ISBN 978-3-8233-8350-5 C H A L L E N G E S “Make kin, not babies! ”, Donna Haraway demands in an attempt to o er new and creative ways of thinking what kinship might mean in an age of ecological devastation. At the same time, the emergence of a seemingly new culture of public protest and political opinion has provoked scholars such as Judith Butler to address the contexts and dynamics of public collective action. This volume explores the dynamic relationship between structures of kinship and the (material) conditions under which collective action emerges from a literary and cultural studies perspective. How are kinship and collective action negotiated in literature, the arts, or in speci c historical moments, and how does this a ect the role of representation? How have both concepts developed over time, and what can we infer from this for questions of kinship and collective action today? www.narr.de # 6 Bauer • Heise-von der Lippe Hirschfelder • Luther (eds.) Kinship and Collective Action Kinship and Collective Action in Literature and Culture C H A L L E N G E S # 6 Gero Bauer · Anya Heise-von der Lippe Nicole Hirschfelder · Katharina Luther (eds.) 18350_Umschlag.indd Alle Seiten 18350_Umschlag.indd Alle Seiten 05.08.2020 13: 35: 35 05.08.2020 13: 35: 35 Kinship and Collective Action herausgegeben von Gabriele Alex, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Ingrid Hotz-Davies, Dorothee Kimmich, Niels Weidtmann, Russell West-Pavlov Band 6 Challenges for the Humanities Herausforderungen für die Geisteswissenschaften C H A L L E N G E S Gero Bauer · Anya Heise-von der Lippe · Nicole Hirschfelder · Katharina Luther (eds.) Kinship and Collective Action in Literature and Culture © 2020 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlags unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Internet: www.narr.de eMail: info@narr.de Satz: pagina GmbH, Tübingen CPI books GmbH, Leck ISSN 2568-4019 ISBN 978-3-8233-8350-5 (Print) ISBN 978-3-8233-9350-4 (ePDF) ISBN 978-3-8233-0229-2 (ePub) www.fsc.org MIX Papier aus verantwortungsvollen Quellen FSC ® C083411 ® Umschlagabbildung: Herakut / Foto: Alexander Krziwanie Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http: / / dnb.dnb.de abrufbar 9 I. 35 43 63 83 II. 103 109 129 151 Contents Introduction Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther Kinship and Collective Action in Times of the Coronavirus . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interventions Russell West-Pavlov Kith and Kin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sebastian Engelmann Education and Collective Action: About Making Kin and “Learning to Live and Die Well Together” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kim Luther The Creative Couple: Towards an Aesthetic Union of the Human and the Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anya Heise-von der Lippe “What language do you dream in? ” Re-Imagining the Future of (Post-)Human Kinships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interactions Astrid Franke Kinship and Collective Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amina ElHalawani The Voice of the People: The Role of Kinship in the Songs of Sayed Darwish Sama Khosravi Ooryad Conquering, Chanting, and Protesting: Tools of Kinship Creation in the Girls of Enghelab Street (Non-)Movement in Iran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ana Nolasco Designing Kinship: Creative Processes and Collective Action . . . . . . . . . . . III. 183 187 209 229 251 287 271 Interpretations Ingrid Hotz-Davies Walking in Another’s Shoes: Making Kin Through Literature . . . . . . . . . . . Joelle Tybon The Stories We Tell: Kinship and Collective Action in ‘Abd al-Rahmān Munīf ’s al-Nihāyāt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ayman Bakr Identity, Kinship, and Revolution in the Narratives of Naguib Mahfouz . . . Maria Fleischhack Against all Odds: Kinship and Collective Action in The Expanse  . . . . . . . . . Jonatan Jalle Steller Resistance is Fertile: The Popularization of Kinship and the Impossibility of Reaching Utopia in Mad Max: Fury Road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IV. Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther Kinship and Collective Action: A Conversation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Contents Acknowledgments The editors would like to thank the following people, without whose hard work this volume would not have been possible: The contributors and other participants of the conference “Strata of Kinship and Collective Action in Literature and Culture”, organized by Gero Bauer, Nicole Hirschfelder, and Katharina Luther, with the tireless support of our stu‐ dent assistants Aileen Priester, Lea Zeiler, and Lukas Häberle, which took place on 8 and 9 November 2018 at the University of Tübingen. We are especially grateful that so many of you accepted our invitation to enter into a continued dialogue with us and develop your conference papers into chapters for this volume. Astrid Franke, Ingrid Hotz-Davies, and Russell West-Pavlov for providing us with three thought-provoking introductory chapters for each of the three parts of this volume. Our student assistants Hanna Bozenhardt, Lukas Häberle, Aileen Priester, Elias Sbordone, and Manuela Schmidt, who helped with the copy-editing and formatting of the articles in this volume. The series editors of the CHALLENGES for the Humanities series and the staff at Narr for giving this project a space in the series. We would especially like to thank the street art duo Herakut for kindly granting us permission to reproduce their work on the title page and throughout this volume. Introduction Kinship and Collective Action in Times of the Coronavirus Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther While we are in the process of finalizing this book in March 2020, an organic nonhuman player, the coronavirus SARS -CoV-2, infects the globe through its nonhuman agency. It has made the transition from patchy animal to human landscape, exposing the world as composed of more-than-human social struc‐ tures. Through this exposure, the pandemic directs our attention to a specific contemporariness, a zeitgeist, which emerges through crises that unveil our present as always already engaged with the nonhuman: from climate change, artificial intelligence, viruses, and biotechnology to highly techno-scientized warfare, we are weirdly entangled with diverse collectives. This strange contemporary in-mixing of nonhuman players seems to occur beyond our human subjectivity or any subject formation, flowing freely among and through us. Thinking with Jane Bennett (2010), SARS -CoV-2 appears as such a weird in-mixer because its effects stem from a nonhuman virus which has mutated beyond our human subjectivity to make a claim on vast numbers of human hosts worldwide, infecting and killing millions, dividing and connecting families, lovers, friends, neighbors, and pets, undoing economies, democracies, and health systems. What SARS -CoV-2 creates and exposes is relationality - outside and inside our political, social, and cultural systems. But it also shows the diverse ways in which we and nonhuman players participate in each other’s private and public lives. In the face of this specific nonhuman player, forms of individual kinship, in terms of, for example, building support networks with neighbors for watching kids and dogs, as well as doing grocery shopping, and providing health care, become ontologically entangled with systematic collec‐ tive action in the form of public health and relief work. The lines between what is public and private, individual and collective, systemic or free-flowing (this list could go on forever) blur when our world is unveiled as fundamentally par‐ ticipatory. At the same time, inorganic things, such as ventilators, rubber gloves, and hand sanitizer, become kin, performing a specific safeguarding role through their materiality in our daily being. These material items also weirdly become kin because the white liquid which produces rubber and latex, mechanical lungs which manufacture ventilation, or alcohol-based molecules which fabricate hand sanitizer erode our bodily boundaries to transform our lives, blurring the line between human and nonhuman collective engagement. In this time of pan‐ demic, coupled with climate change, biotechnology, and political oppression, thinking kinship together with collective action thus seems paramount. The conference from which this book emerged, hosted by the Center for Gender and Diversity Research and the English Department at the University of Tübingen, was organized to explore the dynamic relationship between struc‐ tures of kinship and the (material) conditions under which collective action at large emerge. Scholars from all over the world were brought together to discuss how kinship and collective action may be theorized as entangled in literature, the arts, or in specific historical moments, whether these relational conceptu‐ alizations are still timely, and if so, what they can do. Put simply, we asked what can be intellectually contemplated if we think kinship through collective action, and collective action through kinship. This book seeks to bring diverse modes of kinship into conversation with theories and practices of collective action within a wide variety of cultural and literary texts from the so-called Global North and South. Each approach is en‐ gaged in recognizing ideas of a non-biological mutuality of becoming kin within and across the (non-)human spectrum that may intersect with a collective, often political acting. Hence, this book attempts to bring together two theoretical frameworks that are usually conceptualized as separate: theories of kinship grow out of anthropology, a discipline that holds its expertise in attending to specificity, and into cultural studies, with feminist science and technology studies scholar such as Donna Haraway asking us to “Make kin, not babies! ” (see Haraway 2016) Theories of collective action, on the other hand, sprout from sociology into the public and political realm, with movements such as the Arab Spring, #BlackLivesMatter, or #metoo transforming streets into streams of pro‐ test that have provoked scholars such as Judith Butler to address the contexts and dynamics of public collective action. (see Butler 2015) These two conceptual houses, kinship and collective action, are often thought of as built on two distinct fundaments: kinship’s being individual and purposefully anti-systematic, and collective action’s being public and systematic. These formerly separate funda‐ ments have, however, been eroded and fractured by the decentering of the 10 Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther human as a primary unit of reference for material, affective, organic, and other nonhuman players and relational ontologies. In the context of this volume, we understand kinship not as a category mainly focused on descent and blood lineage, but first and foremost as a concept that describes and denotes the emerging and performative nature of relationality and belonging. Even within anthropology, the discipline most readily associated with the study of kinship and its relevance for different societies, there is no consensus as to what the term denotes exactly. Beginning with Lewis Henry Morgan’s (1871) Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, early studies of human kinship systems were based on the assumptions that the development and maintaining of stable social structures were unique to humans and that all humans shared an inherent valuation of specifically genealogical ties. At the same time, however, Morgan himself and later scholars always al‐ ready found evidence across societies of the usage of kinship terminology to describe social bonds beyond the immediate family. In the course of the second half of the twentieth century, anthropologists such as David M. Schneider con‐ tributed to a general shift towards seeing kinship structures as primarily con‐ structed, symbolic, and performative, rather than based on any ‘natural’ pre‐ conditions. (see Schneider 1984) While some studies, to this day, exclusively foreground networks of descent, marriage, and blood relation when talking about kinship, other writers acknowledge the fact that, in many if not all social contexts, who or what counts as kin, and who or what does not more often than not extends far beyond the sphere of lineage and marriage - sometimes to the inclusion of the nonor more-than-human. While the chapters in this book draw from a wide variety of conceptualiza‐ tions of kinship, Marshall Sahlins’ argument in favor of a wide and performative notion of kinship proves to be particularly productive for its overall outlook. (see Sahlins 2013) Sahlins outright rejects the possibility that kinship can have any fundamental or essential grounding in biology that exists somehow prior to or beyond the social and ever-emerging understandings of affective relation‐ ality that any group or individual ascribes to it. In consequence, he argues for an understanding of kinship as a “‘mutuality of being’: kinfolk are persons who participate intrinsically in each other’s existence; they are members of one an‐ other.” (Sahlins 2013: ix) This definition of kinship includes all forms of socially meaningful belonging, be they based on lineage and procreation, or on ritual and performative ascription. Kinship is thus never a fixed or permanent state that an individual or group find themselves in, but emerges over time in contexts of care and concern, is subject to change, and carries the potential for growth or diminishment: “an extended temporality is a condition of the relatedness at 11 Introduction issue, since it requires a cumulative process […]. It follows that memory is also essential, the recall of acts of compassion. […] Kinship is […] the perduring condition of the possibility of its (unstable) practice.” (Sahlins 2013: 8) Importantly, Sahlins foregrounds the strongly symbolic function of kinship, its being effective for the structuring of human (and more-than-human) rela‐ tions not by virtue of providing a single and unchanging structure - although systems of kinship are highly determined by their concrete practice, and thus far from random -, but by positioning individuals and groups in relation to each other and by locating and allocating responsibilities of care and concern. Lived kinship depends on concrete practice and emerges and modulates to the extent that individuals and groups relate to each other in certain ways (and not others) to signal and acknowledge their shared substance, their common being, and their responsibility for each other. As such, “kinship, gift exchange, and magic are so many different modalities of the same animistic regime.” (Sahlins 2013: 58) Arguably, the still common narrow understanding of kinship as exclusively denoting relations of human lineage and marriage grounds its influence and durability in western philosophical traditions and, maybe more importantly, in the capitalist logics of ownership and inheritance. While centuries of dominant thinking have worked to eclipse the vital realities of lived kinship that extend beyond the patriarchal family and the logic of human ownership of the earth, critics of color and indigenous theorists have foregrounded traditions of kinship that emerge, for example, from the realities of centuries of slavery (see, for ex‐ ample, Stack 1974), or from the traditions of indigenous peoples whose practices of kinship include ways of relating to such nonhuman entities as the land, the water, the ancestors, or the gods. (see, for example, Heath Justice 2008) If we want to work towards more collective, enabling, and critical understandings of how belonging, responsibility and care emerge and become possible outside and beyond the dominant and excluding logics of white-western-patriarchal thinking, we would do well to listen to and learn from these voices and their knowledge. Daniel Heath Justice, for example, proposes a decolonial understanding of kinship in the context of a collection of indigenous criticism. (see Heath Justice 2008) He argues that the project of decolonizing knowledge and knowledge practices must incorporate specifically indigenous experiences and understand‐ ings of kinship, which then, in turn, materializes not as an epistemological or ontological category, but as an emergent practice: “it’s not about something that is in itself so much as something we do - actively, thoughtfully, respectfully. [… K]inship is best thought of as a verb rather than a noun.” (Heath Justice 2008: 12 Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther 148, 150) At the same time, kinship, for Heath Justice, is also an “interpretive concept[…]” (Heath Justice 2008: 149) that emerges as part of the project of developing a Native literary criticism, and is thus key to an understanding of indigenous literatures. He explicitly pits an indigenous understanding of be‐ longing and community against “the individualist ethos of Eurowestern aca‐ deme” (Heath Justice 2008: 153) and thus ‘established’ western epistemological frameworks and traditions as inadequate for indigenous criticism. Politically speaking, Heath Justice’s emphasis on kinship also works towards more effec‐ tive agency and collective action for indigenous peoples within a racist context. The expansive and embracing scope of kinship, he argues, has the potential to unite indigenous nations in their fight for survival and cultural expression, whereas debates about racial ‘purity’ and originality only lead to separatism: “Kinship is adaptive; race, as a threatened constitutive commodity, always runs the risk of becoming washed out to the point of insignificance.” (Heath Justice 2008: 159) We must be careful not to disingenuously appropriate Heath Justice’s theo‐ rizing and defense of kinship in a specifically indigenous context for other projects, as such an endeavor will always run the risk of reproducing the dy‐ namics of colonial knowledge relations and of diluting the specifically anti-western drive of Heath Justice’s argument. However, we believe that ac‐ knowledging and potentially learning from indigenous and non-western knowl‐ edges should be a central concern of contemporary critical theory and criticism proper. Practices of both kinship and collective action that emerge as reparative processes in the contemporary political, social, and cultural landscape are not inventions of western (post-)postmodernity. Rather, rigid notions and classifi‐ cations of kinship as exclusively denoting blood relations and heterosexual lin‐ eage are fundamentally colonial knowledge projects that we need to unlearn in order to arrive at a more open and liberated perspective on kinship - and life in general. Moreover, such critical framings of kinship might not only enable new and better understandings of contemporary literary and cultural practices and the lived realities of many people, but also lay bare the stakes implicit in shifting notions of community and belonging. As Judith Butler points out for the con‐ temporary Eurowestern context, “[v]ariations on kinship that depart from nor‐ mative, dyadic heterosexually based family forms secured through the marriage vow are figured not only as dangerous for the child, but perilous to the putative natural and cultural laws said to sustain human intelligibility.” (Butler 2002: 16) Unlearning and learning afresh how people relate, come together, belong, and feel as one thus has wide-reaching political implications. Resisting simplistic 13 Introduction perspectives on kinship and human (and more-than-human) relations also means resisting both a narrowing of the hermeneutic potential of kinship and a simplistic understanding of lived and shared experience and practice. Such thoughtful resistance can enable better and more inclusive knowledge about shared pains and shared responsibilities. As Donna Haraway puts it, “[m]aking kin as oddkin rather than, or at least in addition to godkin and genealogical and biogenetic family troubles important matters, like to whom one is actually re‐ sponsible.” (Haraway 2016: 2) Like kinship, collective action requires some preliminary definitional con‐ siderations. For the sake of accuracy and to avoid misunderstandings, it is, at first, crucial to briefly contrast collective action with another term, ‘collective behavior’, which is also employed in contexts that describe and analyze crowds of people, and continues to constitute an analytical term in sociology and a number of other disciplines. The term ‘collective behavior’ has been used since the 1920s and was first introduced in the context of disasters. Yet, the term itself did not immediately become a staple in academic literature, as various scholars also analyzed similar phenomena, but did not employ ‘collective behavior’ to refer to their observations. (see Miller 2013: 7) Since early thinkers, such as Charles McKay and Gustave LeBon, described people’s behavior in crowds as marked by “irrationality” and / or “immorality” (Miller 2013: 8), these charac‐ teristics soon became firmly ascribed to ideas about all kinds of collective activity (see Miller 2013: 8), with the term usually referring to people’s behavior in crowds. Other scholars challenged these views and demonstrated that people in crowds or gatherings were, in fact, not necessarily prone to irrational, senti‐ mental, or immoral behavior. Nevertheless, the image of people in crowds that behave somewhat irresponsibly due to this circumstance was difficult to change and, to this day, proves quite persistent. In the 1980s, Clark McPhail then was among the first to refer to people’s “collective actions” (Miller 2013: 8) in his work in order to signal a departure from the simplistic belief that people in groups were not able to act in an orderly or carefully structured manner. The term ‘collective action’ subsequently be‐ came - and for many people continues to be - equated with demonstrations and protests. This is, in large part, due to the fact that it was often strategic, delib‐ erate, and planned actions in organized mass events, such as social movements, that drew scholars’ attention. David L. Miller, whose Introduction to Collective Behavior and Collective Action remains a key publication in the field, describes yet another development regarding collective action. He lays out how he and other scholars share a broader notion of the term, which, as of the 1980s, has been basically synonymous with protests and demonstrations. 