracing the agency of the nonliving. In this paper, I aim to answer the following question: how does Becky Chambers’ A Psalm for the Wild-Built explore a utopian view of society that de-centers the human, and how do robots function within this society as mediators between humans and the environment? This is a very relevant topic today, as rapid technological developments instill the fear of artificial intelligence and robot sentience in the minds of many people around the world. I propose that Chambers’ novel, rather than fighting against this fear, embraces it and proposes a world wherein robot consciousness opens the door to the posthuman and a reality wherein humans find a way to live in a peaceful collaboration with the world around us.

This paper begins with an analysis of the dynamic between humans and the environment in A Psalm for the Wild-Built. This discussion touches on how the novel, as a part of the solar punk movement, fits within genres of science fiction and ecocriticism. The concept at the core of this section is Jane Bennett’s vibrant matter and assemblages, as I discuss how Chambers’ fictional world enters into a mutually respectful assemblage of humans and nature, after a long history of environmental exploitation. The second section delves into the role of technology in the novel, and the extent to which readers can view robots as mediators between nature and humans. This analysis also takes into account different posthumanist scholars’ views on the role of technology in general, and to what extent technological innovation is a necessary part of becoming posthuman. This section touches on a couple of important themes, namely Donna Haraway’s and N Katherine Hayles’ thoughts on cyborgs and sentient technology, as well as Haraway’s concept of tentacularity which I ultimately connect to Bennett’s assemblages. Lastly, the paper will conclude with a final reflection on human exceptionalism and to what extent A Psalm for the Wild-Built envisions an attainable posthuman future.

The Human/Nature Balance

Becky Chambers’ A Psalm for the Wild-Built is an exploration of a posthuman future set on a fictional moon called Panga. The book has been categorized by the author as a work of solarpunk fiction, a subgenre of science fiction. Specifically, solarpunk is “a genre of ecologically-oriented speculative fiction characterized both by its aesthetic and its underlying socio-political vision” (Johnson 2). Solarpunk texts – ranging from novels to works of art, music, film and more – are seen as a useful tool for activists or sustainability educators, as they promote a “critical examination of one’s environmental impact” (Johnson 1). Technology often plays a large role in solarpunk novels such as Chambers’, wherein technology may be used to solve problems related to climate change, pollution, or issues of sustainability. Unlike other examples of eco-fiction that focus on impending or unavoidable ecological crises, solarpunk novels embody an optimistic view of attainable and sustainable futures. As a result, a novel such as A Psalm for the Wild-Built is largely considered a “comfort read” (El-Mohtar), as it tells an engaging and meaningful story while subtracting tension and conflict. In the case of Chambers’ novel, rather than exploring any threat to Panga’s balanced living/nonliving dynamic, the novel simply focuses on the nuances of that relationship and how it introduces a new way of understanding the place of humans and technology within the environment.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built takes place in a complex world where all living and nonliving things exist in a reciprocal balance – embodying a vision of assemblages alluded to in the seminal work of Jane Bennett. In Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, Bennett introduces the idea of the vitality of matter, in which non-living things have the capacity “not only to impede or block the will and designs of humans but also to act as quasi agents or forces with trajectories, propensities, or tendencies of their own” (viii). There is an inherent agency and vibrancy within all things, living and non-living alike, that allows everything or everyone to be an actant. Actants, according to Bennett, never actually act alone, but rather function in conjunction with other actants inside of assemblages, “ad hoc groupings of diverse elements, of vibrant materials of all sorts” (23). Assemblages may range from the very small, such as a microscopic organism, to the very large, like an electrical power grid. I argue that one can see the world of Panga as an assemblage, wherein the actants of humanity and nature live in a mutual collaboration that serves to benefit the whole. However, the utopian world of Panga did not always exist or function through these same assemblages, and throughout the story Chambers provides an overview as to how the present society of Panga came to be. 

