Making Kin: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene

Chapter 4 is a reprise of the book’s timescapes and a plea to “Make Kin Not Babies.” Antiracist, anticolonial, anticapitalist, proqueer feminists of every color and from every people have been leaders in the movement for sexual and reproductive freedom and rights, with particular attention to the violence of reproductive and sexual orders for poor and marginalized people. Feminists argue that sexual and reproductive freedom means being able to bring children, whether one’s own or those of others, to robust adulthood in health and safety in intact communities. Too often the policies of population control have the interests of biopolitical states more in view than the well-being of women and their people, resulting in scandalous population control practices. But progressive feminists have been slow to address the Great Acceleration of human numbers, fearing a slide into of racism, classism, nationalism, modernism, and imperialism. However, avoiding the urgency of increases in human numbers since 1950 can slide into something akin to the way some Christians avoid the urgency of climate change because it touches too closely on the marrow of their faith. How to address the urgency is the key question.