14 Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther In addition to these meanings, Miller and others also conceive of other phe‐ nomena, such as sports, migration, riots, or disaster responses, as collective ac‐ tion and thus further expand the term’s meaning. (see Bach and Schraml 1982; see Useem 1985) Instead of merely being used in the context of protest or social movements, collective action, for many scholars, thus also entails agency and activities performed ‘together’ (in a broad sense) that pertain to seemingly dif‐ ferent fields, but share many aspects with each other. With regard to this new perspective, Miller states: The concept of collective action encourages more unified conceptual and analytical approaches across sociology’s subject matter. It also encourages efforts to discover commonalities among phenomena seen as quite separate, such as the actions of cor‐ porate executives in response to the latest move of a competitor or a protest group responding to a court order. (Miller 2013: 16) This means that collective action can also be applied as an analytical lens that shows similarities or parallels between seemingly unrelated aspects. Moreover, due to the fact that current definitions and concepts of collective action change, discerning which processes can be considered ‘collective action’ remains subject to negotiation and changing perspectives on social dynamics. With regard to recent and current academic discourse on collective action, yet another trend can be noted that also illustrates the growing versatility of research on the concept. Over the course of the past few years, numerous scholars have increasingly focused on highlighting the significance of specific aspects in and for collective action. Frederick W. Mayer makes a case for seeing collective action through the lens of narratives, for example, and introduces the notion of narrative politics to the discourse on collective action, a perspective that had thus far not found much reflection in the scholarship on the subject matter. (see Mayer 2014) A reason for this might be that collective action has, firstly and mainly, attracted the interest of sociologists and political scientists, fields that usually do not place emphasis on narratives or narrative strategies. Disciplines that do focus on these aspects have not been as dominant in the relevant discussions, which also finds expression in the fact that research from literary and cultural studies still marks a comparatively new development in this field. Accordingly, most of the following recent contributions on collective action hail from political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists. Alexandra Segerberg and W. Lance Bennett, for example, have pointed out the importance of social media for collective action and highlighted the impact of the virtual world on the actual, political field by examining so-called “Twitter revolutions.” (Segerberg and Bennett 2011: 197) The issue of moral obligation 15 Introduction has been emphasized by José-Manuel Sabucedo et al. (2018), while Emma A. Renström et al. have asserted that “social pressure is a strong motivating factor in political engagement” (Renström et al. 2018: 1) and hold that “when there is a social norm guiding political behavior it is plausible that subtle cues of possible rejection may lead individuals to participate in collective action.” (Renström et al. 2018: 4-5) This line of research has underscored the great impact of social dynamics on (seemingly) individual choices and also ties in with the above-men‐ tioned focus on morals, norms, and values. Soumyajit Mazumder’s perspective on collective action has acknowledged that “social movements,” a typical form of collective action “that no longer exist today[,] can still lead to a persistent impact on politics outside of formal institutional changes,” (Mazumder 2018: 932) and suggests “that scholars should look more deeply into the institutions required to lock in a social movement’s political and cultural legacies.” (Ma‐ zumder 2018: 932) Accordingly, Mazumder asserts that collective action is by no means short-lived, in that only the immediate effect of, for example, a demon‐ stration should be taken into account. Instead, he argues that the role of insti‐ tutions should not be underestimated when it comes to the question of how sustainable collective action is, as its legacy can potentially be understood best by analyzing (changes in) institutions. Paris Aslanidis examined “how framing specifically affects the course of mobilization in a causal manner.” (Aslanidis 2018: 460) In this context, he held that the populist frame frequently proved superior. (see Aslanidis 2018: 459) Paul D. Almeida, by contrast, took a closer look at the role of threat in and for collective action, and thus specifically high‐ lighted a topic that has, surprisingly, received comparatively little scholarly at‐ tention thus far. (see Almeida 2019) It is clear that the situation of the past months, which is still ongoing as we are writing this introduction, will also inform how we as academics and humans think about collective action in the future. The coronavirus SARS -CoV-2 has left a profound mark on virtually all societies around the globe and has laid open both the beautiful and ugly sides of human interaction in times of this global health, economic, and social crisis. Indeed, the various flare-ups of Sinophobia (see Rich 2020; see Liu 2020; see Wong 2020), nationalism (see Varoufakis 2020; see Gillespie 2020), and mass-panic-buying (see Bekiempis 2020; see Ziady 2020) that secured much needed supplies for some and - with callous indiffer‐ ence - left nothing for others also all have to be mentioned in the context of (in this case lacking) kinship and collective action (for selfish reasons). The collective, worldwide experience of feeling helpless, desperate, or threat‐ ened by an invisible enemy (a virus) constitutes a new quality of shared senti‐ ment that also affects - among most other aspects of life - hitherto firmly es‐ 16 Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther tablished definitions and concepts of collective action. It will thus be interesting, and in some contexts vital, to see what new forms and connections people create when ‘traditional’ forms of collective action, such as protests, marches, or flash mobs, do not present an alternative, as people are not only advised to practice physical distancing, but also share a personal and caring interest (for their fellow humans) in doing so. Here, too, the past months may have already provided us with glimpses into the future of how people ‘come together’ without necessarily actually doing so. Different kinds of online platforms have played a decisive role in allowing humans to act collectively. The footage of neighbors singing to‐ gether, but separated on balconies in Italy (see Kearney 2020; see Thorpe 2020), of creative food offerings to the homeless on so-called ‘Gabenzäunen’ (gift fences) that extend care but avoid physical contact (see Jonas 2020; see Bahrampour 2020), of whole towns and villages applauding for those serving the community in their absence, sending support in spirit (see Fidler 2020), or of the Serbian National Theatre offering a rendition of “Bella Ciao” as an or‐ chestra, with all musicians playing alone in their homes (see “Serbian National Theatre Records Remote Performance as Coronavirus Forces Show Cancella‐ tions”) has not only facilitated communication, but also inspired further action. In some cases, this action also turned political in a conventional sense in the form of online petitions, which certainly do not constitute a new phenomenon, but have enjoyed soaring interest and support, as many expressed their solid‐ arity for those in need of immediate financial support by the government, for example. (see MIX 2020; see O’Leary 2020; see Crolla 2020) This volume is, in many ways, a collaborative effort, and while the initial idea for it was conceived at a conference, most of the collaboration on the volume itself was only made possible by communication technologies that allowed the editors to send emails to contributors and conduct editorial meetings by skyping across the Atlantic, or at least across the country. Not only have these technol‐ ogies now become essential under the impact of a global pandemic that changes how we can relate to each other, but lockdown and quarantine conditions have also heightened our awareness of how we communicate and collaborate. The changes and fears we now face will, in all probability, also impact our perspective on the related topics of kinship and collective action in literature and culture that this volume explores. This does not only regard questions concerning the immediate response to a pandemic affecting every aspect of life. As academics, we also face the underlying question of what this means for our understanding of how we - as humans - relate to each other and to the outside world - that is, how we practice kinship and act collectively. 17 Introduction Beyond the general questions of how our idea of ‘kin’ is re-shaped by new fears and threats, and how we can act collectively in times of local and national quarantines, lockdowns, and calls to voluntary social distancing, we would also like to explore a number of possible trajectories for how kinship and collective action emerge in literature and culture beyond the immediate circumstances to create a framework of questions for the more detailed explorations in the fol‐ lowing chapters. These concern three wider topics: global / local = glocal con‐ nections; the idea of making things together; and the principle of care work. 1. Glocal Connections As localized individuals, we still live in a globalized world, and our cultures are, to an extent, globalized. These connections become more visible, but are also under threat, in times of crisis. International travel and trade connections played an important role in the emergence of SARS -CoV-2 in one of the industrial centers of China, where a growing population of workers (producing goods for international markets) became infected or locked down in the subsequent efforts to contain the spread of the infection. (see Kawakami and Tabeta 2020) While the media were quick to blame local eating habits (see Lynteris and Fearnley 2020), the destruction of habitats of the wildlife that spread the virus must, in all probability, also be taken into account (see Vidal 2020), highlighting the in‐ terconnectedness of humanity with other forms of life on this planet. Global connections also play a role in fighting the spread and impact of the virus - for instance with regard to sharing information and data, and in terms of distrib‐ uting resources globally. Some of these efforts are certainly guided by greed and profiteering - for instance the alleged attempt by US president Trump to buy out German researchers in order to exclusively secure a potential vaccine for the US market. (see Carrel and Rinke 2020) But some of these efforts also seem to express a sense of kinship beyond national and cultural boundaries. On 9 March 2020, news outlets reported that the Chinese electronics manufacturer Xiaomi had sent a gift of tens of thousands of protective face masks to the Italian government, printing a quote by Roman poet Seneca on the boxes: “We are waves of the same sea, leaves of the same tree, flowers of the same garden.” (Fearnow 2020) What was presented as a gesture of gratitude to customers in Xiaomi’s growing Italian market might, of course, also be seen as a publicity stunt, as the image quickly made the rounds on social media. It still says something about the relevance of literature as a kinship practice that a sense of kinship across cultures can be achieved by printing the words of a roughly 2000-year-old poem on a box of protective face masks in the middle of a pandemic. 18 Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther 2. Making things together This crisis is a very slow one. It is also a crisis that impacts different populations and social strata differently - separating, quite urgently, administrative work, which can be done remotely, from service work and most types of care work, which require the physical presence of workers, and endanger their lives, often for substantially lower pay. Inequalities emerge more prominently in times of crisis (see FAR ), and coping strategies to slow down or fight the global pandemic draw attention to how much change might actually be possible if societies, for once, put (human) lives and kinship before shareholder revenue. This is reflected in communication across the board, as companies and organizations struggle to create remote working frameworks, and universities implement online teaching: hastily adjusted syllabuses now include sentences like “We are going to prioritize supporting each other as humans“ (Bayne 2020), company emails end in ‘stay safe,’ or, in Germany, ‘bleiben Sie gesund’ (stay healthy). (see Goode 2020; see Thies 2020) Compared to other crises, this one also comes with an unprecedented amount of reflection. We will likely have to deal with the current situation for months, if not years, and thinkers from various disciplines (psychology, philosophy, so‐ ciology, etc.) are trying to assess the situation and imagine survival strategies for individuals and societies. Think pieces on the world after the coronavirus (see Harari 2020) and the necessities and possibilities of system change (see Žižek 2020) abound. For those of us not working on the frontlines of healthcare, this is a contemplative crisis and, to an extent, also a very creative one, as artists and performers are discovering new outlets in a time of quarantine and social distancing - from online exhibitions (see Kambhampaty 2020) to dance per‐ formance and musical concert videos made at home or at least with proper social distancing measures, and widely shared on social media. (see CPR 2020; see Kulturzeit 2020) These also reflect on the new necessities of staying apart while acting collectively, which may create new types of kinship practices. One ex‐ ample would be the already mentioned practice of communal singing from in‐ dividual balconies, which helps Italians, who have been on lockdown for weeks now, to create a sense of kinship and collective artistic action. (see Locker and Hoffman 2020) Social media platforms and video-calling apps are quickly replacing physical contact and helping people to organize support and care for each other. Com‐ munication technology is also, however, being used to track and limit people’s movements - not only in surveillance states like China (see Žižek 2020; see Harari 2020), but around the globe, as governments discover ways of using technology to fight the pandemic, and political commentators are calling for 19 Introduction “another form [of globalization] that recognises interdependence and the pri‐ macy of evidence-based collective action” not only in the context of the current pandemic, but also for connected issues like “climate change, the oceans, finance and cybersecurity.” (Hutton 2020) It is almost certain that the pandemic will substantially change our cultures, and that it will, eventually, give way to a different, new normal. What this new normal will look like, and in how far it will be shaped by the increased power of nation states, or by the collective ac‐ tions of the people remains to be seen. As Andrew Sullivan writes in “How to Survive a Plague”: “The one thing we know about epidemics is that at some point they will end. The one thing we don’t know is who we will be then.” (Sullivan 2020) 3. Care work In times of crisis, the difficult and often dangerous burden of care work lies, to an inordinate degree, on overworked and underpaid health-care staff and women who are taking over where society can no longer safely provide care, or simply does not prioritize care work. (see Lewis 2020; see FAR ; see Piepzna- Samarsinha 2018) Care work is, by definition, a kinship practice, as it acknowl‐ edges another being that needs to be cared for. It is also, as Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarsinha argues, a community building practice. (see Piepzna Samarsinha 2018) Both kinship and collective action rely on a ‘we.’ Different theories of kinship may have different definitions of who (or what) can be en‐ gaged in such practices, or be part of kin (where kinship is defined as a stable relationship), but there is no way a single being can practice kinship. There is also no way to act collectively by oneself - in a collective spirit, perhaps, but to act collectively, ‘we’ have to act together. Who exactly is included in this or any ‘we’ is largely a matter of definition. Donna Haraway argues that we should focus on making kin with all kinds of creatures beyond the limitations of our fragile definitions of humanity. (see Haraway 2016) Timothy Morton points out that we are always already engaged in weird forms of symbiotic existence and collective practices, with various microbial organisms living in and on our bodies - an observation that troubles the idea that there can be a single, indi‐ vidual ‘I’ just as much as it suggests that ‘we’ always already live in kinship with different organisms. (see Morton 2017) At the current moment in human history, the world is watching as our sharing our bodies with various ‘critters,’ as Haraway would have it, slimy and cute, hostile and benevolent, is also becoming one of the worst nightmares for hu‐ manity. While these approaches challenge traditional hierarchies that place human existence at the top level of being, they do not necessarily always ac‐ knowledge that the human ‘we’ is, in itself, already a troubled and troubling 20 Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther category, as Rosi Braidotti argues. (see Braidotti 2013: 1) The combined en‐ deavors of colonialism and capitalism have produced a prevailing sense of the human ‘we’ that has excluded - and frequently still excludes, albeit to different degrees - black and indigenous people, people of color, women, people with disabilities, members of different LGBTQI * communities, the homeless and dis‐ placed, as well as other ‘Others.’ These exclusions become exceedingly visible in times of global threat, as they have done throughout the various incarnations of the global HIV pandemic and other major crises, and they are currently emerging in the racist and ableist discourse around the global spread of SARS -CoV-2. (see Koranne 2020) There is, for instance, a curious discrepancy between the need for the online accessibility and social distancing expertise that disabled and chronically ill people can provide, and the rhetoric of the viral narrative which explicitly po‐ sitions the same demographic as expendable. For weeks, the discourse around who will be most affected by the pandemic was, in many ways, focused on assuring everyone that ‘only’ the elderly and people with disabilities and un‐ derlying health conditions are likely to die. Wartime triage systems in Italy or the ‘three wise men’ protocol the British NHS is likely to implement are based on “the most brutal logic of the survival of the fittest” (Žižek 2020), forcing doctors in underequipped hospitals to decide who the limited resources should be spent on. (see Hensel and Wolf 2020) For the immunocompromised part of the population, the current political rhetoric around the pandemic shows an almost surreal discrepancy between messages of solidarity and the acceptance of their immediate death. Disability studies may provide a way of engaging with such arguments. As Piepzna-Samarsinha argues, “disability justice […] means we are not left behind; we are beloved, kindred, needed.” (Piepzna-Samarsinha 2018: 22) This, however, would also require a new understanding of kinship - one based on caring for the Other in the same way that we care for our kin. An equitable understanding of disability justice and care work must include a focus on the entangled issues of disability and environmental justice as well as other intersecting concerns. (see Streeby 2018) It is in times of crisis that our sense of who ‘we’ are and who is not included in the idea of ‘we’ will shift most dramatically, and those who survive will have to deal with a new understanding of kinship, and develop new ways of acting collectively. For now, we may want to focus on two essential questions raised by Arielle Angel: “Do these words constitute an act of care? And: Will they help us fight? “ (Angel 2020) As academics and individual human beings who interact with others, we need to attempt to make sense of the current moment, and how it is impacted by our 21 Introduction actions. In this, we also need to acknowledge the difficulties of writing about kinship and collective action under the current circumstances, as countries around the world, communities, and people individually scramble to react to the exigencies of a virus with far-reaching consequences. This situation of radical global change is, however, also a rare opportunity which allows us to rethink the ways in which we practice kinship and act collectively as human beings. We understand this collection as a contribution to this process. The chapters in this volume appear in three subsections, each of which roughly reflects a different degree or kind of theoretical or hermeneutic access to the relevant material, and each section is introduced by a short reflective essay. The three chapters collected in the first section, ‘Interventions,’ intro‐ duced by Russell West-Pavlov, ask broad theoretical questions about the position of the posthuman in education, philosophy of science, art, and literature. Sebastian Engelmann takes an as of yet rarely explored posthumanist approach to the discussion of educational sciences in Germany, arguing that it is possible to think of education without centering the human being by taking Haraway’s approach to ‘making kin’ at face value. Engelman suggests that, to posthumanize a theory in a critical manner, it is necessary to reconsider the basic structure of this theory. The chapter consequently troubles such fundamental concepts as learning, the opposition of nature and culture, and (human) subjectivity, and presents an outlook on how the collective action of making kin beyond human‐ kind might reduce the harm of humanist limitations in education and beyond. Kim Luther explores the possibilities of KinArt; that is, the creative kinship of human and machine in the production of art. The chapter uses an anthropolog‐ ical and ethnological approach to kinship that reads it as a practice or perform‐ ance and argues that our contemporary relationship with various types of ma‐ chinery suggests that we already engage in such creative practices with machines in ways that transgress human creativity. To corroborate this point, Luther presents two examples of KinArt: haute couture dresses from the exhi‐ bition Manus ex Machina, for which the designers - Karl Lagerfeld and Iris van Herpen - explicitly relied on human-machine cooperation. Finally, Anya Heise-von der Lippe critically examines the current ubiquity of apocalyptic nar‐ ratives and visions in Western cultural production and draws attention to the reliance of many of these narratives of cultural cataclysms on the taking-for-granted of the survival of the white, western, affluent, and able-bodied subject. She goes on to argue that, especially in an age of climate catastrophe, we need to turn our attention to narrative as a source of other possible futures and to those narratives that creatively sidestep and undermine the dominant apocalyptic logic of a survival of the strongest, and instead 22 Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther imagine stories about the making of kin between and beyond that which is usu‐ ally conceptualized as the human. The chapter analyzes an example of such ‘sympoietic’ narration in Cherie Dimaline’s young-adult novel The Marrow Thieves. The book’s second section, ‘Interactions,’ begins with a short piece by Astrid Franke. It brings together three chapters that analyze the relationship between protest, revolution, and artistic expression in different social and cultural con‐ texts. Amina ElHalawani revisits Sayed Darwish’s revolutionary songs as a site and practice of resistance in song for both Egypt’s 1919 and 2011 revolutions. She takes us through Darwish’s songs to show that who counts as Egyptian ‘people’ is not based on identity categories, but on agency and active civil par‐ ticipation. ElHalawani introduces the performativity of Darwish’s revolutionary songs in protest on the street as a practice where collective action emerges, and in which different kinship groups, and thus difference, can still exist through the polyphony of song. Sama Khosravi Ooryad demonstrates how Iranian women have reclaimed public spaces and cultivated political kinship within their local resistance collectives. Ooryad particularly examines their use of two largely overlooked creative tools that, in combination, result in an unprece‐ dented activist force: the chanting of revolutionary songs and the appropriation of urban objects and places. The chapter provides a short background of the 2017-2018 DayMah Uprising, examines the public interventions of Iranian women and their strategic use of the compulsory hijab, discusses the signifi‐ cance of urban objects and place regarding (non-)movements, and, finally, an‐ alyzes three songs that were chanted by members and supporters of the (non-)movement during the protests against inequalities and discriminatory laws in Iran. Ana Nolasco’s chapter, finally, focuses on the entanglement of kin‐ ship, art, and design in collaborative action processes that combine art / design and political activism. The chapter follows Marshall Sahlins’ approach to kinship as a ‘mutuality of being’ that can lead to collective action. Within this theoretical framework, the chapter analyzes three different collaborative art / design projects: We Are Here, a collaborative project created by a group of refugees protesting the negation of citizenship rights by the Dutch government through various creative processes, The Tower of David, a self-organized collaborative living and design project in an abandoned tower block in Caracas, Venezuela, and the Portuguese artist RIGO 23’s combination of art and political activism. The four chapters collected in the final section, ‘Interpretations,’ introduced by Ingrid Hotz-Davies, present close readings of individual fictional texts that all, in different ways, perform the intersection of kinship and collective action on a textual level. Joelle Tybon shows that ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Munīf ’s 1977 novel 23 Introduction al-Nihāyāt is able to shift a community, both in its understanding of its kinship network, and in its ability to take collective action to change its future. Tybon first discusses Haraway’s conception of kinship, particularly in thinking about kinship in Munīf ’s al-Nihāyāt. She continues to show that, in the novel, the idea of kinship goes beyond biological notions of belonging and explains how the narrative permits the villagers to recognize their kinship with others, testing alternative ways of configuring their relationships. Tybon concludes that the stories reveal a new vision of kinship because the people of al-Ṭība come to understand that they must act collectively if they want to live together. Ayman Bakr analyzes Naguib Mahfouz’ novella A Story Without a Beginning, Without and End, discussing two central questions: through the events of the novella, where kinship is dominating and acting as the moving engine, what is the mod‐ ernization formula that Mahfouz suggests; and is this a revolutionary or a peaceful reform process? Bakr talks about problems of identity in Arab countries during the first half of the twentieth century. Using the novella as an example, he shows that Mahfouz is not trying to abolish kinship structures, but that they need to be radically reformed. He then employs the example of the novella to demonstrate that kinship should remain a constructive power. Maria Fleischhack dives into the world of contemporary science fiction through the space opera The Expanse, which explores the protagonists’ kinship as a weird family beyond the Anthropocene in an uncertain cosmic future. Fleischhack uses contemporary critical theory on relationalities by Haraway and Jason W. Moore to bring the idea of kinship in conversation with affect studies, highlighting moments of kinship as an affective practice of belonging in the otherworldly, yet very human world of The Expanse. Jonatan Jalle Steller, finally, reads the 2015 blockbuster Mad Max: Fury Road alongside Haraway’s discussion of kinship. He argues that the film uses the imagery of the wasteland and fertility to contrast biological and non-biological notions of kinship in the context of a dystopian society and that it puts forth a vision of collective action as allegiance and solidarity across identity markers that is empowering, but also limited. Steller problematizes the film’s critical framing as potentially ‘post-feminist,’ demonstrating its indebt‐ edness to feminist debate, but also its ultimately conservative glorification of an ideal of fertility. Neither kinship nor collective action alone, Steller concludes from his reading of this popular text, automatically lead to a better world. The book concludes with a written conversation between the editors about the central questions and concerns raised in the different chapters. As a number of contributions to this volume argue, one of the ways to act collectively while evoking a sense of kinship across various local, temporal, or even species borders is to produce and engage with art collectively. The Berlin-based street art duo 24 Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther Herakut, who have kindly granted us permission to use images of a number of their murals for our cover and throughout this volume, grapple with different notions of kinship in their art, and engage in different modes of collective ac‐ tion - not just through their artistic practices, but also, for instance, in their work with marginalized communities. As is often the case with street art, we came across the cover image for this volume (Fig. 1) quite by accident, as it is located under a bridge close to Mannheim main station. 