Making kin, not babies? Towards childist kinship in the “Anthropocene”

Abstract

To “make kin, not babies” is what Donna Haraway has recently proposed in response to the so-called “Anthropocene”. Building on other critical engagements with Haraway’s proposal, this paper interrogates it from a childist perspective. While striving towards a “pro-child” position on kinship, Haraway only goes so far in explicating this aim. The paper suggests that challenging adultism as well as attention to children's ongoing kinship practices are required.

Childist theory in the humanities and social sciences

“…Philosopher Tanu Biswas argues that ‘childist educational theory, both within and beyond the walls of schooling, must entail a conscious commitment to letting children and youth teach adult educators too’ (2021, p. 2). And, political theorist Nike Mattheis (2022) applies childism in post‐humanist theorizations on multispecies relations in the Anthropocene. In these and numerous other ways, childism has entered the scholarly lexicon as a way to critique adultism and develop child‐responsive social understanding.…”

Arriving at a question: Retrospections on post-qualitative slow research with children

“…Turning the analytical gaze to adultism in the personal and structural positionality, then is key to exploring these questions; an emphasis that is not observed as an explicit concern in feminist contributions to post-humanist and post-qualitative approaches like Taylor et al (2020), Hodgins (2019), Bodén and Gunnarsson (2021). Recent childist interventions in posthumanist thought (Mattheis, 2022), adult-critical amendments to political philosophy and decolonial theory (Rollo, 2016), the troubling of adult-centric knowledge structures (Imoh, 2023; Sparrman, 2023) and the inclusion of childism in policy research on place-based education (Furu et al, 2023) are some examples what turning the collective concern to confronting adultism can reveal about the importance of recognizing children and childhood from adult-critical standpoints.…”

Feminist Reflections on Childhood: A History and Call to Action. Penny Weiss. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2021 (ISBN: 9781439918692)

“…The meaningful discomfort that Weiss courageously embraces, and the honesty of her scholarly and social project, lies in grounding her work in a self-critical awareness of adultism in the foundations our social and moral lives. Although Weiss does not use the word childism , her work can be characterized as childist in the transformative-childhood studies sense of the term (Hulqvist 2018; Biswas 2021; Sporre 2021; Mattheis 2022; Wall 2022). This will be my reading of the book, which can add to readings from within solely feminist frameworks (see Locke 2022).…”