The novel opens with a epigraph drawn from the fictional book From the Brink: A Spiritual Retrospective on the Factory Age and the Early Transition Era, providing some history about the Factory Age, wherein humans built robots to help them exploit the environment. As such, the moon was slowly becoming uninhabitable for humans. The Factory Age came to a sudden end when the man-made robots spontaneously gained consciousness - an event known as the Awakening. Rather than attempting to destroy or alter the robots, humans accepted their sentience and invited them to join Panga’s society as free citizens. The epigraph includes the following statement given by Floor-AB #921, the robots’ spokesperson:

“All we have ever known is a life of human design, from our bodies to our work to the buildings we are housed in. We thank you for not keeping us here against our will, and we mean no disrespect to your offer, but it is our wish to leave your cities entirely, so that we may observe that which has no design – the untouched wilderness.” (Chambers 1-2).

When the robots left human society and entered the wilderness, they did so with the assurance of the Parting Promise, wherein it was agreed that there would be no contact between humans and robots until the robots initiated it on their own terms. With the departure of robots came the radical restructuring of human life, and in the time between the Parting Promise and the events of the novel, Panga had completely transformed. A massive process of rewilding began, and the surface of the moon was redivided, where “fifty percent of Panga’s single continent was designated for human use; the rest was left to nature, and the ocean was barely touched at all” (Chambers 18). Humans abandoned all buildings and infrastructure in the nature-designated area, and only built new things in their own lands using materials “gathered from unsuitable structures no longer in use, or harvested from trees that had needed nothing more than mud and gravity to bring them down” (Chambers 26). The attitude of humans towards nature became one of respect and reciprocity, rather than exploitation and destruction. Humans and the environment on Panga entered into an assemblage that ultimately casts aside the notion that “humanity is the sole or ulti­mate wellspring of agency” (Bennett 30). Just as Bennett argues for the vitality of all forms of matter, the humans of Panga after the Transition see an agency in all things, wherein “no object should be treated as disposable” (Chambers 59). However, the assemblage Chambers portrays before the events of the novel, although initiated by the departure of sentient technology, is composed only of human and environmental actors.

While the Parting Promise ensured many years of no contact between robots and humans, A Psalm for the Wild-Built explores what happens when they begin to interact once again, and how the human/nature assemblage may be influenced. The novel follows the main character, Sibling Dex, a human nomadic tea monk, as they embark on a quest to explore the wilderness of Panga that has been untouched by humans for hundreds of years. During this journey, Dex makes the acquaintance of Splendid Speckled Mosscap, a robot living in the wild. The interaction between Dex and Mosscap is the first time that humans and robots have made contact with one another since the robots’ departure. While Mosscap clarifies that robots have no interest in re-integrating into Panga’s society, they are curious about “how humans have gotten along” (Chambers 57), and Mosscap itself is determined to answer the following question: “what do humans need?” (Chambers 59). 

The Role of Technology and Robots as Mediators

In this section, the focus shifts towards a discussion of technology, and the extent to which the robots in Chambers’ novel fill the role of a mediator between humans and the environment. However, before the idea of robots as mediators is further explored, it is useful to first discuss the role that technology as a whole plays in posthuman narratives. Within the field of posthumanism, scholars have adopted a variety of approaches to the use or value of technology in posthuman futures (or presents). For instance, transhumanists see the posthuman figure as the next stage of human evolution, made possible through “a radical transformation of the human condition by existing, emerging, and speculative technologies” (Ferrando 3). The cyborg, as theorized by Donna Haraway, is an example of this human enhancement, conceptualized as “a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction” (Haraway 1985, 65). In contrast with the transhumanist view of technology as a necessity in becoming posthuman, other posthumanist scholars insist that posthumanism should not be directly associated with the “rise of techno-culture” (Herbrechter 10). Francesca Ferrando clarifies that while humans and technology have evolved in unison – a process known as “techno-genesis” – the very way in which we view or fundamentally understand technology has changed as well. For the Ancient Greek, technology was connected to poiesis, a notion of revealing or bringing-forth which has since been lost in contemporary understandings of technology, which sees technology simply as a means that can be mastered (Ferrando 41). What these different points of view share is the common idea that technology, whether or not it is necessary to achieve a posthuman state, is something that cannot vanish or be entirely separated from human life. Therefore, what is particularly important when exploring posthuman narratives, such as those in the solarpunk genre, is attentiveness to how technology is used or portrayed. In the case of A Psalm for the Wild-Built, technology in the form of sentient robots plays a very unique role, as they occupy a mediating status between the environment and humans.