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Vidal, John (2020). ‘Destroyed Habitat Creates the Perfect Conditions for Coronavirus to Emerge.’ Scientific American, 18 March. www.scientificamerican.com/ article/ destroye d-habitat-creates-the-perfect-conditions-for-coronavirus-to-emerge/ ? fbclid=IwAR05 OsNx3DTTmkoCbg5-kylKE2eYlkThrBnpsbXub62hE7blzq4rWxHeK6E (accessed 21 March 2020). 29 Introduction Wong, Tessa (2020). ‘Sinophobia: How Virus Reveals the Many Ways China is Feared.’ BBC, 20 February. www.bbc.com/ news/ world-asia-51456056 (accessed 25 March 2020). Ziady, Hanna (2020). ‘Panic Buying is Forcing Supermarkets to Ration Food and Other Supplies.’ CNN, 18 March. www.edition.cnn.com/ 2020/ 03/ 18/ business/ supermarkets -rationing-coronavirus/ index.html (accessed 25 March 2020). Žižek, Slavoj (2020). ‘Monitor and Punish? Yes Please.’ The Philosophical Salon, 16 March. http: / / thephilosophicalsalon.com/ monitor-and-punish-yes-please/ ? fbclid=IwAR3Aje fu4A3qejaAvtjysSNLRyuqzM4cfwj3QCopz1KUElyiFjKBq17XiXY (accessed 21 March 2020). 30 Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther Herakut: “Nobody is too small to matter” (Sao Paolo, 2015, reproduced with permission) I. Interventions Kith and Kin Russell West-Pavlov What does the term ‘kinship’ call to mind for the average educated user? Prob‐ ably not the quotidian family relationships in which users are themselves em‐ bedded, but rather, something imagined as remote from everyday ‘modern’ re‐ alities. The term probably connotes the highly sophisticated systems developed by non-European societies to regulate social distance and proximity in the realm of conjugal relationships. (see Lévi-Strauss 1949) Of these, few traces remain in our societies except in the very schematic form of a general incest taboo (see Lévi-Strauss, 1958: 57; see Lévi-Strauss 1968: 47); kinship thus remains connoted as premodern and the primitive. Even the hypermodern three-dimensional ge‐ odetic modelling of the sophisticated kinship structures such as those that were prevalent in pre-contact Australian indigenous cultures (see Lévi-Strauss and Eribon 1991: 78-9; see Héran 2009: 87-140) does little to dispel the exotic flavour of the notion. When we rummage around in our current everyday vocabulary, however, we may come across the somewhat bookish but not uncommon cog‐ nate ‘kith and kin,’ which almost always occurs as an irreversible binomial. Today it generally translates as ‘friends and family,’ but works to give this more pragmatic denomination a reassuringly quaint charm. This slightly antiquated turn of phrase, for all its partially archaic form (‘kith’ as a single, unharnessed term disappears from usage by about 1500, see OED 1.-3.) and whiff of historical strangeness, also has something comfortably old-world and rustic, redolent of a rural homeliness very far from the New World tang of kinship. It is odd that the double-barrelled term ‘kith and kin’ is actually the one least foreign in its connotation, whereas the cool technicity of ‘kinship’ denotes social complexities our ostensibly liberal society has long since consigned to an authoritarian past. This oddly chiastic reversal perhaps points to a carefully concealed entangle‐ ment of such terms that may tell us more about the hidden realities of kinship than we care to acknowledge. This diachronic entanglement of the modern and the archaic reflects a more disturbing entanglement of what Lévi-Strauss once called ‘the near and the far.’ (see Lévi-Strauss and Eribon 1991) A brief look at the etymology of ‘kith’ reveals its beginning as a Middle English term originating in the Old English ‘cȳþþ’ or ‘cȳþþu,’ meaning ‘kinship, kinsfolk, relations,’ from which it begins to differen‐ tiate itself once it becomes coupled to ‘kin,’ in the late 1300s. ( OED 5.) At this juncture, ‘kith’ begins to shift its meaning to encompass ‘the persons who are known or familiar, taken collectively; one’s friends, fellow-countrymen, or neighbours; acquaintance.’ ( OED 4.) The Old English in turn derives from the Old Germanic family of ‘kund-’ terms, beginning with the conglomeration of meanings around ‘sign,’ ‘mark,’ and ‘knowledge,’ then extending to ‘witness,’ at some point ‘client’ and eventually ‘customer.’ The English ‘kith’ also denotes ‘knowledge’ (with this meaning disappearing by about 1400) ( OED 1.), ‘native land’ or ‘region,’ that is, the territory that is known, with this meaning also fading away by 1500, ceding simply to those who inhabit that region. ( OED 3.) A derivative of this meaning can be found in ‘couth,’ referring to those who are known or renowned in the land (‘uncouth’ would refer to those whose social status is too low to allow them reputation and status). What is striking about this potted history of a ‘fossilized’ term such as ‘kith,’ once it is shackled to ‘kin,’ is the gradual narrowing of its meaning, and its slow infusion by a median social distance, as opposed to ‘kin,’ which denotes the most intimate social relationships. It is as if the term ‘kith,’ at the moment it comes into a kinship relationship with ‘kin,’ must be differentiated from its new neigh‐ bour in a process whereby ‘kin’ jealously stakes out its home territory and wards off potential interlopers - a process of “domestication” of kinship. (Haraway 2016: 2) The cognitive, spatial, even geographical connotations of ‘kith’ are shed as its semantic range shrinks, and its almost tautological relationship to ‘kin’ is sundered into inner and outer circles. A systems theorist would trace in the historical semantics of the term symptoms of a rising degree of social complexity necessitating the progress of successive stages of Ausdifferenzierung (in English inadequately rendered by ‘differentiation’; see Luhmann 1982), that is, the es‐ tablishment of increasingly specialized systems and subsystems to manage complexity. In this manner, ‘kinship’ and ‘kithship’ (if one may be permitted such a neologism) peel away from each other to denote precisely the respective domains of social ‘proximity’ and ‘distality’ that were the binaries underlying kinship structures. At this point ‘kinship’ emerges as an entity in itself, differ‐ entiated from its identical but disavowed twin. Yet that terminological self-con‐ tainment never eradicates a residual pairedness that lurks in the shadows like a secret shame. Kinship as a concept per se, we must suspect, is a contradiction in terms because kinship in fact is a relationship and not a single entity. This is perhaps 36 Russell West-Pavlov why, barely hatched into conceptual autarky, it nonetheless immediately shacks up with ‘kith’ and multiplies itself in common speech into the archaic but fre‐ quent binomial ‘kith and kin.’ The antiquated flavour of ‘kith’ is an aftertaste of the history of ‘kinship.’ ‘Kith’s anachronism declares ‘kin’’s affinity to a larger community than that of the family (whether nuclear or extended - but there we are already beginning to blur the boundaries and slide dangerously back towards ‘kith’). The olde worlde ring of ‘kith’ preserves something that is fundamental and foundational about human society, and perhaps even beyond. In fact, then, there is nothing ‘fossilized’ about the term ‘kith.’ On the contrary, it reveals the historical process whereby relationality, however often it may attempt to ‘immunize’ itself against the incursions of otherness into the pro‐ tected and propertied sphere of the self (Esposito 2004; 2011), remains irresistibly fluid and contagious, constantly seeping across always porous borders to em‐ brace what is not known to itself. Semantics follows in its wake, so that words ‘slip, slide, […] / Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, / Will not stay still’ (Eliot 1969: 175), constantly drawn into the orbit of other words to which they are akin (in other words: their kin). However much ‘kith and kin’ claims to differentiate ‘family and friends,’ they stubbornly continue to shackle the one to the other, suggesting that friends also belong to family and thereby triggering a chain reaction of rolling ‘kinship’ that may be impossible to rein in. As we head towards absolute biological transparency (see Han 2015), we be‐ lieve we have an ever tighter grip upon the true nature of kinship. DNA tests allow us to determine with pin-point accuracy the exact genetic relationships between parents and children, between siblings and their kin. Yet the recent development of mitochondrial DNA tracking (Reich 2018) has revealed that human populations have developed their cultures and technologies since the dawn of time by virtue of migration, mobility and cultural exchange. At the interface of genetic technologies and archaeology, it becomes increasingly clear that through our evolution and, even more important, our history, populations have con‐ tinually mixed with each other. Tiny pockets of persistent endogamy apart, we are blends of past populations, which were themselves blends of those who went before. And that trend continues today with the great 20 th and 21 st -century migrations. (Mithen 2018: 6) Intermarriage, traceable via genetic pattern-matching from deep history, is the motor of progressively rising cultural complexity. The populations of the globe are irreducibly related to one another and that interrelatedness, that vast kin‐ ship, has been the driver of cultural history. The biological mapping of kinship 37 Kith and Kin does not curtail its scope at all, but on the contrary, generalizes it to global dimensions. Indeed, this may mean that at some point, biological kinship might even spill over to encompass the entirety of the life-world, 99 % of which is biomass. (see Nealon 2016) What of the baobob in Véronique Tadjo’s En compagnie des hommes (2017), that watches over its West African village as it succumbs to the predations of the Ebola epidemic? It is undeniably kin to the villagers, providing the locus for law-making and storytelling, not to mention other forms of kinship-creation within the micro-society whose umbilicus it forms, as the central role of trees in African oral culture attests. (Calame-Griaule, ed. 1969) Conversely, in Karen Jayes’ novel about a drought-stricken dystopian South Africa plagued by violent ‘water wars,’ The Mercy of Water (2012), the dessicated trees are an index of the collapse of social cohesion, justice, and of life-giving narrative traditions. Anal‐ ogously, in Tadjo’s novel, it is the destruction of the African forest that triggers the epidemic in the first place. The massive erosion of the forest removes the natural barriers that keep the bats, as immune carriers of the Ebola virus, at a safe distance from humans. The destruction of the forest allows the virus to come into contact with humans. This does not mean that it is a new and trans‐ gressive pseudo-kinship of beasts and men that is responsible for the outbreak of the virus, as an ideology of segregation and assigned spaces might suggest. The balance of proximity and distance that governs intermarriage in many so‐ cieties, for instance, is not about the curtailing of kinship. Rather, its role is to complicate kinship and increase its ramifications. That is why Tadjo’s bat actually utters a eulogy to hybridity, the form par excellence of complex kinship. (see Tadjo 2017: 155-9) To prohibit relationships within the scope of ‘kin’ is a way of multiplying them in the wider range of ‘kith,’ thereby making ‘kin’ of ‘kith.’ The moral of the story is not that certain forms of kinship should be kept at a distance, but rather, that kinship works via a complex network of relays and interlinkages: a monoculture that excessively simplifies kinship and destroys its variegated mediating instances - a mono‐ culture of tree-felling, for instance - has fatal consequences for the society that ignores the complexities of kinship. Indeed, it would seem that the origin of our present malaise, where it appears that we are heading towards an apotheosis of mass extinction, lies in the for‐ getting of kinship or its reduction to linear causalities and linkages. Such one-way genealogies are in any case pure myth: contemporary genetics shows that mothers can inherit genes from the foetus (so that the genetic vector runs back up the family tree) and that humans can receive genetic material from other humans, carried for instance by insects (so that the genetic vector runs side‐ 38 Russell West-Pavlov ways). (see Zimmer 2018) The concrete linkages of kinships are manifold, mul‐ tidirectional, and often bizarre. Kinship may be there where we least expect it, and that is almost everywhere. What Latour (1993) has described as the great bifurcation between nature and humanity reposed upon a fundamental scission at the heart of the cosmos. In that momentous caesura, humans turned their backs on their non-human kin so as to be able to more freely exploit, expropriate, excise, exhume, extract them, experiment upon them, all in the service of tech‐ nological progress: it is much easier to exploit a natural resource if it is ‘dead’ or ‘insentient,’ and no longer ‘kin.’ T. S. Eliot’s injunction, ‘O keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,’ and that’s therefore perhaps a bit too close to ‘kith’ for comfort, is motivated by the fear that ‘That corpse you planted last year in your garden’ may be excavated by the over-zealous creature. Such a de-en‐ cryptment (see Abraham and Torok 1987) would ruin the project of exploitation (‘Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? ’) by bringing back into the realm of the intimate the repressed ‘kin’ relegated to the insentient ‘kith’ of nature. (see Eliot 1969: 63) This may go some way to explaining why the recent cloning of human brain cells in the form of ‘brain organoids’ and their implantation in animals (see Sample 2019) is so deeply disturbing. It is only very superficially problematic for the way it blurs a deeply-cherished demarcation between humans and ani‐ mals at the very locus of that which distinguishes the human from other forms of life (the brain as the site of sentient consciousness and rationality per se). As Latour (1993: 49-50) points out, the great divide between humanity and nature worked precisely to occlude an accelerating proliferation of human-natural hy‐ brids. Such experimentation creates unsettling forms of kinship that, however, already exist in abundance. Far more disturbing about such experimentation is something that is exactly the contrary of proliferating kinships. The cloning of ‘brain organoids’ is a scandal by virtue of its treatment the human itself as part of nature to be vivi‐ sected at will. Experimentation on humans, for instance in the concentration camps (see Agamben 1998: 154-9), was taboo because it is precisely the capacity to be experimented upon with impunity that defines nature as opposed to the human. But there is nothing new about the wilful destruction of human bodies as if they were mere matter: for hundreds of years Europeans have treated mil‐ lions of non-Europeans (archetypically slaves) as commodified things or as ‘bare life’ (see Agamben 1998; see Esposito 2015; see Weheliye 2014) in a creeping process that Mbembe calls the “becoming black of the world.” (Mbembe 2017: 1-8) In this ‘becoming black of the world’ the human severs kinship with ev‐ 39 Kith and Kin erything and everyone including - as an ultimate, terminal gesture, when the brain itself is cloned and later cleaned away - itself. The future, if indeed we have one, may depend upon re-establishing those connections that have been so resolutely capped over centuries. This will mean ‘making kin’ (i.e. recognizing ‘kith’ and even more distant relatives as ‘kin’) rather than ‘making babies’ (i.e. ‘kin’ in the most restricted sense); it will involve “mak[ing] ‘kin’ mean something other / more than entities tied by ancestry or genealogy.” (Hararway 2016: 102-3; see Noudelmann 2004) It will entail the mobilizing of an ‘aesthetics of proximity’ (see Iheka 2018: 21-56; see West-Pavlov 2018) and of ‘similarity’ (see Bhatti and Kimmich 2017; see Nou‐ delmann 2012) so as to blur borders once thought to be immutable. At the end of the day - and truly we do see to be reaching the end of the day at this current time (see Ripple et al. 2019) - we may need to begin to think in terms of a planetary kinship in which each member is related to all the others, and each plays a part in securing the wellbeing of all others. Kinship could thus emerge as a basic principle of interconnectivity whose very nature would be, from the outset and for ever, irreducibly ethical. (see Wissing et al. 2019) There might even come a moment, though, when we humans find ourselves suffering the same fate as other species long disappeared. (see Aravamudan 2013; see Gooding 2018) It’s pretty sure, however, that something will remain after we are gone. (see Tsing 2015) And that will be: kinship. Works Cited Abraham, Nicolas and Maria Torok (1987). L’Ecorce et le noyau. Paris: Flammarion. Agamben, Giorgio (1998). Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Aravamudan, Srinivas (2013). ‘The Catachronism of Climate Change.’ diacritics, 41.3, 6- 30. Bhatti, Anil and Dorothee Kimmich, eds. (2017). Similarities: A Paradigm for Cultural Theory. New Delhi: Tulika. Calame-Griaule, Geneviève, ed. (1969). Le thème de l’arbre dans les contes africains. Paris: SELAF. 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Catherine Porter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1949). Les Structures élémentaires de la parenté. Paris: PUF. Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1958). Anthropologie structurale. Paris: Plon. Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1968). Structural Anthropology. Trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Lévi-Strauss, Claude and Didier Eribon (1991). De près et de loin: suivi d’un entretien ‘Deux ans après.’ Paris: Seuil / Points. Luhmann, Niklas (1982). The Differentiation of Society. Trans. Stephen Holmes and Charles Larmore. New York: Columbia University Press. Mithen, Steven (2018). ‘Neanderthals, Denisovans and Modern Humans.’ London Review of Books, 40.17, 3-6. Nealon, Jeffrey T. (2016). Plant Theory: Biopower and Vegetable Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Noudelmann, François (2004). Pour en finir avec la généalogie. Paris: Léo Scheer. Noudelmann, François (2012). Les airs de famille: Une philosophie des affinité. Paris: Gal‐ limard. Reich, David (2018). Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ripple, William J., Christopher Wolf, Thomas M. Newsome, Phoebe Barnard and Wil‐ liam R. Moomaw (2019). ‘World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency.’ Bio‐ Science, 5 November. https: / / doi.org/ 10.1093/ biosci/ biz088 (accessed 5 November 2019). Sample, Ian (2019). ‘Scientists “may have crossed ethical line” in growing human brains.’ The Guardian, 21 October. https: / / www.theguardian.com/ science/ 2019/ oct/ 21/ scienti sts-may-have-crossed-ethical-line-in-growing-human-brains (accessed 7 November 2019). Tadjo, Véronique (2017). En compagnie des hommes. Paris: Don Quichotte. Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt (2015). The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 41 Kith and Kin Weheliye, Alexander G. (2014). Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics and Black Feminist Theories of the Human. Durham and London: Duke University Press. West-Pavlov, Russell (2018). Eastern African Literatures: Towards an Aesthetics of Prox‐ imity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wissing, Marié P., Lusilda Schutte and Angelina Wilson Fadiji (2019). ‘Cultures of Posi‐ tivity: Interconnectedness as a Way of Being,’ in Irma Eloff, ed., Handbook of Quality of Life in African Societies. Cham: Springer, 3-22. Zimmer, Carl (2018). She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions and Potential of Heredity. London: Picador. 