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SUMMARY:Ringing the alarm for a liveable future: Reproductive anxiety and 
 the climate crisis - Heather McMullen and Katharine Dow   Queen Mary Unive
 rsity of London\, Institute of Population Health Sciences\, Centre for Glo
 bal Public Health  Reproductive Sociology Research Group (ReproSoc)\, Univ
 ersity of Cambridge
DTSTART:20220215T130000Z
DTEND:20220215T140000Z
UID:TALK169106@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Fleur Nash
DESCRIPTION:This paper draws upon analysis of interviews and textual mater
 ials from organisations and forums in the Global North such as BirthStrike
 \, Conceivable Future and No Future No Children which gather pledges\, dec
 larations and testimonials asserting people’s reproductive intentions as
  statements of concern about climate crisis. Out of this material\, urgenc
 y\, precarity and windows of time - from ‘biological clocks’ to the ti
 me left to save the planet - emerge to generate new reproductive imaginari
 es. What happens to reproduction when the horizon of a liveable future is 
 seen to be so radically destabilised? How do people imagine family life an
 d their children’s futures in relation to their expectations of what cli
 mate change will mean? How do these imaginings express concern about futur
 e life in the Anthropocene?   Participants share a bedrock of common conce
 rns - existential anxiety around an uninhabitable earth\, species extincti
 ons\, water and food shortages\, societal upheaval\, conflict and forced m
 igration. However\, from these shared worries\, a wide range of different 
 responses and reconsiderations appear\, from re-thinking the very local de
 cision of whether to have children\, through to organising politically and
  socially to enable more liveable futures. A shared concern for reproducti
 on thus generates new and diverse visions: of the roots of the crisis\, it
 s solutions\, and what agency and practise might mean in this imagined fut
 ure. In this talk\, we will relate these topical conversations to the kind
 s of broader questions that animate political ecology\, considering whethe
 r and how this activism can be understood in relation to reproductive or c
 limate justice\, efforts to undo the political economic structures that ha
 ve created the climate crisis or contest (hetero-)normative expectations o
 f kinship and parenthood. 
LOCATION:Delivered online via Zoom
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