In Chambers’ novel, robots serve as the mediators behind an effective and sustainable human and nature relationship on two levels. The first level is quite straightforward: robots initiated the radical re-working of the human/nature dynamic in the first place. As explained in the previous section, the Awakening and sudden sentience gained by the robots led to their departure from human society, initiating a chain reaction of events that ultimately forced humans to reevaluate their relationship with and place within the environment. The event of robots gaining consciousness is not simply a device to move along the plot in this novel; rather, it reflects a larger fear held by many people in the real world. N Katherine Hayles discusses this fear and its posthuman implications in How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics, reflecting on the work of the computer scientist Hans Moravec. Moravec believed that “machines can become the repository of human consciousness – that machines can, for all practical purposes, become human beings” (Hayles xii). This dream of robotic consciousness strikes Hayles as a nightmare, as it challenges the notion that humanity is tied to corporeality - that the mind and body cannot be separated (1). This ushers in the question of the posthuman, and to what extent “embodiment in a biological subtract is an accident of history rather than an inevitability of life” (Hayles 2). While there are no clear answers to the questions of defining the posthuman and what technological sentience implies, Chambers’ novel frames robot consciousness as a necessary (although unintended) step in the journey towards a more sustainable, balanced posthuman future. This could perhaps be connected with the aforementioned process of poiesis, as the technology of sentient robots initiated a bringing-forth of new ways of thinking and living. Ultimately, without the sentient robots to usher in a change in human behavior, Panga’s environment would be continually destroyed and a functional human/nature assemblage would be unattainable.

The second level on which robots serve as mediators between humans and nature becomes clear as the relationship between Dex and Mosscap develops. When the robots departed from human society, they did so with the hope of observing wilderness, and Mosscap explains the great success that the robots have had with this goal. Mosscap and all other robots have a very intricate knowledge of their environment, as essentially their entire lives since the Parting Promise have been dedicated to observing nature. The robot’s full name of Splendid Speckled Mosscap (a variety of mushroom) provides evidence of the close relationship between robots and nature, as robots, Mosscap clarifies, take on the name of the first thing they see after they wake up – Two Foxes, Pollen Cloud, Milton’s Millipede, Black Marbled Frostfrog, and so on. As a result of the robots’ thorough experiences with and knowledge of nature, Mosscap is able to provide new insights about the environment and help Dex see the wilderness from a new point of view. For example, as Dex and Mosscap continue on towards the destination of Hart’s Brow Hermitage, an abandoned building in the protected wilderness zone, the roads fall into disarray and they have to trek through undisturbed wilderness. In doing so, Mosscap is able to assist Dex in finding a path of least resistance and environmental disturbance. When Dex fears that this journey will cause irreparable harm to the forest, Mosscap reassures him,

““Sometimes, damage is unavoidable. Often, in fact. I assure you we’ve both killed countless tiny things in just the last few steps we’ve taken.” Mosscap looked Dex in the eye. “You’re not making a habit of this. You’re not cutting a new trail, or clearing a grove, or … I don’t know, having a party out here. You’re taking a walk with me, and once that’s done, we’ll head right back to the road. I assure you the forest will forget you were here in no time.”” (Chambers 85).

While Dex’s initial hesitation shows that the human approach to living alongside the environment has been to leave it entirely untouched, Mosscap urges that there are ways to live and act sustainably within nature. Rather than a human/nature dynamic that sees both sides avoiding contact with one another as much as possible, Mosscap proposes ways for Dex and all humans to see their existence alongside nature not as entities that need to remain separate so as to ensure mutual prosperity, but rather as intertwined. As a result of this reframing, the existing dynamic between Panga’s humans and nature may begin to transform into a more closely interconnected assemblage than the humans thought was possible. Such an intertwined assemblage evokes a similar imagery to that of Haraway’s concept of the tentacular, wherein all things coalesce in processes of “becoming-with and unbecoming-with, of sympoiesis, and so, just possibly, of multispecies flourishing on earth” (Haraway 2016, 40). Following this logic, humans, robots and nature do not simply need to leave each other to their own devices in order to prosper. Instead, all actants and “stringy appendages” benefit more from a close relationship predicated on interaction, mutual prosperity, and cyclical life and death (Haraway 2016, 31).