42 Russell West-Pavlov Education and Collective Action: About Making Kin and “Learning to Live and Die Well Together” Sebastian Engelmann Keywords: education, posthumanism, transhumanism, kinship, pedagogies of recovery 1 Moving Beyond: Grasping Posthumanism Education Only recently have posthumanist ideas been received in educational sciences - the international discussion addressed this topic earlier than the German dis‐ cussion that is still shying back from critically revisiting topics such as animals and education, methodological approaches such as diffraction or thinking - as this chapter does - about kinship and collective action. (see Wimmer 2019) Even though the number of approaches to combine posthumanist ideas and educa‐ tional sciences is steadily increasing, education is not a term that is mentioned in glossaries that map the field of posthuman thought. (see Braidotti / Hlavajova 2019) Additionally, the large variety of distinctive approaches that are subsumed under the label posthumanism is generally not discussed in educational sciences. Therefore, seminal approaches that try to offer a posthuman understanding of education lack an in-depth discussion of basic terms such as learning, education, or subject. Even though talking about terms in a first step seems like a very conservative approach, defining terms and explaining phenomena is necessary to understand the complex formations and interpretations of posthumanism present in education studies when one wants to maintain the integrity of both posthumanist theory and educational sciences. To do so, this chapter narrows down posthumanism to critical posthumanism. Critical posthumanism is the ongoing theoretical project that tries do decenter human beings in both theory and practice. The prefix post, following Herbrechte, has a double meaning: on the one hand, it signifies a desire or indeed a need to somehow go beyond hu‐ manism (or the human), while on the other hand, since the postalso necessarily repeats what it prefixes, it displays an awareness that neither humanism nor the human can in fact be overcome in any straightforward dialectical or historical fashion. (Herbrechter 2018a: 94) The critical in critical posthumanism tries to grasp the gesture of this approach: it raises questions, offers new ways of critique, and tackles the normalized con‐ ditions in both daily life and academia. The theoretical perspective of critical posthumanism integrates the lines of thought that only made its own emergence possible; instead of proclaiming posthumanism as the next (logical) step that serves all problems and is not comparable to other theoretical approaches, it situates itself in the history of thoughts and ideas also applying a critical per‐ spective to the discourse that currently emerges around the signifier posthu‐ manism. Therefore, critical posthumanism seems to be the most helpful ap‐ proach to think about education and educational sciences. That is, because the problem with integrating educational sciences and posthumanism is deeply rooted in the core assumptions about education itself. Since antiquity and Plato’s Politeia education is understood as an intentional act towards the change of certain dispositions in human beings, mostly individuals, generally children and youths. Educational science is therefore the scientific reflection on the practices of these intentional acts that normatively aim at melioration, emancipation, the good life, or reflection. Sometimes practices of education also aim at uniformi‐ zation, isolation, or even punishment. Both normative directions share the idea of an aim of education that can be reached - or at least provides scaffolding to reach it - by certain practices. Either aimed at constructing an environment for learning or directly aimed at the human being, education is understood as a process situated in time that addresses human beings. It is guided by human intentionality. Even though nowadays posthumanist theory is introduced to educational sciences (see Bayne 2018; see Herbrechter 2018b), the long-standing history of humanist thought serves as a counterweight and barrier for re-thinking the relation of entities and the world (see Biesta 2011; see Horlacher 2011, 2015); education without con‐ sidering the human being as the center of attention and critical focal point of action seems to be almost absurd - and even talking about aims of education seems estranging without bearing the human being in mind. Educators, social workers, and teachers understand that education is intentional. Human beings are part of educational processes and nobody seems to care how the core prin‐ ciples of theories of education are challenged by posthumanism. (see Engelmann 2020) Nevertheless, the discussion about posthumanism in education is gaining 44 Sebastian Engelmann 1 For an in-detail discussion of my own understanding of Allgemeine Pädagogik, see Engelmann 2019b. some momentum throughout the last years. It is even described as a newly formed alliance in a blurb for a collected edition of essays, as ground-breaking, as a turn: Focusing on the interdependence between human, animal and machine, posthu‐ manism redefines the meaning of the human being previously assumed in knowledge production. This movement challenges some of the most foundational concepts in educational theory and has implications within educational research, curriculum de‐ sign and pedagogical interaction. (Snaza / Weaver 2015) However, the term educational theory in this case refers to a large variety of concepts that are not posthumanized in a critical way yet - this is the case because a theoretical connection of posthumanism and education sciences would need a fresh start, reconsidering not only the relation of posthumanist perspectives and topics that are generally discussed in education sciences (e.g. curriculum, pedagogical interaction, classrooms) but a more fundamental, crit‐ ical and radical reconfiguration of key terms. To posthumanize a theory, I argue, one needs to reconsider the basic structure of this theory. When, for example, theories of education understand education as the intentional transfer of non-genetic dispositions via social practice, questions about intentionality, re‐ lations between entities, the formation of these entities, and questions of the nature of knowledge are raised. These basic questions are complex. They chal‐ lenge established orders and might offer a way to leave the humanist path. So, instead of asking how a curriculum might look that deemphasizes the divide between humans and animals (see Snaza / Weaver 2015: 3), key terms such as learning, self-formation, education, or relationality in general must be dis‐ cussed to offer a posthumanist theory of education. Even though this seems to be pretty obvious for someone interested in theories of education, especially for someone interested in the field of Allgemeine Pädagogik (translated as System‐ atic Pedagogy), the discussion generally avoids problematizing its own founda‐ tions. 1 As a consequence, boundary-crossing concepts such as kinship that po‐ tentially enlarge the sphere of legitimate entities addressed in education sciences are not taken into account. The established ensemble of reliant entities in edu‐ cational sciences is still limited to the contested concept of human beings - even though animals and material objects are currently receiving some attention. (see Liegle 2017; see Rieger-Ladich 2017; see Morris 2015) 45 Education and Collective Action 2 Parts of this line of thought presented in this chapter are currently being published or were recently published as a result of the talk given in 2018. (see Engelmann 2020; see Engelmann 2019; see Koerrenz / Engelmann 2019a) However, this chapter introduces new forms of argumentation and a wider literature review. All quotes from German articles or books were translated by me. Luckily, there seems to be some kind of general curiosity for posthumanism that opens up the discussion of subjectivity besides the human being understood as an autonomous subject - even though education is still mostly discussed as the technological manifestation of the project of enlightenment and humanism. (see Snaza 2015) Nevertheless, there is the aforementioned level of interest; re‐ searchers right now are, however, in search for proper critical conceptualiza‐ tions. However, instead of addressing the crucial axiological questions of edu‐ cational theory and discussing the use of descriptive concepts such as kinship, the diverse discipline tends to integrate theory-laden approaches such as post‐ humanism into empirical research without tackling the undertow of theoretical assumptions. Educational science is adopting posthumanist thoughts in the field of empirical methods (see Schadler 2013; see Snaza / Sonu / Truman 2016), thereby putting emphasis on method instead of theory. Even though researchers that apply posthumanism as a method, which the aforementioned references try to do in manifold ways, and talk the posthumanist talk, they still dance the humanist dance, which means that in the end most results are reduced to an anthropocentric framework again. Established scholars even defend the an‐ thropocentric stance of educational science by referring to ideas of identity and subjectivity, not taking into account the fragility and situatedness of each sub‐ ject, while at the same time talking about deconstruction and criticizing an‐ thropocentrism. (see Wimmer 2014) Nevertheless, recurring topics such as climate change, animal rights, bio‐ ethics, and technological developments are all part of the ongoing discussion about the rise and fall of the Anthropocene. (see Parikka 2018) Their presence - and the human inability to simply solve these problems - calls for a close con‐ sideration of theoretical ideas that try to think differently and wonder. My chapter argues that educational science needs to understand the concept of learning presented in posthumanist thought, thereby opening up the discussion of kinship and collective action. 2 Therefore, the aim of my chapter is not to answer one specific question or to solve all the theoretical problems I posed above but, to use Donna Haraways words, to tie a knot in the string figure educational science is a part of. In a first step, I am going to briefly sketch out the current debate of posthumanism in educational thought, thereby referring to the discourse in educational sciences (see Snaza / Weaver 2015) - this task 46 Sebastian Engelmann itself might fail because educational sciences in the English-speaking world is fueled by different theories than German educational sciences, which seems to be left behind and meshed in totally different strands of discussion. (see Wimmer 2019) So, talking about posthumanism and education seems to be at least a Janus-faced operation, struggling with the things that are lost while connecting the English-speaking and German-speaking world. In a second step, I am going to use texts of posthumanist thinker Donna Haraway to point out the concept of learning as a relational and non-anthropocentric process that heavily relies on collectivity and the sympoiesis - making-with (see Haraway 2016: 5) - of beings as marked by Haraway (2016) but also Butler (2015). In Haraway’s words, sympoiesis is a marker to describe a very simple yet complex understanding of the world that challenges ideas of autonomy, undivided subjectivity and indi‐ viduality: “Nothing makes itself; nothing is really autopoietic or self-organizing.” (Haraway 2016: 58) By combining Haraway’s idea of playing string figures with the recent discussion in educational sciences, making kin gets reconceptualized as a process of learning that does not only refer to human beings but to all entities in the biophysical realm, especially animals. Making kin becomes the mode of affective attraction that ties together different entities and enables collective action, sympoiesis and situated subjectivity - and therefore making kin. In a third step, my chapter marks the contribution of such a theoretical approach to the discussion of educational theory, especially in connection to so called ‘ped‐ agogies of recovery.’ Even though pedagogies of recovery are not a fully devel‐ oped approach to education, learning, and self-formation, they share a certain theoretical perspective - in the broadest sense a posthumanist one - and aim at fostering careful and symmetrical relationships with more-than-human entities, e.g. nonhuman animals. (see Miller 2015; see Koerrenz / Engelmann 2019: 54- 55) In conclusion, my chapter gives a tentative answer to the question of how making kin can be understood as a necessary category for further understanding learning as the most basic interest of educational science in a posthumanist way. 2 Transhumanism, Posthumanism, and Education: A Strange Relationship In this chapter, I am going to map the current discussion in educational sciences to provide the foundation for my argument that making kin solves as a necessary category to connect learning and posthumanism on a theoretical and therefore foundational level. Mostly, posthumanist thought enters the discussion in edu‐ cation sciences in the international - that means Anglo-American - discussion. Some researchers are actually talking about a “Posthumanist Turn.” (Snaza / 47 Education and Collective Action Weaver 2015b) Only recently, posthumanism arrived in Germany and entered the arenas of the scientific discussion. As already mentioned above, the science of education is rooted in an understanding of human subjectivity that puts the individual at the center of all processes connected to education or self-formation. This line of thought is directly derived from the thought of European enlight‐ enment and it climaxes in an understanding of society as a combination of free individuals that develop throughout their life. Mostly, this understanding of so‐ ciety is implicitly taken for granted in educational sciences. And even though more and more publications tackle the autonomous individual from a post‐ structuralist perspective, posthumanism is almost invisible in contemporary discussions and introductions of and to the philosophy of education. (see Rieger-Ladich 2019) The assumption of a human being as the only node of power becomes evident as the cornerstone of this hegemonic understanding of educational sciences and education as a social process. Michael Wimmer (2018) argues that posthu‐ manism aims at superseding established modes of being-human by applying new technologies or even drugs, thereby - maybe even unknowingly - tying posthumanism to the contemporary discussion about medicalization and per‐ formance in schools. (see Schäfer 2015) Without considering the large variety of theoretical ideas brought forward in the rhizomatic arrangement called post‐ humanism, Wimmer states that posthumanism is an attempt to rethink the Humanum and to think differently, because the elimination of all natural deficiencies would make man a monster and the realization of the utopias of perfection would end in a realized nightmare. It tries to escape the opposition of man-machine by thinking subjectivity, self-confidence and memory together with their technical conditions, without an abstract reversal leading to a technocentrism. (Wimmer 2018: 289) In his early attempts to grasp something one might call posthumanist pedagogy, Wimmer directly traces posthumanist thought to the different attempts to tran‐ scend the so-called deficiencies of human beings as it is put forward by trans‐ humanist thinkers. Transhumanism, in a nutshell, aims at enhancing the capa‐ bilities of human beings, by using drugs, technologies, or new modes of biological modifications. However, transhumanism is not necessarily connected to decentering human subjectivity. Instead, it tries to understand human capa‐ bilities as almost unlimited and enhanceable. (see Loh 2018; see Sorgner 2018) The capabilities of the human being are therefore understood as individual abil‐ ities that can be enhanced, overcome, and transcended: “Like the transhuman‐ ists, I believe that individual quality of life can be decisively enhanced by the 48 Sebastian Engelmann latest techniques, which is why I consider the effort to overcome the present human limitations to be desirable.” (Sorgner 2018: 49.) But transhumanism and posthumanism only share similarities at first glance. Posthumanist thinking is in some places equated with transhumanist experi‐ ments that aim at transcending human boundaries while at the same time pre‐ serving a humanist understanding of autonomy and agency. This approach is condemned to unproductiveness as a prerequisite for a differentiated discussion of the subject. For the “terms anti-humanism, post-humanism and transhu‐ manism are not synonyms, but rather refer to different conceptions and lines of tradition. What they have in common is a critique of traditional humanism and anthropocentrism.” (Amos 2018: 219) Elsewhere, Wimmer formulates an under‐ standing of posthumanism which, although it can be connected to the multitude of authors of this line of thought, remains strangely indefinite and related to man, the human being: [p]osthumanism tries to think this human in terms of a difference instead of as an opposition to and with the inhuman, i.e. technology, but also to and with the animal, to and with the machine, to and with the other. It is therefore a matter of expressing something unthought. (Wimmer 2018: 288) It is due to this common connection of transhumanism and education, that the humanist core assumptions of educational sciences are not challenged to a higher degree. However, Wimmer states that there cannot be a posthumanist pedagogy because the humanist core assumptions are inseparable from the dis‐ cussion about education. There is no such thing as a posthumanist pedagogy. (see Wimmer 2019: 75) Nevertheless, there might be ways to think education the posthumanist way, e.g. referring to continental thinkers such as Foucault, Deleuze, Kristeva, or Lacan, reframing posthumanism in the key-terms of post‐ structuralist narrative. Even though narrowing down posthumanism to poststructuralist French thought might be a fruitful approach - and Wimmer’s essays are definitely adding to the German strand of discussion - it seems as if the combination of a fundamental inquiry of concepts such as learning and education, which is par‐ ticular to German educational sciences, is hardly taken into account in the phi‐ losophy of education of the international debate. This is despite the fact that the international community of researchers in the field of education is already dis‐ cussing posthumanist thinking, at least in connection with innovative methods and methodologies, e.g. Cornelia Schadlers (2013) work on becoming a parent or Julia Spitznagels (2019) experimental thesis on a diffractive reading of large scale experiments in education studies. 49 Education and Collective Action As attractive as it may seem to let the inherent semantics of increase and refinement of pedagogical practices emerge with reference to transhumanist considerations, the repetitive critique seems to me to make only little sense. Instead, I assume that posthumanism as a theoretical perspective can promote new insights for educational science. Posthumanist thinking is entering a “crisis of critique” (Rieger-Ladich 2019: 158) in which classical humanist ideas have become questionable since the all-powerful subject has become questionable in the face of poststructuralist critique, life-threatening destruction of nature, and the experiences of general powerlessness in everyday life. Posthumanism might serve as an answer that enables education and its theory to abandon the aforementioned bias in educational thought. Thinking in post‐ humanist terms might allow educational theorists to side with queer, feminist, and postcolonial ideas that all criticize the universal human being as a product of a eurocentric, heteronormative, and normalizing idea. (see Froebus 2018: 147) However, one must consider this ambitious approach to posthumanist theory critically. There is no such thing as the posthumanist theory. Instead of a mon‐ olithic theoretical approach, posthumanism is best characterized as “cross-dis‐ ciplinary, complex and in some instances (the relationship between posthu‐ manism and transhumanism being one example) contradictory with itself.” (Bayne 2018: 1) Therefore, I am not speaking about the posthumanism, but refer to Bayne, who understands posthumanism to be broadly concerned with the questioning of human exceptionalism and the founda‐ tional role of ‘humanity’ as it has been constructed in modernity. Rejecting any clarity of distinction between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’, it works against dualism and the binaries we have tended to draw on to define what it means to be human. (Bayne 2018: 1) Instead of unifying posthumanist thought, I am going to elaborate on one spe‐ cific line of thought that is generally considered posthumanist. In the next chapter, I am going to offer a close and pedagogical reading of Haraway’s ideas on making kin and learning as put forward in her recent book Staying with the Trouble. (see Haraway 2016) Haraway largely contributed to Science and Tech‐ nology Studies ( STS ) that “can be taken as a nursery of posthuman insights” (Braidotti and Hlavajova 2018: 7) - therefore, her ideas serve as a good starting point for a discipline such as education sciences that neither integrated STS nor posthumanist ideas to a large degree. 50 Sebastian Engelmann 3 Staying with the Trouble: Troubled Learning Written in an evocative way, Donna Haraway’s prose, which must be considered as ground-breaking and highly influential, discusses the ideas of a natural divide and the construction of boundaries between different entities. At the same time, it criticizes the dominant mode of knowledge production that proclaims that there is something as “true objectivity.” Her project was motivated politically from the beginning, starting with her essay Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective (1988 / 1991) that is still discussed today. In this essay, Haraway points out that knowledge is always situated, temporarily and culturally. There is no such thing as privileged knowledge, e.g. the knowledge of a single human being. In writing her texts “Haraway was ‘reinventing’ (on a semiotic level) our ontological situatedness.” (Petifils 2015: 32) Additionally, Haraway’s statement means “no insider’s per‐ spective is privileged, because all drawings of inside-outside boundaries in knowledge are theorized as power moves, not moves towards truth.” (Haraway 1991: 184) Knowledge is “actually made” (Haraway 1991: 184) and constructed. In Haraway’s thought - and in posthumanism in general - there cannot be objective and true knowledge that is produced by science or other practices. Accepting this basic assumption about the production of knowledge leads to a general skepticism towards unifying narratives about the dominant position of entities in both theory and practice. It asks for a close inspection of the stories that are told to produce knowledge. We are all positioned as entities in a mate‐ rial-cultural world, that is ever-changing. Understanding the making of the social world as a process of positioning “privileges contestation, deconstruction, passionate construction, webbed con‐ nections, and hope for transformation of systems of knowledge and ways of seeing it.” (Haraway 1991: 191-92) Boundaries between entities, differences be‐ tween e.g. children and adults, animals and human-animals must be considered as constructed as all other boundaries. In one of her earlier works, A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century, Haraway argues for embracing a close analysis and critical re-reading of everyday life. She aims at “embracing the skillful task of reconstructing the boundaries of daily life, in particular connection with others, in communication with all our parts.” (Haraway 1991: 181) This process needs a certain level of awareness for the ambiguities in text, practice and interpretation, because trans‐ lation as a hermeneutical practice “is always interpretative, critical and partial.” (Haraway 1991: 195) This leaves educational sciences puzzled, because following Haraway all kinds of boundaries between the “cultural” and the “natural,” the 51 Education and Collective Action “social” and the “non-social” and of course between “subject” and “object” must be understood as power plays. Instead of thinking about entities that are distinct from each other by nature, all these entities are results of their surroundings and the web of power and relationships in which they are merged. The bodies of such entities serve as material-semiotic generative nodes. Their boundaries materialize in social interaction. Boundaries are drawn by mapping practices; ‘objects’ do not pre-exist as such. Objects are boundary projects. But boundaries shift from within; boundaries are very tricky. What boundaries provisionally contain remains generative, productive of meanings and bodies. (Haraway 1991: 201) Taking into account these assumptions of Haraway, researchers in the field of educational sciences have to reconsider their very basic tenets. Withdrawing from the position that human beings are privileged and autonomous by nature, that only human beings must be considered when thinking about learning, leads to a deeper understanding of making kin in the learning pluriverse. Therefore, I am going to sketch out what making kin - or becoming kin - means, when thinking about learning as a process interconnected with the world. Haraway suggests making kin as a practice of gaining agency by relying on the embedd‐ edness of action and the fundamental reliance on the other. Her approach is not a descriptive, but a normative one as she warns of the critical point of foreseeable mass destruction. Humans are destroying the earth, killing other entities - and finally their own future. Haraway’s position is clear: “[w]e become with each other or not at all.” (Haraway 2016: 4) This assumption is critical, especially for educational sciences, because it leads to a more complex question: [w]hat would happen is the subject-object relationship and methodocentrism were rejected and replaced? What if educational scholars began to look at the world as one in which objects simultaneously interact with one another, shaping their realities though these interactions, but, at the same time, always receding from these realities in order to create and shape their own reality? (Snaza / Weaver 2015: 9) In other words, what would happen if the “we” mentioned by Haraway were not restricted to humans? The possible frame of reference is enlarged to every‐ thing that lives and dies together (see Haraway 2016: 1), everything that is inter-connected. Referring to Haraway’s earlier thoughts on companion species (Haraway 2003), anthropocentric ideas that only reflect on the identity of human beings become problematic. Human exceptionalism is refused and marked as a limited world view: 52 Sebastian Engelmann [t]he category companion species helps me refuse human exceptionalism without invoking posthumanism. Companion species play string figure games where who is / are to be in / of the world is constituted in intra-and interaction. The partners do not precede the knotting species of all kinds are consequently upon worldly subjectand object shaping entanglements. (Haraway 2016: 13) “Companion species” is Haraway’s term has come to refer to all kinds of entities that are connected to the human being but are not human themselves. She uses this term to highlight “significant otherness as a productive relation that further blurs the human / nonhuman, organic / technological, nature / culture binaries by showing how different species co-constitute each other through mutual con‐ nections.” (Klumbytė 2018: 226) The amount of possible companion species is large. Cats, dogs, cows, birds, and all other kinds of animalistic others can serve as companion species. Haraway points out that even though animals are often understood as lacking reason, they form human encounters with the world. They influence the actions of entities called humans and often enough shape the daily life - reality becomes evident as something that is still in motion. Haraway and other scholars such as Judith Butler, who refers to Haraway in her Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly, raise the question why reality is structured the way it seems to be: “[w]hy is a field regulated in such a way that only certain kinds of beings can appear.” (Butler 2016: 35) Beings are therefore forming everyday life and situations in the process of playing string figures. The metaphor of playing string figures is used by Haraway to describe “how to conjugate worlds with partial connections and not universals and par‐ ticulars.” (Haraway 2016: 13) Instead of understanding entities as distinct from each other, “string figures are thinking as well as making practices, pedagogical practices and cosmological performances.” (Haraway 2016: 14) In the process of thinking and making practices with others e.g. pigeons are understood as sig‐ nificant others. Children “learn to see despised birds as valuable and interesting city residents, as worth notice.” (Haraway 2016: 24) Both the human beings in an environment and other entities are understood as “civic subjects and objects in intra-action.” (Haraway 2016: 24) Haraway’s assumption leads to a fundamental change in the construction of social theory. Following Haraway, no “species, not even our own arrogant one pretending to be good individuals in so-called modern Western scripts, acts alone; assemblages of organic species and of abiotic actors make history, the evolutionary kind and the other kinds too.” (Haraway 2016: 100) Therefore, his‐ tory is not only written by humans but emerges from the complex interrelation of species that become actors in non-centered string figures. By focusing on the 53 Education and Collective Action interrelatedness of beings, one of the central assumptions of neoliberal societies is attacked. In neoliberal societies - this means, societies as they have emerged in the Anthropocene - we as human beings are each responsible only for ourselves, and certainly not for others, and if responsi‐ bility is first and foremost a responsibility to become economically self-sufficient under conditions that undermine all prospects of self-sufficiency, then we are con‐ fronted by a contradiction that can easily drive one mad: we are structurally foreclosed from realizing that norm. (Butler 2015: 14) The neoliberal norm asks human beings to follow the idea of a self-sustained subjectivity that must not rely on other entities. However, both Haraway and Butler point out that “none of us acts without the conditions to act, even though sometimes we must act to install and preserve those very conditions.” (Butler 2015: 16) When it comes to the question of agency, both Butler and Haraway refrain from situating it only in the human being. Instead of limiting agency to human beings, they refer to the framework and the different nodes that form in the string figures. The string figure itself must be understood as the element that has to be preserved for keeping agency. The string figure itself is the place in which entities are formed. They are their relations and at the same time they are more and in their processual manifestation still open for change; “creatures as these depend upon a set of living and institutional processes, infrastructural conditions, to persist and to assert together a right to the conditions of its per‐ sistence.” (Butler 2015: 19) Like Haraway, Butler argues for tackling the boun‐ daries of what is called human. However, her aim is not to turn antihuman. Instead of this, she wants to let other forms of life and sociality find voice outside of the loud humanist discourse. This assumption is in its last consequence highly ethical: In other words, to be alive is already to be connected with what is living not only beyond myself, by beyond my humanness, and no self and no human can live without this connection to a biological network of life that exceeds the domain of the human animal. (Butler 2015: 43) This network is not limited to relations of blood, species, nationality, or ethnicity. In Haraway’s terms, the network might emerge in manifold ways by cultivating “response-ability”: “Response-ability is about both absence and presence, killing and nurturing, living and dying - and remembering of who lives and who dies and how in the string figures of natural cultural history.” (Haraway 2016: 28) Instead of relying on contested relations of blood and ancestry, ethnicity and nation to form kin for collective action, Haraway asks “to join forces” (Haraway 54 Sebastian Engelmann 3 At this point, Haraway’s ideas show similarities to the thought of Jane Bennett (2010), to which I am going to come back to later, and of course to Bruno Latour (2007). How‐ ever, there are also differences especially with regard to the history of philosophical thought that is used to make this argument plausible. A close comparison would be necessary to follow the traces present in the work of Haraway, Bennett, and Latour who all think about materiality and agency in a critical posthumanist way. 2016: 101) with other critters. Note that making kin to find allies for collective action does not mean to leave aside human entities. Rather it asks for a recon‐ sideration of the term kin itself: “the stretch and recomposition of kin are al‐ lowed by the fact that all earthlings are kin in the deepest sense, and it is past time to practice better care of kinds-as-assemblages (not species one at a time). Kin is an assembling sort of word.” (Haraway 2016: 103) Making kin therefore describes the creative process of assembling different parts of a fluid social reality to gain agency. Following this understanding of the social, there is no way to gain agency without assembling a complex network of entities and factors. This complex network - grasped in the picture of the string figure - is understood as the Archimedean point of subject formation. 3 The string figure serves as a spatial and temporary restriction. It serves as a boundary by forming knots that shape the agency of the entities that are en‐ twined in the string figure. Agency, and the capability to act in a certain way, is therefore always thought as collective. The capability to collective action, how‐ ever, is the result of tying the string figure. Haraway focuses on the relations between entities - instead of assuming differentiated entities or subjects as the starting point of the social, the interconnection in the string figure becomes the crucial aspect of living and dying well together. Together means that the social situations are not dominated by human subjects; instead, subjectivity is only formed in situations that are interwoven with and entangled in the complex network of being. When talking about education for collective action in a post‐ humanist way, educators and researchers in the field of education must not focus on the individual. This is where posthumanist argumentations render new modes of thinking in education sciences and about education and learning pos‐ sible. Instead of the individual, the relationships that form this individual must be considered. Combining the earlier ideas of Haraway and her more recent writings help critical posthumanist thinkers to further decenter the human sub‐ ject that is still perceived as the addressee and dominant node of power in ed‐ ucational settings. A posthumanist approach to learning and collective action therefore firstly addresses the processes of making kin and pedagogies of re‐ covery are a first step on a long way of posthumanizing the field of education. It challenges the understanding of individual agency and offers an approach to 55 Education and Collective Action think agency as vested in a network of entities that form the aforementioned string figure and thereby the social as a temporal-spatial manifestation - open for change and opening up possibilities for different futures. 4 Collective Action in Pedagogies of Recovery: A Short Outlook Taking into account the already developed arguments, this chapter now offers a way to deal with the critical posthumanist inquiries to learning and its refor‐ mulation as making kin. Developing a new approach to education might help to integrate both education sciences and posthumanist thought - therefore, new modes of speaking must be developed, changing old terms to solve new prob‐ lems, maybe even establishing different modes of thinking. Pedagogies of recovery is not an established term yet. It does not describe a specific field of research or a scientific approach. Nevertheless, it seems to be a fitting umbrella term for approaches that try to recover education from the harm humanist limitations has done to it. As already mentioned above, recent issues such as animal rights, climate change, and the destruction of other life forms besides humans call for a different understanding of interconnectedness and mutual dependence. Pedagogical concepts which can be considered pedagogies of recovery apply a different notion to the political itself: “posthumanist politics requires us to rethink what a democracy means by extending the parameters of who and what is permitted to participate and be part of a ‘public’ and ‘public’ debate.” (Snaza / Weaver 2015b: 4) Referring to political theorist Jane Bennett, the “public” becomes visible as a highly constructed field, that is defended by human exceptionalism: “publics do not exist naturally; they are invented, con‐ figured and reconfigured depending on the topic at hand.” (Snaza / Weaver 2015b: 4) In her book Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (2010), Bennett puts forward a vital materialist theory of politics that includes entities like animals, but also landslides, weather phenomena, and blackouts. The theoretical approach developed by Bennett sensitizes human beings for other entities that are part of decision-making processes. The goal of this project is to acknowledge the agency - and the situatedness of one’s own agency - in entities that were described by humans as mere objects of knowledge produc‐ tion. Changing the perspective from this mode to accepting that nonhumans are part of the string figure that forms subjectivity leads to various changes in pedagogic action and might support different perspectives in educational sci‐ ences itself. Pedagogies of recovery therefore address different levels of educa‐ tion to foster the understanding of mutual interconnectedness, especially the most prominent other: the non-human animal which I am going to focus on for 56 Sebastian Engelmann this last part of my chapter. First and foremost, such pedagogical concepts ad‐ dress the interconnectedness of human life and animal life. Thereby, they ad‐ dress a crucial problem in contemporary calls for collective action. Even though “gender, sexuality, class, race and ability are treated […] any other species other than human are ignored.” (Morris 2015: 43) Addressing this problem in the classroom would mean that e.g. the pigeons Haraway mentions in Staying with the Trouble become part of the newly emerging understanding of the public. The statement is quite clear: “[b]uilding ethical relationships with people is impor‐ tant, of course, but we must also build ethical relationships with nonhuman animals - whether they are wild or domesticated.” (Morris 2015: 53) The crucial move to realize this project is to accept that human animals are part of the same web as non-human animals. Instead of discriminating against animals and other non-human entities, they must be considered as kin in the daily struggle of life because more “often than not [the participation of animals is] a forced partici‐ pation since knowledge that objectifies, tyrannizes, harms and exterminates the animal routinely permeates most dimensions and institutions of human society.” (Pedersen 2015: 61) On the contrary, considering non-human animals as part of the web leads to the decentralization of the human being posthumanism aims at. Instead of taking participation of non-human animals for granted, education that follows such a theoretical foundation calls for an often-painful visualization of the relationships between humans and animals. Thereby, such pedagogical arrangements create a space for the complexity that is inherent in daily life. Instead of striving for harmony and an unfractured understanding of subjec‐ tivity, the fragility of subjectivity and action is pointed out that is normally veiled by humanist education. Nikki Rotas tried to grasp this move as teaching and learning against the obvious (see Rotas 2015) - and this might be the most pow‐ erful implication of posthumanist thought for educational sciences. Instead of reproducing the critical gesture of an already deconstructed humanism, post‐ humanism in education calls for new forms of critique and thoughts. However, educational sciences has not arrived at this point yet. Nevertheless, some of the researchers are now aware of the fact that there might be more to teaching, learning, and the formation of agency than the individualized learning subject. This, however, must be connected to the context of each educational practice; when education and politics do not match, there is no way to change a system by slight adjustment of pedagogical focus. Nevertheless, leaving aside the trans‐ formative potential of education while at the same time privileging its conser‐ vative side renders development totally impossible because learning as a phe‐ nomenon would be dominated by societal factors alone - so there must be a gateway for emancipatory practices. (see Engelmann 2018: 164-70) 57 Education and Collective Action Learning to act together - without defining who is part of the together - might serve as an aggregation of posthumanist thought and as a gateway for emanci‐ pation and collective action. In this article, I tried to give a tentative answer to the question of how making kin can be understood as a necessary category to further understand learning as the most basic interest of educational science in a posthumanist way. Making kin is a complex process of shaping a relation to the world while already being in the world. Critical posthumanism raises aware‐ ness for the fact that privileging materiality or posthuman others does not leave aside the specific situatedness of human beings in the world. Posthumanist ap‐ proaches to education - in both theory and practice - do not allow us to leave human cruelty aside. (see Rose 2017) Pedagogies of recovery work as an exper‐ imental training field for educators who want to get in touch with the complexity of the string figure that is described by Haraway. Pedagogies of recovery offer an alternative to the already established order of pedagogical thought and action. These alternatives first and foremost question normality, boundaries, and hier‐ archies. In a first step, they point out that there might be a different way to think, to talk about, and to do things. Taking animals into account allows human ed‐ ucators to gain further insight into the already posthuman condition of the so‐ cial. Taking ecosystems into account offers insights to a connectedness, relat‐ edness, and mutual dependence. Instead of finding individuals that act at their own will, the posthuman perspective allows us to see the interconnection in action that is always already collective. Applying the posthumanist connection strictly neglects the possibility of autonomous subjectivity. However, it endows subjects with a connection to the world they are already part of. To foster un‐ derstanding for this interconnectedness and the situated subjectivity of all en‐ tities might be the task of future posthumanist pedagogies. Making kin is learning - and learning results in making kin and therefore ensuring that there is still time to wonder what the world is so that we all can live and die well together. 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Paderborn: Schöningh. 61 Education and Collective Action The Creative Couple: Towards an Aesthetic Union of the Human and the Machine Kim Luther Keywords: critical posthumanism, KinArt, artificial intelligence, artistic cre‐ ativity, generative design 1 Introduction Marshall Sahlins calls it a “150-year-old anthropological problem” (Sahlins: xi), and in fact kinship is not only an old problem, but also an often discussed one. Living in the 21 st century, in a society that is undergoing huge changes due to technological advancements and the possibility to enhance the human being through artificial accessories (think transhuman dreams of immortality! ), ren‐ ders it necessary to reconsider the relationship of the human with its techno‐ logical / artificial counterpart - with its inorganic and nonhuman kin, the ma‐ chine. To reconsider human-machine ties is inevitable since the productive process of building and designing any form of artificial intelligence (A. I.) relies heavily on the human being as a basis. In many transhuman investigations, it is ironi‐ cally the human being whose cognitive processes are investigated to form an artificial entity with similar capabilities. This is decisively marked as ironic here because the transhumanist dream of overcoming the human is hence often re-directed to the human, and what counts as human, itself, see e.g. Barker’s H(a)ppy (2017). For this reason, I use ‘counterpart’ as not to be understood as a being opposed to the human, but instead as a mirror player in which the human being discovers itself. Leaning into this problem at the heart of many transhumanist debates, this chapter aims to investigate how man and machine can form kinship when en‐ gaging collectively in a creative process of designing and creating something so profound that it will change society and its aesthetic consciousness through, what I coin, ‘KinArt.’ ‘KinArt’ as a neologism implodes notions of who can be recognized as kin in a process of working towards a piece of art, and thus merges theories of kinship and collective action. Within ‘KinArt,’ our Enlightenment spheres of human / nonhuman, organic / inorganic, high / low art, manufac‐ turing / handwork, body / mind, public / private collapse because it challenges not only the artistic process as more-than-human, but it pushes our notions of artist-collectives towards the inorganic as well. To illustrate this point of a ‘KinArt’ aesthetic, this chapter focuses on fashion as a design product that specifically influences our aesthetic perceptions since it is an item used on a daily basis, literally entangled with our bodies, and through this creates a broad, daily visibility among many people. To strengthen my point, this chapter focuses on haute couture clothes since haute couture bridges exactly this gap between fashion and clothes as an everyday phenomenon and fashion design as an intricate art form that is not only worn, but also exhibited in mu‐ seums and on catwalks. Haute couture is usually individually designed and cus‐ tomized for a client; these pieces are of a unique quality and not an object of mass production. In 2016, the Mo MA hosted the exhibition Manus x Machina - Fashion in the Age of Technology. In this chapter, the dresses by Karl Lagerfeld and Iris van Herpen from this exhibition will be used to think with and to explain the potentially novel and nonhuman aesthetic engagement ‘KinArt’ can pro‐ duce. Manus x Machina’s way of designing fashion with computers or machines is not new at all in the world of art and architecture. In the form of masterly performances of architecture, for example, generative design (a method of de‐ signing with an algorithm that generates an amount of outputs on the basis of a data set and an artist that fine tunes the algorithmic output) is already shaping the look of public spaces like airports and train stations, but also of sport arenas, concert halls, or art galleries. Only the end product is, however, visible to the public eye; all data processing and modelling usually happens behind closed doors. This holds true for most of the cases where A. I. is working with or for artists: who is responsible for which part of the artwork is not revealed. This form of a (non)human and (in)organic guerilla collective may push our humanist under‐ standing of collectives beyond our notions of what counts as creators, but only, when this collective work is made visible and discussed, as in the case of the Manus x Machina exhibition. Nevertheless, the resulting work of ‘KinArt’ shapes an aesthetic understanding or taste of society. 64 Kim Luther 2 What is Kinship? From Relatedness to Modes of Participation When conceptualizing ‘KinArt,’ we need to go back to the roots of the many ways kinship has been theorized in the humanities, cultural studies, and, most importantly, in anthropology, and other social or natural sciences. The latter because anthropology and sociology, for example, are sciences that focus on noticing and observing relationalities that may form kin that is not a blood or soil related family. It is thus exactly this process of firstly noticing and secondly recognizing the other as kin which forms an anthropological understanding of kinship ties that is conceptually important for ‘KinArt.’ In ‘KinArt,’ who is no‐ ticed and recognized as a (non)human and (in)organic partner in a creative process is crucial in shaping an aesthetic understanding as created beyond the closed-off human family. There are numerous attempts by social scientists across all disciplines to get closer to a definition of what kinship is, versus what can only be called a close relationship. Or, put simply, when is one kin, and when is one just a close partner? Hal Scheffler, one of the most prominent anthropologists studying human kinship from the beginning of the 1960s onwards, takes on an exten‐ sionist position when discussing terminology surrounding kinship. As Warren Shapiro sums up usefully, Scheffler’s studies focused on two main questions: firstly, “what is the primary meaning […] of kinship terms like English ‘mother’, ‘father’, ‘brother’, ‘sister’ etc.? ” (Shapiro and Read 2018: 3), and secondly, by which actions are these terms extended to people - or even things - that are beyond the closed circle of the nuclear family. So, in contrast to evolutionary biologists that focus on the development of the Anthropos, the human, the spe‐ cial ape, Scheffler already considered kinship as not necessarily bound to genetic relatedness only. (see Jones 2018: 343) Anthropologists like Elsdon Best or Julian Pitt-Rivers present kinship as cul‐ turally dependent, but David Schneider offers a novel view on the issue of building kinship: “there [is] no such thing” (Sahlins 2013: 12) as kinship since “neither at home nor abroad did ‘kinship’ exist as a distinct cultural system, nor a fortiori as a comparative, cross-cultural category.” (Schneider in Sahlins 2013: 12) Along this line, kinship cannot be a fixed category that can be used to ex‐ amine different cultures. Instead, each cultural realm must be thought of as introducing an individual shaping of social affiliation. The anthropologist Janet Carsten studied Malayan kinship and found out that Malay villagers see blood as the composing feature of kinship. But in contrast to evolutionary biologists, who would agree with this idea in principle, Malay people think of blood as a substance that is dynamic. “Blood changes through 65 The Creative Couple: Towards an Aesthetic Union of the Human and the Machine life - as does kinship.” (Carsten 2004: 107) This view emerges from the belief that blood is built out of food. So, people sharing the same food would show a similar blood pattern over time - which also explains how adopted children can become kin, although they do not share the same blood stream from the begin‐ ning. Accompanied by this, according to Malayan belief, people will look dif‐ ferent from what they looked like before because they share the same food and thereby change their outer appearance. And there are other, more surprising examples, for instance this Amazonian one: In Amazonia, people both determine their own kin by opposition to their enemies, and they reproduce the former by assimilating the latter. That is another essay, already written by others, from which, however, the same lesson could be taken: that as con‐ stituted from birth to death and even beyond, kinship is culture, all culture. (Sahlins 2013: 89) Or, as Doug Jones proposes, “these accounts raise the possibility that kinship means something different in different cultures.” ( Jones 2018: 347) The examples given above show that what and who is considered kin spans from a given genetic relatedness to a cultural practice that differs from culture to culture but can go far beyond biological determinism. Kinship as a cultural practice that is flexible, thus, opens up the possibility of entangling kinship as a form of doing with art as a form of creating. Kinship as a cultural practice was introduced into the scientific discourse in the 1960s and remains essential when looking at cases of kinship that do not only cross the boundary of biological relatedness, but also transgress what one would consider human in general. Studying Maori culture, Sahlins states that [f]or Maori, kinship is cosmological inasmuch as all things - including plants, animals, and ‘the very elements’ - descend from the same Sky Father (Rangi) and Earth Mother (Papa). […] All such beings - including what we deem inanimate ‘things’ - are subjects who share essential attributes of common descent, kinship, and personhood with Maori people. (Sahlins 2013: 31) New Zealand ethnographer Elsdon Best puts it in livelier words when he de‐ scribes his experiences when being a surveyor of Maori land: “[W]hen the Maori entered a forest he felt that he was among his own kindred, for had not trees and man a common origin, both being offspring of Tane? ” (Best 1924: 452) Noticing kin / ship is highly dependent on the culture people live in and can thus determine and stretch what and who is recognized as kin - from inorganic things, to organic matter, to people. What is important is: what and who is regarded to be kin in one culture can be deeply disturbing for people living in a 66 Kim Luther different one. So it does not come as a surprise that anthropologists have sug‐ gested that, in view of the concept’s dynamic nature, one “should replace the study of kinship with the study of an open-ended fuzzy domain of ‘relatedness’.” ( Jones 2018: 347) Relatedness can be initiated through intercourse, but also by eating the same food or even working on the same field that the food is growing on. (see Sahlins 2013: 6) However, in What Kinship Is - And Is Not, Marshall Sahlins takes the argument a little further when he suggests that kinship is not only a dynamic concept of relatedness, but encompasses a “mutuality of being.” (Sahlins 2013: 2) This approach brings kinship back from fuzzy notions of re‐ latedness and partnership to a model of participation that kin have in common. With his view on kinship, Sahlins introduces new and clear-cut parameters to the study of kinship: Kinsmen are people who live each other’s lives and die each other’s death. To the extent they lead common lives, they partake of each other’s sufferings and joys, sharing one another’s experiences even as they take responsibility for and feel the effects of each other’s acts. (Sahlins 2013: 28) What is noteworthy and quintessential is that, for Sahlins, kin is who participates in each other’s lives and vice versa, resulting in a change of focus since what is in question is the character of the relationships rather than the nature of the person. Mutuality of being will not only cover the range of ways kinship is constituted, from common substances to common sufferings, but it provides the logico-meaningful motivation for a wide variety of practices distinctive of people so related. […] The same sense of conjoined existence is involved in taking responsibility for the wrongful acts of relatives, for their fortunes in the hunt or war, even for the shape and health of their bodies. In sum, where being is mutual, experience itself is transpersonal: it is not simply or exclusively an individual function. (Sahlins 2013: 25, 44) Two aspects stand out in this description: firstly, the fact that people live con‐ joined existences with their kin and are taking responsibility for them and their actions even after they have passed away; and, secondly, that experience itself is considered to be transpersonal and something that cannot be thought of as an individual process. When moving away from a traditional model where kinship is based simply on blood or soil relations, it is important to still create boundaries in conceptu‐ alizing kinship - baking a cake together with your neighbor might not make you kin, sharing responsibility in a practice of taking care of your elderly neighbor, however, can make you kin, as it is transpersonal. Ultimately, to avoid this fuzziness, Sahlins introduces the idea of experience and performativity to 67 The Creative Couple: Towards an Aesthetic Union of the Human and the Machine the concept of kinship, which basically translates into the following: kin is who‐ ever participates in each other’s lives or experiences towards an existence, so a being, that unlocks the singular human individual towards the many (non)human ones. In ‘KinArt,’ noticing a joint performativity of the human and machine in the creation of an art piece, or more specifically an haute couture dress, leads to a very specific experience of the creative process and of the aesthetic result for the viewer afterwards. 3 Historical Dependency In view of a changed society in the twenty-first century - not only with regard to the political situation (a somewhat improved political situation for women and children in the West or in the Global North, but not necessarily for other actants on the periphery of society such as animals, plants, machines etc.) or definitions of family (from patchwork families in light of the heightened divorce rates of the 1990s to the slow queering of families with allowing institutional same-sex marriage), but particularly regarding technological progress and its influence on economy and politics (Web 2.0, machine learning, A. I.) -, we need to shift our focus towards a form of kinship that can encompass everything that makes up our modern, digital, and with that more than human world. Since kin are those who participate in each other’s lives - and act with and amongst others - ideas surrounding a concept of collective action, so an acting towards a common goal, seem to be knotted to an idea of kinship as both participatory and experience-focused. While kinship, as I have argued above, can be seen as a culturally dynamic concept, there is also a historical dependency. Kinship relies on social structures that are themselves dynamic and subject to change to the same extent as a so‐ ciety modernizes, urbanizes, or frees itself from gender norms. As Frank F. Furstenberg argues: Across the Western world and in other nations with advanced economies, a remark‐ able transformation in family systems took place during the final third of the 20th century. The institution of marriage, once nearly hegemonic, lost its nearly universal appeal. Marriage now takes place later in life in virtually all nations with advanced economies, and not uncommonly, it is delayed indefinitely. (Furstenberg 2018: 1) And, Furstenberg adds, new models of family have become socially accepted in the 21st century that were part of the picture before. Couples were given the right to divorce and remarry. But also, the once traditional heterosexual mar‐ 68 Kim Luther riage is being complemented by the possibility for homosexual couples to legally marry. That societies are subject to social, political, and economic developments is nothing new. But, as Furstenberg suggests, “one of the less examined features of global change in family systems is how this transformation has altered kinship conceptions and practices.” (Furstenberg 2018: 1) Another major contribution of Furstenberg’s to the discourse of kinship is that his assumptions are not based on kinship as something that is either present or absent, on or off. Instead, he introduces degrees in the form of strong and weak kinship bonds when de‐ scribing contemporary culture in the United States and England. What will remain important for the argument made in this chapter is that kinship, or what is being regarded as kin, is a cultural construction and practice, and shifts according to social, political, economic, technological, and demo‐ graphic ideals that govern society at a specific point in time. Following this logic, in a world that is governed by the ultimate goal to scientifically explain its workings, and at a time at which we have techno-extensions of ourselves (fitness trackers, smart phones, smart clothes, etc.), A. I. is the historically nonhuman ‘other’ which acts intimately closely with us, either as part of our body or in the world surrounding us. 4 Collective Action: A Building of Identity How man and machine can engage in a creative process and thereby form kin‐ ship - transpersonally, and across the boundaries of the human and nonhuman - implodes with questions of collective action when expanding our ontologies from the human only to the nonhuman and inorganic. In this chapter, I understand collective action not just in a socio-political way as a formed group of protestors trying to bring forward a political argument and effectuate a change of opinion. At the heart of collective action lies a group of people taking action in trying to achieve a common goal - no matter whether it is a political one - to obtain a change of opinion or change of status. In a creative process, two or more partners come together in creating something that can, in and through itself, bring change to society, either by changing aesthetic conceptions, or by creating new possibilities through the introduction of new innovative products. Man and machine can form such a creative partnership in acting collectively with the common objective of invention or a novel design: “[c]ollective identity is an interactive and shared definition produced by several individuals (or groups at a more complex level) and concerned with the orientation of action 69 The Creative Couple: Towards an Aesthetic Union of the Human and the Machine and the field of opportunities and constraints in which the action takes place.” (Melucci 1999: 120) Collective action has to be a process of acting together in which both parties are equally engaged that can form a collective identity. Furthermore, in this process, it is an action, a joint doing, which produces an outcome that can change society in a manner that would not be possible for just a single actor or actant, since, as will be shown for the case of advanced contemporary fashion design, human and machine draw on different sensory, cognitive, and motor skills. Fol‐ lowing this, I see collective action as a driver for kinship since by the means of acting collectively - so, what Sahlins calls a reciprocal relation, taking part in each other’s lives but also acting together - a (strong) bond of collective identity can be established through which social change is brought about. In this reciprocal relationality of experience and performativity that is ‘Kin‐ Art’ we thus must ask ourselves: • Can an entity that is acting on completely different cognitive grounds than a human being, such as the machine, actually be creative? • Or, thinking with mathematician and programmer Ada Lovelace, can we only get out of a machine what we put in? (see Boden 2004: 16) 5 The Creative Body In our contemporary understanding, one of the most dominant images of how the process of being creative or having a groundbreaking thought or idea comes into being is perhaps tied to the image of a deeply concentrated, wildly scribbling cleaning person who is solving mathematical problems on a school board in the hallway of a university. To depict seemingly ordinary people as harboring a hidden genius that is triggered and activated in the face of a particularly difficult problem is a prevalent scenario in popular culture. Another popular image is the filmic representation of a genius who can see the unfolding of patterns in a vast number of letters, numbers, or digits to unlock the solution to a century-old problem. Good Will Hunting (1997) in the first example and A Beautiful Mind (2001) or The Imitation Game (2014) in the second, are the most prominent filmic representations of how popular discourse is dealing with the creative genius. It turns out that creativity is one of the oldest and most researched concepts, and yet one of the most obscure ones. Musicologist Alfred Einstein said that Mozart was “only a visitor upon this earth” (Einstein 1945: 4), and Einstein was only one of many who implied that Mozart was indeed born in heaven, and so were his creations. (see Hildesheimer 1983: 15) What these examples of popular cul‐ ture and Einstein’s comment seem to illustrate is what we call divine inspiration; 70 Kim Luther it is this divine inspiration which is often thought of as being the only entrance into the world of great, genius, and novel ideas. Divine inspiration as the only mode of creative genius is thus only excreted for a nowhere point such as the heavens by a deity or a supernatural force. Here, however, genius and creativity are based on a metaphysical paradox and a mystery at the same time: firstly, creativity is often discussed as creating something out of nothing, but creation ex nihilo poses a logical problem since nothing can be created out of nothing. So, over the centuries, it was often argued that people are gifted by God with no explanation for their talent; secondly, it remains neurologically unclear how exactly the mind forms new ideas without anything making a claim on it. To disregard creation ex nihilo allows for an entity that holds a vast amount of knowledge and inspiration and forms new ideas out of these pieces and by this creates something that was not there before. This would also render true what Roland Barthes in La mort de l’auteur claimed with regard to literature: every new idea is not new per se, but a composite of pieces that were there before. However, two views that are directly connected to these metaphysical prob‐ lems dominate the discourse on creativity, according to Margaret Boden: the inspirationalist and the romantic view. From the perspective of an inspiration‐ alist, creativity is something “essentially mysterious, even superhuman or di‐ vine.” (Boden 2004: 14) The romantic approach, however, is less extreme, claiming that creativity - while not actually divine - is at least ex‐ ceptional. Creative artists (and scientists) are said to be people gifted with a specific talent which others lack: insight, or intuition. […] According to the romantic, intuitive talent is innate, a gift that cannot be acquired - or taught. (Boden 2004: 14) Both notions of creativity are geared towards the human realm, as one filled with consciousness, rationality, intellect, intuition, an artistic sensibility, and sense-movement. Creativity is not only bound to an unidentifiable source (think divine inspiration! ), but it is also bound to a human being that can be inspired by God, or be gifted - with the effect of protecting the entire concept of creativity from being scientifically explainable, which would demystify or reduce it to something worldly, or worse, pose yet another Kränkung des Menschen [insult against the human]. This is the tradition that Boden challenges when she argues that creativity and the creative process can be better understood “with the help of ideas from artificial intelligence ( AI ).” (Boden 2004: 15) If creativity is not divine inspiration or produced ex nihilo, then the question remains where it derives from. The other side of the spectrum of opinions argues that creativity must derive from preexisting sources of knowledge and experi‐ ence that are combined to form something new and surprising. As the French 71 The Creative Couple: Towards an Aesthetic Union of the Human and the Machine mathematician Jacques Hadamard suggested, “it is obvious that invention or discovery, be it in mathematics or anywhere else, takes place by combining ideas.” (quoted in Boden 2004: 40) Creative output gets assigned value according to the degree to which the idea is unusual. Boden then introduces two senses of ‘creativeness’: a psychological (P-creative) and historical (H-creative) one by which to distinguish and judge whether an idea is to be called creative. Because Boden links creativity mainly to the novelty of a creative product, her notions of P-creativity and H-creativity can both apply to actants or collectives that are human or machine only or that form a human-machine assemblage. For Pcreativity, just individual parameters are taken into account. An idea is P-crea‐ tive if it is surprising or novel and exceeds the individual and expected consti‐ tution, “no matter how many people may have had the same idea already.” (Boden 2004: 43) Subsequently, A. I. can be credited with P-creativity in those cases in which it has never delivered this particular output before, or where it combines ideas that it has never combined before, thereby outsmarting itself - which holds especially true for A. I. systems that are equipped with the ability for deep learning. Complementary to P-creativity, Boden introduces H-crea‐ tivity, which refers to “the whole of human history.” (Boden 2004: 43) So if no one ever before has had the idea, we would consider it as being H-creative. 6 KinArt: The Creative Process and Kinship Formations In KinArt, human and machine / computer form a creative entity, a collective assemblage - an artistic collective - that can build the perfect amalgamation of talent and innovation in one creative process and product, which can be con‐ sidered to be the result of H-creativity, thus completely novel. What counts as creative, and thereby who counts as a creative genius, is not only a result of the genius themselves, but also of societies’ acknowledgment of the creative product. Boden’s Pand H-creativity standards thus knot themselves to the cul‐ tural dependency of what counts as kin, human, nonhuman, organic, inorganic, or a collective. Any idea can hence be potentially creative, novel, and useful (see Pereira 2007: 29), but society has to be ready to take the idea seriously and possibly push it further. This doubles the noticing and recognition pattern from who and what counts as kin and knots it into art and creativity as well. What counts as creative and artistic is hence not decided by the deity (think divine inspiration), but imbedded in a reciprocal negotiation with powerful taste-makers functioning as gate-keepers for revolutionary artistic ideas and aesthetics. One of these global creativity taste-makers and gate-keepers is the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York, NY , USA (Mo MA ). 72 Kim Luther In 2016, the Mo MA hosted the exhibition Manus x Machina - Fashion in the Age of Technology. The title, as explained by the curators, derives from Fritz Lang’s famous movie Metropolis that starts and ends with the words “[t]he me‐ diator between the head and the hands must be the heart.” (Bolton 2016: 9) In their introductory remarks, the curators explain that, to fit the exhibition context better, the statement should be rephrased to “[t]he mediator between the hand and the machine must be the heart.” (Bolton 2016: 8) What this rephrasing evokes is the dominant dualism of art and technology, human and machine, hand and exhibition piece. In fact, since the mid-nineteenth century, at the very beginning of haute couture, this dichotomy between hand and machine was an everpresent, guiding principle of fashion and a distinctive characteristic of haute couture and prêt-a-porter. One would think that this dichotomy was fueled by the invention of the sewing machine in 1828 / 29. But not until the late nineteenth century, when fashion reached a level of mass production, almost as a consequence, the dis‐ tinction evolved between a fashion product that was mainly manufactured by hand versus a product that was given ‘less individual attention,’ ergo was man‐ ufactured mainly by a machine. Since the beginning of the 20 th century, we have known this distinction under the umbrella terms haute couture and prêt-a-porter - meaning nothing less than a technical production that is custom-made (haute couture) or ready-made (prêt-a-porter). Against the background of these different types of fashion designs and the hitherto thickly drawn line of demarcation between the two, it seems like an exceedingly difficult undertaking to build a synthesis between the hand and the machine and, as I argue, a form of kinship in this creative process of garment creating. In an extensive exhibition, Manus x Machina revealed the countless ways in which man and machine work together - not only in stitching a dress or garment, but also in the creative process of building the design. The overall focus of the exhibition was to question the dialectic relationship in which the hand and the machine are portrayed as discordant instruments […]. Instead of presenting the handmade and the machine made as oppositional, it suggests a spectrum or continuum of practice […], whereby the hand and the machine are equal and protagonists in solving design problems, enhancing design practices, and, ultimately, advancing the future of fashion. (Bolton 2016: 12) 73 The Creative Couple: Towards an Aesthetic Union of the Human and the Machine 7 KinArt Manus x Machina presents designs that would not have been possible without the confluence between handmade and machine-made: Manus x Machina shows us nothing less than what I call KinArt: art that is created through kinship bonds between human and machine, established by an artistic collective, acting and being H-creative as a result of the creative and distributive process. Figure 1 shows the haute couture wedding dress designed by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel’s autumn / winter collection of 2014 / 15, that was the inspiration for the exhibi‐ tion. The front is rather plain and clear-cut; compared to its backside, it is rel‐ atively unspectacular. Curator Andrew Bolton explains that the dress was “sketched by hand, manipulated on a computer (the pattern), painted by hand, machine-printed with rhinestones and hand embroidered with pearls and gem‐ stones.” (Bolton 2016: 110) What becomes evident is that there is a spectrum of things to be done to produce this dress, and this includes more than just the way of assembling the pieces. Two things are noteworthy in this example: firstly, technology, as well as man, is the creative mastermind behind the overall design since the pattern was brought to life and developed by a software. Secondly, human hands completed the rather mechanical task of sewing, and the satin train is based on hand-drawn designs by Karl Lagerfeld that were then digitally altered to create a “random baroque pattern.” (Bolton 2016: 9) The hand - which metonymically stands for the human being - and the ma‐ chine have entered a space together where they form a creative entity. The result being a product of KinArt - art through a participatory and performative kinship (think Sahlins! ) between man and machine. Here, ‘being’ is transformed by the different actors into a ‘doing,’ a creating of a garment that would not have been possible to make without either the machine’s computing of the flowing and intricate design, nor could it have been made without the delicate and precise stitching and sowing work that has made haute couture famous. What KinArt reveals is the act of creating something along the lines of P-creativity, something genuinely novel for the actants involved in the creative process. The novel cre‐ ative outcome, however, lies in the collective action between hand and machine (and many more actants, such as fabric, electricity, yarn, computer chips etc.) and their work towards an otherwise unthinkable - not available to think or do with - aesthetic product and effect. 