Rather than existing as a looming ghost of human greed and the dark past of the Factory Age, robots operate in Panga’s present as mediators who ensure that humans don’t return to their past destructive behaviors, while also not over-correcting for their errors. The sentient robots initiated the re-wilding and re-imagination of Panga’s society, and their continued existence helps to keep humans and nature connected in a tentacular assemblage, wherein humans learn to respect the environment while also allowing themselves to take up space within it.

Conclusion 

This paper has discussed the human and nature balance and the role of robots in A Psalm for the Wild-Built, themes which ultimately come together in a final interrogation of post-anthropocentrism. Panga’s Factory Age was undeniably anthropocentric: humans controlled all forms of synthetic and organic matter, and as a result they were actively destroying the moon and making it uninhabitable for themselves. However, with the advent of the Awakening and sentient robots stepping away from human society, Panga’s human population made – or were perhaps forced to make – the radical decision to de-center themselves. This decision saw humans adopt sustainable behaviors and resign to living in only a portion of the planet, initiating the development of a beneficial and tentacular assemblage of humans and nature, and a planet-wide process of rewilding. At the very core of this process lies a rejection of human exceptionalism. On one hand, humans de-center themselves through their close relationship with nature, and the acceptance that all things have agency and value. On the other hand, humans are also de-centered through the acceptance of robots as mediators of Panga’s assemblages, which then raises the question of technological exceptionalism.

While Chambers’ associates this general rejection of human exceptionalism with the prosperity of all matter (living and nonliving) on Panga, the way that the novel imagines the specific example of sentient artificial intelligence brings a variety of questions into the foreground: what potential consequences or questions of agency arise when robots are in charge of mediation? What are the ethical concerns or implications of relying so much on technology? Additionally, in the novel positive changes in the human/nature relationship only come about as a direct result of technology getting out of human control, suggesting a general trend of things needing to get worse before they get better. Is this a sustainable practice or viable system for achieving post-anthropocentric and/or post-human futures? Ultimately, while Chambers' representation of mediating and environmentally-conscious robots is a refreshing take on a technologically-oriented anxiety held by many people today, there is room to remain critical and question to what extent Chambers imagines an anthropocentric world superseded by a technocentric world, rather a than a world where no species or form of matter resides at the center. 

To conclude, it is important to return to an idea mentioned at the beginning of this paper – that narratives such as A Psalm for the Wild-Built do not simply exist as a means of predicting or imagining futures, but that they have the potential to produce or inspire the very futures they portray. Solarpunk fiction, according to Johnson, can be considered pedagogical, in the way that it inspires “the imagination, the knowledge, skills, and creativity necessary for producing an ecological future” (12). While Chambers’ novel has many points of critique and gray areas, it is an uplifting and influential view of a world where all things – humans, robots, plants, tentacular appendages, and more – exist without conflict as one co-existing system. 

Works Cited

Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Duke University Press, 2010. 

Chambers, Becky. A Psalm for the Wild-Built: A Monk and Robot Book. Tordotcom, 2021. 

El-Mohtar, Amal. “A Monk and a Robot Meet in a Forest ... and Talk Philosophy in This New Novel.” NPR, 18 July 2021, www.npr.org/2021/07/18/1017119290/a-monk-and-a-robot-meet-in-a-forest-and-talk-philosophy-in-this-new-novel. Accessed 30 June 2023. 

Ferrando, Francesca. Philosophical Posthumanism. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. 

Herbrechter, Stefan et al., “Critical Posthumanism: An Overview”. Palgrave Handbook of Critical Posthumanism (Palgrave, 2022), 3–26

Haraway, Donna. A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s. Center for Social Research and Education, 1985. 

Haraway, Donna. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press, 2016. 

Hayles, N Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics. Univ. of Chicago Press, 2010. 
Johnson, Isaijah. “‘Solarpunk’ & the Pedagogical Value of Utopia.” Journal of Sustainability Education, vol. 23, Apr. 2020, pp. 1–16.