74 Kim Luther Figure 1: Dress by Karl Lagerfeld (© Nicholas Alan Cope. Manus x Machina of Metro‐ politan Museum of Art) Figure 2 shows an haute couture dress made by Dutch designer Iris van Herpen for the spring / summer collection 2012. It is “machine-sewn, nude cotton sateen and nude nylon mesh, machineand hand-embroidered with laser-cut clear plastic strips hand-printed with black lines.” (Bolton 2016: 111) The creative de‐ sign and architecture of the dress heavily depends on the collective and distrib‐ utive work of man and machine to think and craft these bent foldings of fabric. 75 The Creative Couple: Towards an Aesthetic Union of the Human and the Machine Figure 2: Dress by Iris van Herpen (© Nicholas Alan Cope. Manus x Machina of Metro‐ politan Museum of Art) These dresses in figure 2 and 3 do not only complicate the human-machineshared design process, but the idea of ‘handmade,’ that is humanly hand sown and stitched, of haute couture itself, by being materialized through 3-D printing. Form, material, and assemblage would, thus, not have been possible without the assistance of a machine and a computer. Iris van Herpen herself reflects on her artist collective: I think nanoengineering and metamaterials will probably create completely new be‐ haviors. As designers, we don’t realize how much of our designs are dictated by ma‐ terials and their behavior. Instinctively, a designer knows how a seam will work, that there will be gravity, that there will be a certain amount of transparency. So, imagine a material that makes you completely invisible. As a designer, it’s almost unthinkable how metamaterials will change the design process. In fashion, those changes are going to be even more radical than the techniques of making clothing. (Bolton 2016: xix) As early as 1990, the cognitive scientist and A. I. specialist Margaret Boden al‐ ready argued that computers can have a creative agency in that they can do “creative things” (Boden 2016: 21), although overall she aims at explaining the human cognitive process in the act of being creative (think transhumanist trap! ). Boden tries to explain human creativity by looking at studies on A. I. Computers 76 Kim Luther and how they can do creative things, which is not to argue that computers / algorithms, or even A. I. can be the mastermind, the ‘inspired’ one in the process. But it has become evident that man and machine, when engaging in a situation of creating something truly novel, can be performative partners that actively cause a change in the world - a change that would not have been possible without one or the other, but just by collectively acting with the result being a piece of art that can be called H-creative, according to Boden, in that it is novel and has not been there before. Human and machine are forming an artistic col‐ lective that is engaged in an active and intra-active process by participating in creating and assembling, designing and stitching a fashion product, such as Iris van der Herpen or Karl Lagerfeld’s dresses. The ontological entanglement of both human and machine in this creative process is what makes KinArt and a KinArt aesthetic. Figure 3: Dress by Iris van Herpen (© Niholas Alan Cope. Manus X Machina of Metro‐ politan Museum of Art) 8 A Collective Kin Aesthetic and KinArt The creative engagement between man and machine is truly changing fashion design because what was once impossible to form, design, or build is now tech‐ 77 The Creative Couple: Towards an Aesthetic Union of the Human and the Machine nically possible and unfolded through the reciprocal relation between the human being and the machine. As a consequence, a new aesthetic develops that lies at the very heart of kinship. One could argue that, since the beginning of mankind, human beings have used tools, but this does not necessarily mean that there is kinship formed between the human and the tool although both partic‐ ipate in a performative, constructive or destructive (depending on the tool) act. The difference between using a tool and using technology to shape something new lies in the fact that no other tool can exceed the human being on so many levels at once and thereby become a democratic partner in forming the future. To understand kinship not as a biological relatedness and free it from its bio‐ logical determinism, but instead as a spectrum of chosen relations renders it possible to expand the fruitful and intimate relationship to technology and create what can be called KinArt. A product of KinArt is then one that is devel‐ oped by the human and the machine through collectively acting towards the common goal of creating art that can ultimately be called truly novel and Hcreative. Also, the long-held belief that machines can only be as smart as their creator is being revealed as outdated by KinArt through machines’ and algo‐ rithms’ deep learning abilities. Any form of creativity has traditionally been credited to the creator of the machine (think Frankenstein! ) since it was believed to be absurd that a machine can be creative, too. As has become evident, how‐ ever, a computer can even be P-creative and outsmart itself by developing some‐ thing new in its own realm. But it can also be H-creative and design something that has not been developed before. Not only in the form of fashion, but also in case of other forms of art, KinArt changes aesthetic paradigms. Thereby the machine is not just a tool anymore (like its sister the artist’s brush), but becomes a creator, an artist, itself. In a recent auction hosted by Christie’s, it became obvious that even art that is created almost without the help of a human artist is becoming a noteworthy player not only for aesthetic reasons but also financially when it was sold for over 400,000 dollars. The Portrait of Edmond Belamy is entirely created by an algorithm that was fueled with a data set of 15,000 portraits ranging from the 14 th to the 20 th century. The artist collective Obvious introduced the portrait as an example of algorithmic art that is generative, meaning that based on the data it gets it anal‐ yses a combination of attributes that has not been there before. Critics may argue that this is not creative but simply combining what had been there already. With CAN , a creative algebraic network, Ahmed Elgammal, director of the Artificial Intelligence Lab at Rutgers University, meets the above-stated critique. CAN is creative rather than generative, fueled with a data set but with the dif‐ ference that it is explicitly supposed to create novelty, not through combining 78 Kim Luther elements that were there before but instead through building / creating, in op‐ position to the known, the unknown novel. At this point, we can say that there are two main shapings that a creative act of A. I. can take to create an aesthetic that is participatory - knotting nonhuman with the human and organic with the inorganic: a. the machine which is deeply intertwined with the human, in that humans are its creators and its influence at the same time: on this ground and on the basis of data sets also made by the human being, this algorithm can create something truly new; b. next to that, but somewhat different from the one shaping described above, there is the machine that has left the given data set behind and made itself independent of the human control as well as of the compre‐ hensibility and built a creative process of its own. Either way, in each of these cases, whenever the human being and an entity like a) or b) may work together or, at least from a certain moment on, apart, KinArt has the potential to emerge. KinArt exposes the myth of the one closed-off orig‐ inator, the humanist creative genius, as overcome and outdated - quite literally by multiple data sets. KinArt allows for any creative couple to work towards an aesthetic, a shaping of art, that would have not been possible before, both in‐ tellectually and / or materially. The collective within the KinArt collective may then work together towards a goal via either Hor P-creativity. The A. I. that may be involved in the KinArt processes, as discussed above, thus creates a humanist trap: within KinArt, it simply does not matter whether knowledge or creativity has been derived from the machine or the human only: all that matters is, in fact, the creative couple. Tapping into this wound, at the center of this injury may lie a concept com‐ monly discussed under Protagoras’ homo mensura: in an Enlightenment fashion, this doctrine has often been interpreted as the human (and its ratio, mind, in‐ tellect, and the reign of these attributes) being the measure of all things. KinArt offers another interpretation in a double manner: firstly, KinArt ontologically unveils that in this scientized - and posthuman - world, man cannot be the measure of all things anymore since nonhuman and inorganic actants, such as the computer, data sets, fitness trackers, hearing aids, care robots, cell phones, bacteria that can only be detected through certain instruments, clothes, (deep learning) algorithms (this list is potentially endless), have joined our modes of being and doing in the world already; the human, thus, as a closed-off and an‐ thropocentric entity can, ontologically speaking, simply not be the measure of all things anymore because these things do not act or exist detached from non‐ 79 The Creative Couple: Towards an Aesthetic Union of the Human and the Machine human actants in the first place; secondly, KinArt shows through an aesthetic engagement that homo mensura is now nonhomo-mensura, or a creative couple. This creative coupling is potentially ongoing because it exposes and engages the viewer in an interpretative process with KinArt to ask how things are created and not who, which singularity, has created this, once thought as human-cen‐ tered and weirdly immaterial, piece of art. KinArt can thus develop an aesthetic engagement which is truly collective, as in working together to build something, and truly kin, since it recognizes queer, algorithmic, (non)human, and A. I. as kin. It is this direct aesthetic en‐ gagement that KinArt can produce and that a piece of theory on KinArt could truly never replicate. Hence, go to the museum. Works Cited Best, Elsdon (1924). The Maori. Wellington: Harry H. Tombs. Boden, Margaret A. (2004). The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms. London: Rout‐ ledge. Bolton, Andrew (2016). Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Carsten, Janet (2004). After Kinship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Einstein, Alfred (1945). Mozart, His Character, His Work. New York: Oxford University Press. Furstenberg, Frank (2018). American Kinship Reconsidered. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hildesheimer, Wolfgang (1983). Mozart. London: Vintage. Jones, Doug (2018). ‘Kinship in Mind: Three Approaches,’ in Warren Shapiro and Dwight Read, eds., Focality and Extension in Kinship: Essays in Memory of Harold W. Scheffler. Acton: ANU Press, 343 - 86. Lykken, David T. (1998). ‘The Genetics of Genius,’ in Andrew Steptoe, ed., Genius and the Mind: . Studies of Creativity and Temperament. New York: Oxford University Press. Melucci, Alberto (1999). ‘Soziale Bewegungen in komplexen Gesellschaften: Die euro‐ päische Perspektive,’ in Ansgar Klein and Michael Hasse, eds., Neue soziale Bewe‐ gungen: Impulse, Bilanzen und Perspektiven. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 114 - 30. Pereira, Francisco Câmara (2007). Creativity and Artificial Intelligence: A Conceptual Blending Approach. Berlin: De Gruyter. Sahlins, Marshall (2013). What Kinship Is - And Is Not. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shapiro, Warren and Dwight Read (2018). ‘Introduction: Hal Scheffler’s Extensionism in Historical Perspective and its Relevance to Current Controversies,’ in Warren Shapiro 80 Kim Luther and Dwight Read, eds., Focality and Extension in Kinship: Essays in Memory of Harold W. Scheffler. Acton: ANU Press, 3 - 30. Simonton, Dean Keith (1999). Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity. New York: Oxford University Press. 81 The Creative Couple: Towards an Aesthetic Union of the Human and the Machine “What language do you dream in? ” Re-Imagining the Future of (Post-)Human Kinships Anya Heise-von der Lippe Keywords: kinship as practice, indigenous thought, knowledge production, narrative, posthuman for Vera, my oddkin (1933-2020) 1 Introduction It has almost become a truth universally acknowledged (at least both Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek have said so) that it seems “easier for us today to imagine the thoroughgoing deterioration of the earth and of nature than the breakdown of late capitalism.” ( Jameson 1996: xii, see also Zizek! 2005) Jameson’s phrasing is ostensibly meant to call attention to a certain cultural inertia in view of the ubiquity and highly destructive potential of late neoliberal capitalism after the proclaimed “end of history” (see Fukuyama 1992), but Jameson’s reference to an apocalyptic imagination also makes this a challenging position to analyze from the perspective of literary and cultural studies. After all, if all we can imagine in contemporary popular culture is an apocalyptic event of global pro‐ portions and the survival of the (American) nuclear family (and maybe their dog - as we see in countless post-apocalyptic Hollywood movies) what exactly does that say about our understanding of what our future might look like? In 2016, Žižek took his argument a step further, expressing a wish to accelerate the arrival of an end that he perceived as a necessary precondition for radical change: in the run-up to the US elections, he argued that electing Trump would be an opportunity for a cultural restart after the cataclysmic end he would almost certainly bring about. (see Žižek 2016) These comments highlight a definitive apocalyptic strain in contemporary western culture and politics, which tends to gloss over the fact that such an observation can only be made from a very specific cultural position that privileges a western view of ‘history’ and ‘culture’ (not entirely unproblematic concepts in themselves, as western ideas of either often exclude other conceptions of time and meaningful existence). While apocalyptic visions of the end as a new beginning have a long tradition in cultures rooted in Christianity and other apocalyptic religions, to perceive the end of the world as we know it as an opportunity for a new beginning and actually anticipate its arrival seems to reflect an unprecedented level of casual apocalypticism. Such a position, steeped in the privilege of one’s own likely survival, shows a blatant disregard for the skewed power relations between Global North and Global South, rich and poor, and the fact that, first and foremost, the distribution of wealth (but also related forms of privilege) would have an impact on who would be likely to survive such a catastrophe and be able to thrive after an event of apocalyptic proportions, as well as the simple reality that the global poor are already disproportionally affected by the unfolding climate catastrophe. (see Solnit) Moreover, such an argument is ableist, to say the least, and borders on eugenics at its worst, as it assumes that the death of millions of those most in need of care (the elderly, the very young and people with disabilities and chronic illnesses) would be no great loss to humanity as a whole. (see Harrington 2019) The assumption that a global catastrophic event would solve environmental issues often assumed to be caused by overpopulation is, as Banu Subramaniam argues, an oversimplification of more complex issues that shifts the blame from the overindustrialized Global North to the generally much more sustain‐ ably-living but more densely populated Global South. (see Subramaniam 2018) Racism, ableism, and eugenics often create uncomfortable alliances in argu‐ ments that try to solve ecological problems by addressing overpopulation - even in generally well-meaning contexts like the edited collection Making Kin Not Population: Reconceiving Generations edited by Adele Clarke and Donna Har‐ away, which Subramaniam reviews in her essay: [u]ltimately, this volume makes an utterly persuasive argument that we need more affective and political structures to make kin but an utterly unpersuasive one that the ideology of overpopulation can ever be unmoored from its racist and colonist legacies. (Subramaniam 2018) These issues remain connected in the current discussion of climate catastrophe and global inequalities. As Quo-Li Driskill points out, [a]bleism is colonial. It is employed to maintain an ideal body of a white supremacist imagination. This ideal body is heterosexual, male, white, Christian, non-disabled, and well-muscled. It is an ideal with a long and troubling history inseparable from racism, genocide, misogyny, and eugenics. (Driskill 2012: 84) 84 Anya Heise-von der Lippe This “vanilla essence consisting of white maleness” (Morton 2017: 3) - in Timothy Morton’s phrase - is also the one powerful subject position whose largely unquestioned dominance lies at the heart of most of our current troubles with humanism and the human. (see Braidotti 2013: 1-2) To read an apocalyptic event as not only inevitable but also desirable is thus a fundamentally unethical and inhumane position that shows a very narrow understanding of the category of “humanity” in the first place - as well as a hierarchical conception of life on this planet. Moreover, as Elissa Washuta ar‐ gues, this kind of “apocalypse logic” denies the existence of people who already live under post-apocalyptic conditions - be it from the consequences of climate catastrophe or, as Washuta points out, because their world ended with the arrival of western settler colonialism - and who “are still forced to react to the settler state built upon intentional efforts to kill us all.” (Washuta 2016) Denial of these ongoing and systematic patterns of oppression is built into the “ghost-making rhetorics of colonization,” (Heath Justice 2008: 150) as is the denial of narratives and epistemologies outside of the western canon. An example of such conflicting narratives would be the legal conceptualization of personhood in US society - namely, the fact that personhood can be granted to corporations but not to, for instance, bodies of water. As Shelley Streeby summarizes (with Edward Valandra), [a]lthough the Western way of life “denies” and “defies” the idea of water having personhood, […] the U. S. government “arbitrarily recognizes fictional entities like corporations as real persons” while historically denying personhood to real people such as slaves. Valandra argues that “our kinship obligates us to protect water from egregious harm” […] Many Indigenous people throughout the world are connected through experiencing similar struggles over land, water, oil, and pipelines against transnational corporations and states that wish to extract value from them while wastelanding their communities. (Streeby 2018: 46; see Valandra 2016) To read these struggles merely as environmentalist efforts at preserving natural resources that are perceived - within a Western logic - as entirely separate from conceptualizations of the human or personhood, thus, means not only to deny different ways of understanding and interacting with non-human entities, but also to deny the fact that these relationships are, within capitalist systems, heavily skewed towards profitability and against preserving both human and non-human life. Native American cosmogonies, for instance, include a concep‐ tion of ‘peoplehood’ that extends beyond the human, as Heath Justice points out: 85 “What language do you dream in? ” Re-Imagining the Future of (Post-)Human Kinships [t]he recognition of some sort of relationship between and among peoples - the ever-contextual contours of kinship - returns us to the physical realm of the partici‐ patory. At their best, these relationships extend beyond the human to encompass de‐ grees of kinship with other peoples, from the plants and animals to the sun, moon, thunder, and other elemental forces. (Heath Justice 2008: 151) Reading the term ‘people’ in this manner not only requires a conscious effort to resist the “apocalypse logic” (Washuta 2016) of late capitalism but also the will‐ ingness to engage with different epistemologies and value systems - let alone different ideas of kinship and relationality. As Washuta writes, somewhat sar‐ castically, “[i]f this doesn’t make sense, don’t think about it. Don’t try to find explanations consistent with what might be called logic. Know that, if you are not from a post-apocalyptic people, you may not be familiar with these strategies we use to survive.” (Washuta 2016) Bearing in mind the dominant role of apocalyptic logic in contemporary western cultures, this chapter not only tries to make an argument about the kind of narratives we tell, but also the assumptions about narrative and its functions underlying those narratives. I will start from three premises: 1. As Ursula Le Guin has observed, the possibility to even imagine different futures often emerges in narrative: “[w]e live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.” (Le Guin 2014) Le Guin’s speech, predominantly directed against the power of cap‐ italist monopolies on the book market (specifically online retail giant Amazon), also draws attention to the functions of narrative in shaping our understanding of (and thus our ability to imagine) possible futures. 2. Even if the ubiquity of apocalyptic narratives in contemporary popular media seems to suggest otherwise, there are other ways of imagining the future - ways that do not privilege narratives of destruction in the An‐ thropocene, or the survival of the strongest after an imaginary apocalyptic event, but alternative systems of knowledge creation and understanding based on kinship as a practice, rather than a static form of relationality, in what Donna Haraway has termed ‘sympoiesis’ - that is, “worlding with” or making together as a critical narrative practice in “complex, dy‐ namic, responsive, situated, historical systems.” (Haraway 2016: 58) Haraway’s argument is based on the observation that what she calls “[c]ritters - human or not - become-with each other, compose and de‐ 86 Anya Heise-von der Lippe compose each other, in every scale and register of time and stuff in sym‐ poietic tangling, in evolutionary developmental earthly worlding and un‐ worlding.” (Haraway 2016: 97) 3. Such sympoietic narrative strategies can, as Streeby argues, be found in both fictional and activist approaches that move away from the exploi‐ tative logic of late capitalism. (see Streeby 2018: 32) She cites the novels and archival work of Octavia Butler (most prominently her work on cli‐ mate change in The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents) alongside the activist work of Native American communities in resisting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, essentially comparing the imaginative work of worldbuilding through speculative fiction to the processes of worldmaking through collective action and community ef‐ forts of preserving and passing on cultural traditions and knowledge. As Streeby summarizes, the #No DAPL -water-protector camps established schools which were “able to draw on many talented Indigenous teachers who came to Standing Rock. Using donated tablets with solar chargers, the schoolchildren, who said they were tired of how reporters told their stories, created their own films, involving research and interviews, while taking classes in math, science, and Lakota values and language.” (Streeby 2018: 41) Streeby’s examples from activism span from “schools and education” to “camp kitchens produc[ing] three meals a day, often made up of Indigenous foods, for hundreds of people” to health care provided “despite limited resources.” (Streeby 2018: 41-2) Apart from their impact on the camps themselves, these community efforts created a different narrative about the necessity of the water protectors’ work that was heard around the world. To understand both art and activism as related, entangled strategies of sympoiesis - of ‘making together’ - requires a different angle of reading and constructing narrative - one not based on the hierarchies of western enlightenment logic but on the acknowledgment of other worldmaking patterns. Haraway’s examples of sympoiesis in Staying With the Trouble include “Navajo weaving” as a “cosmological performance, knotting proper relationality and connectedness into the warp and weft of the fabric.” (Haraway 2016: 91) Her understanding of sympoiesis thus stretches beyond narrative to active worldmaking, or rather, it encompasses both as similar prac‐ tices. To highlight such sympoietic strategies, this chapter will first introduce some of the problems of apocalyptic logic and the dominance of western epistemology and how narrative might undermine it and finally move on to the possibilities 87 “What language do you dream in? ” Re-Imagining the Future of (Post-)Human Kinships of narrating kinship and sympoiesis in Cherie Dimaline’s young-adult novel The Marrow Thieves (2018). 2 Exclusively Apocalyptic As I am writing this chapter in the record-temperature-breaking summer of 2019, the Amazon rainforest is burning, as is the Siberian tundra and large parts of Africa. In view of the many signs of climate catastrophe, waiting for a more cataclysmic event - or even actively triggering it through strategies of slashing and burning in the service of making more money - may not be the most useful political stance to adopt. Nor is it very likely that technology will save us. Myra Hird uses the term “anthropocene aesthetic” (Hird 2017: 255) for such narratives of unforeseen technological progress, suggesting that in these scenarios we “subject nature to capital” (Hird 2017: 255) and see more technoscientific inter‐ ventions as the solution to the problems largely created by previous technoscientific developments. Belief in unprecedented future technological inven‐ tions that will somehow save humankind from our own planet-destroying po‐ tential often masks a dangerous inertia in the present. Chances are that we will not suddenly discover our ecological potential once larger parts of the world have become even more uninhabitable than they already are. Even the tech billionaires of Silicon Valley do not seem to be convinced that their apps and gadgets will save the planet, as they are already working on their escape plans, strategically stationing private jets and building underground luxury bunkers in New Zealand. (see Carville 2018) Apart from the amounts of money involved, this scenario is not all that far removed from popular media narratives which present the dubious notion that a continuation of human existence on this planet would be possible for a small group of survivors. This kind of imagined “cosy catastrophe” (Aldiss 1973: 292) often celebrates a world without our ubiquitous medial connections as simpler and more meaningful, as well as more sustainable, without acknowledging that the privilege of survival would, for instance, exclude anyone whose physical survival depends on modern medical technologies. These narratives are also frequently set in the Global North and relish in showing the devastation of other, less fortunate parts of the world as collateral damage in opulent actions scenes (see, for instance, the Hollywood films 2012 and Geostorm). Where more actionand adventure-focused narratives simply gloss over the death of the sick, elderly and disabled after societies collapse, Emily St. John Mandel’s postapocalyptic novel Station Eleven (2014) imagines a scenario that involves characters with both physical and mental disabilities who decide to take their own lives after a 88 Anya Heise-von der Lippe flu pandemic - the first, because he would rather not venture out onto unsafe roads in his wheelchair, the second, because she runs out of antidepressants and is last seen as she “walked away into the trees.” (Mandel 2014: 245) As one of the more thoughtful postapocalyptic narratives of the last decade, the novel deliberately presents their suicides as a matter of their own agency, rather than an unavoidable effect of failing medical technology, thus drawing attention to their humanity and kinship with the other survivors. “Survival,” the novel main‐ tains, quoting from an episode of Star Trek, “is insufficient.” (Mandel 2014: 58) Station Eleven stands as a counterexample to genre classics like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006) because it addresses these questions and the sub‐ jectivity and agency of people with disabilities, even if it does not offer a solution to the problem of accessible survival. By comparison, faced with a complete breakdown of social structures as well as the environment, the few survivors in McCarthy’s characteristically bleak novel return to autocratic structures based on brute physical force and cannibalism. But even in texts that imagine a viable future for humanity, the desire to build groups and repopulate often results in a violent reinforcement of heteropatriarchal structures and an exploitative at‐ titude towards other species and the planet as a whole. We still seem to be, as Rosi Braidotti puts it, “clinging to the hierarchical power relations determined by the dominant politics of the anthropomorphic subject.” (Braidotti 2013: 112) But if, similar to speculative fiction, critical theory is also mired in the anthro‐ pocentric legacies of the Anthropocene, is it even possible to think about pos‐ sible futures differently and what would such an alternative subject position look like? In a recent piece on ‘Posthuman Times’ Manuela Rossini and Mike Toggweiler address the difficulty of imagining “change and political interventions” without falling into the trap of humanist grand narratives of progress. They ask: [g]iven the numerous shortcomings of modernity, how can we offer effective strat‐ egies for trans / formations to the better, and how do we quantify and qualify that ‘better’? In short, is there a positive potential or legacy within modernity and hu‐ manism to rethink time for an emancipatory politics in the here and now? (Rossini and Toggweiler 2018) What Rossini and Toggweiler suggest is a critical posthumanist position that does not attempt to accelerate progress beyond the human, nor nostalgically yearn for a better past. To read the ‘post’ in posthuman in such a manner would mean, they argue, to fall for the “Eurocentric transcendentalism and thanato‐ philia” of humanism. Instead, we need to “embrace the multiple, relational, 89 “What language do you dream in? ” Re-Imagining the Future of (Post-)Human Kinships ambivalent, incompatible, fragmented, ephemeral, discontinuous, and dissonant in order to see, hear and feel differently.” (Rossini and Toggweiler 2018) Where humanist positions fail, critics may also turn to schools of criticism that have traditionally questioned or challenged its tenets. As Richard Grusin points out, what he terms ‘anthropocene feminism’ might offer alternatives to “the too often unquestioned masculinist and technonormative approach to the Anthropocene taken by technoscientists, artists, humanists, or social scientists.” (Grusin 2017: x) Such an approach could draw on the “continued flourishing of speculation and imagination as forms of queer and feminist knowledge produc‐ tion.” (Grusin 2017: xi) Grusin’s argument resonates with Haraway’s work, most prominently her ironic questioning of the binaries maintained by technoscien‐ tific, heteropatriarchal culture. In the Cyborg Manifesto (1984) specifically, she suggests a narrative-oriented approach, pointing out that “the boundary be‐ tween science fiction and social reality is an optical illusion.” (Haraway 2000: 149) As I have argued above, Haraway has more recently developed this inter‐ secting narrative / critical approach as ‘sympoiesis,’ re-imagining cultural criti‐ cism and lived activism as a form of narrative that can accommodate a plurality of individual voices and ideas. What is at stake here is not just the question of whose voice(s) can be heard, but also what can be known - that is, what counts as knowledge at specific cultural moments. What Haraway suggests is, thus, a shift in value systems as much as in narrative patterns. 3 What Is and Can Be Known Similar to Haraway’s theoretical storytelling, Le Guin’s speculative fiction often explores modes of thinking beyond a strictly humanist / anthropocentric focus. Her speculative post-apocalyptic novel Always Coming Home (1985) combines narrative threads and fragments of other genres to trace the various modes of expression of an imagined, post-apocalyptic Indigenous culture. What interests me in this context is the meta-narrative level of the text, which looks at the ways in which information is always tied to and perpetuates power relations. As the fictional archivist in the novel asks, [w]ho controls the storage and retrieval? To what extent is the material there for anyone who wants and needs it, and to what extent is it “there” only for those who have the information that it is there, the education to obtain information, and the power to get that education? How many people in your society are literate? How many are computer-competent? How many of them have the competence to use li‐ braries and electronic information storage systems? How much real information is available to ordinary, non-government, nonmilitary, nonspecialist, nonrich people? 90 Anya Heise-von der Lippe What does “classified” mean? What do shredders shred? What does money buy? In a State, even a democracy, where power is hierarchic, how can you prevent the storage of information from becoming yet another source of power to the powerful - another piston in the great machine? (Le Guin 1985: 315-6) What Le Guin described in 1985 has become even more relevant today as almost all aspects of our lives rely on structured, automatically organized data, and it is also becoming increasingly obvious that A. I. and deep-learning powered search algorithms perpetuate ingrained stereotypes and existing power struc‐ tures. (see Noble 2018) In short, search and data sorting algorithms serve to ultimately distinguish between who is considered human, worthy, a rights-holder and citizen - and who is excluded from those categories. (see Zuboff 2018) And yet we seem to take these problematic structures as largely inevitable when they are presented under the nimbus of high-tech ingenuity. As Sara Wachter-Boettcher suggests, this has something to do with the aura of the tech startup as a genius-led, money-making machine, which tends to let these firms get away with behaviors and work ethics that are much more strictly legislated and publicly scrutinized in more traditional industries and corporate structures. (see Wachter-Boettcher 2018) Wachter-Boettcher describes how al‐ gorithms unquestioningly perpetuate ingrained cultural stereotypes and rein‐ force existing networks based on an often exclusively white, male, able-bodied company culture. This is not an accidental glitch in an otherwise perfectly harmless technological innovation, but rather part of an ongoing colonialist project that is, as Heath Justice argues, based on oversimplification and erasure: “[s]implification is essential to the survival of imperialism, as complications breed uncertainty in the infallibility of authoritative truth claims.” (Heath Justice 2008: 155) Given the ubiquity of algorithms in our culture, our failure to engage with their bias has a direct impact on the way we think and how we create narratives about our reality. It is simply easier to perpetuate existing views and biases than to stop and think, and the automatization of decision processes through information technologies makes it even easier for us to ignore them. This inertia is both blatantly obvious and particularly dangerous in the context of the ongoing climate catastrophe. As climate activist Alex Steffen summarizes in an open letter to the young climate advocates taking to the streets in unpre‐ cedented numbers to fight for their future: [h]aving to see and fight, you are coming to know that so much of the world around you - of the adult world - rests on a foundation of untruths, of profitable blindness, of predatory delay. You are surrounded not only by destruction, but by deception on an unprecedented scale. You live in a burning land of smoke and lies. […] The inat‐ 91 “What language do you dream in? ” Re-Imagining the Future of (Post-)Human Kinships tention of most adults to the planetary emergency has left young people with very few teachers, very few mentors, very few real leaders, very few clear paths forward. You, my young friends, are in largely uncharted territory - you’re going to have to find your own trails. (Steffen 2019) Steffen’s point - beyond the direct call to action - hinges on the narrative framing of the current situation. If we want to change the status quo and prevent an entirely unviable future, this suggests, we need narratives that question au‐ tomatic, ingrained biases, as well as narratives that take into consideration that ‘normal’ really does not exist outside of statistics. From the perspective of lit‐ erary and cultural studies, we also need meta-narrative explorations of the way we use narratives to make sense of the world. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home would be an example of such a text precisely because it offers a meta-narrative reflection of its own narrative organization and the production, perpetuation, and accessibility of knowledge, but also draws attention to the importance of narratives in and as epistemological projects. But we may also have to read differently. While those marginalized by dif‐ ferent cultures have traditionally needed to be more creative in inventing a fu‐ ture for themselves (in terms of popular genres, I am thinking of Afro-futurism, Indigenous futurisms and feminist utopias, for instance), readers may also have to engage with these texts differently. As Heath Justice argues, “[s]tories - like kinship, like fire - are what we do, what we create, as much as what we are. Stories expand or narrow our imaginative possibilities - physical freedom won’t matter if we can’t imagine ourselves free as well.” (Heath Justice 2008: 150) For Heath Justice, whose literary criticism is deeply rooted in a Native American (Cherokee) tradition, “[k]inship - in all its messy complexity and diversity - gives us the best measure of interpretive possibility, as it speaks to the fact that our literatures, like our various peoples, are alive.” (Heath Justice 2008: 166) This being alive not only asserts a relationality for the present but also points towards the future, establishing kinship as a set of (narrative) practices. Similar to Haraway’s concept of ‘sympoiesis,’ of ‘worlding together,’ Heath Justice reads kinship as a practice: “it’s not about something that is in itself so much as some‐ thing we do - actively, thoughtfully, respectfully.” (Heath Justice 2008: 148) The practice of kinship as narrative draws attention to and questions how ideologies of capitalism, settler colonialism, and land exploitation (geared towards the ac‐ cumulation of wealth and power over generations) explicitly exclude and un‐ dermine ‘unfamiliar’ (that is literally not familyor nation-based), non-hierar‐ chic, forms of relationality and alternative narratives about the future. 92 Anya Heise-von der Lippe 4 Sympoietic Kinships Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves (2017), targeted at a young adult read‐ ership who might learn about these things alongside the novel’s teenage pro‐ tagonist, shows what a narrative approach based on kinship with non-human people might look like. The older Indigenous characters of the novel discuss the destruction of their traditional territory where the water and the land have been poisoned. In the face of the destruction brought about by the colonizers who also want to use the bodies of Indigenous people as medicine to cure their dreamlessness the response of the few survivors is to want to go home and “start healing the land,” (Dimaline 2017: 193) even if this would mean putting them‐ selves in danger. The fates of the land and the people that inhabit it are ultimately entangled; their healing is presented as a conjoined narrative. There is no sense of nostalgia for a better past, as the protagonists are well aware of the extent of the destruction and still decide to resist and counter it. The novel does not present this as utopian or overly optimistic. Instead, it foregrounds the charac‐ ters’ awareness of their traditional knowledge, necessary to heal the land, as well as their understanding that this is going to be a very long fight: “[w]e’ll get there. Maybe not soon, but eventually.” (Dimaline 2017: 193) More importantly, however, the text emphasizes the sympoietic connection between the land and the people: “[w]hen we heal our land, we are healed also.” (Dimaline 2017: 193) Kinship practices are rooted in an understanding of culture, history, and identity that is passed on to the young protagonists as ‘Story,’ told by Miigwans, one of the elders in their group: “every week we spoke, because it was imperative that we know. He said it was the only way to make the kinds of changes that were necessary to really survive.” (Dimaline 2018: 25) By presenting the teach‐ ings as ‘Story’ rather than history, the novel suggests that there might be dif‐ ferent ways of structuring and making sense of knowledge. Moreover, the con‐ cept of ‘Story’ explicitly challenges the concept of white ‘history,’ traditionally associated with the residential schools that have, in the present of the novel, been converted to processing plants to extract the bone marrow of the Indige‐ nous population as medicine in an ongoing process of colonialist commodifica‐ tion of the land and its original inhabitants. Indigenous knowledge - codified in both stories and dreams - is juxtaposed with ‘official’ narratives steeped in the exploitative logic of settler colonialism and presented as the basis of changes necessary for the survival of both people and land. The protagonists’ understanding of history outside of the colonialist para‐ digm draws attention to western culture’s inability to imagine a non-dystopian future, which has even more dire consequences in contexts of resistance against 93 “What language do you dream in? ” Re-Imagining the Future of (Post-)Human Kinships the existing exploitative system of late capitalism, as I have argued above. To simply acknowledge the traumatic past of western colonialism is not enough, as Julia Emberley argues. Even if geared towards memory work and an under‐ standing of the traces of colonial violence in contemporary cultures, such an understanding is rooted in a framing of the past within a “trauma paradigm” that is exclusively focused on an “ontology of victimization.” (Emberley 2014: 2) As Emberley points out, to frame memory work on the traumatic conse‐ quences of settler colonialism within a context of victimization tends to deny the survivors and descendants a sense of agency. As Emberley asks, [w]hat if there also existed traces of memory that recalled resistance to instances of historical violence, oppression, and other forms of power? What would it mean to assemble, partially and perhaps even provisionally, the traces of such resistance, or to sight, if only briefly, a fleeting desire for resistance? (Emberley 2014: 2) Or, to trace this idea back to the context of literary and cultural texts, to imagine such traces opens up further possibilities to imagine a future of change and a present of resistance. The elder Miigwans’ telling of ‘Story’ serves such a func‐ tion in The Marrow Thieves, allowing the group of refugees to imagine a different past as well as a different future for themselves by forging an identity based on kinship with the ancestors and their surroundings: “The boys always puffed out their chests when Miig got to this part. The women straightened their spines and elongated their necks, their beautiful faces like flowers opening in the heat of the fire.” (Dimaline 2018: 23) Miig’s project can be read within a very specific cultural context of Indigenous writing which exists, as Emberley argues, “at the forefront of salvaging the left‐ over pieces” of Indigenous teachings and learnings about Indigenous culture, in an effort to regenerate the nurturance that underlies the capacities to teach and, importantly, to learn. Engaged in a process of retelling, that is, in fact, a “telling” of the stories that hold the teachings, Indigenous literatures today are restoring a sense of the balance to Indigenous urban and remote communities. (Emberley 2014: 4) In this sense, The Marrow Thieves fulfills an important cultural role, not in spite of its status as young-adult literature, but because of it. The novel embodies this poetics of teaching and learning in Miigwans’ passing-on of cultural knowledge, which he frames as ‘Story’ himself, but also in the way it foregrounds and pri‐ oritizes Indigenous epistemologies and practices as more powerful and effective to the context that the survivors face. Indigenous languages play an important role here: while the novel is written in English, it also discusses the necessity and difficulties of preserving Indigenous languages in environments hostile to 94 Anya Heise-von der Lippe them. White culture has lost its ability to dream, that is, its way of integrating new knowledge as well as, literally and metaphorically, any ability to imagine a future; and, as the novel suggests, Indigenous knowledge holds the key to survival. The novel’s main narrative thread revolves around the power of dreams and stories remembered in the old languages of the tribes. These turn out to be so powerful, in fact, that the accumulated knowledge of one old woman, the elder Minerva, is able to destroy the deadly technoscientific apparatus created to ex‐ tract the essence of people’s dreams (from the bone marrow): “when the wires were fastened to her own neural connectors, and the probes reached into her heartbeat and instinct, that’s when she opened her mouth. That’s when she called on her blood memory, her teachings, her ancestors. That’s when she brought the whole thing down.” (Dimaline 2018: 172) This knowledge-based ability of some of the elders not only has value as a destructive force - which would, again, turn people into a commodity. Instead, the novel makes it clear that their wisdom and linguistic abilities are revered by the ragtag group of refugees at the center of the text, who go out of their way to protect Minerva, an old woman they are not related to, and even carry her on their backs while running from mortal danger. This veneration of the elders as repositories of cultural knowledge creates a sharp contrast to contemporary capitalist cultures’ focus on youth, physical fitness, health, and money as indicators of social worth. Minerva is aptly named after the Greek goddess of wisdom as well as war and schools; it is certainly no coincidence that in Greek mythology, Minerva’s Ti‐ taness mother is named Metis - a term referring to both wisdom and cunning in Greek, but which might also be read as a play on words referencing Dimaline’s own Métis heritage. In The Marrow Thieves, Minerva links past to future, as her habit to create traditional jingles out of discarded tin lids presents a powerful image of hope in a context of mortal danger where stealth is imperative: [i]n a small fold of hide were two dozen rolled tin lids. They weren’t smooth and uniform like the jingles we’d seen in old pictures, hung from women’s dresses, being danced into grand entries at the old powwows when we where safe to make noise. These were rough around the edges from our camp can opener and stamped with expiry dates. (Dimaline 2018: 152) The jingles present tangible proof of “a life worth living,” (Dimaline 2018: 152) which Minerva imagines for the next generation and which is deeply rooted in her understanding of kinship as a community practice of passing on language and knowledge to the next generation. This understanding of kinship as a prac‐ 95 “What language do you dream in? ” Re-Imagining the Future of (Post-)Human Kinships tice, rather than a state is, as Heath Justice argues, inherent to Indigenous con‐ texts: [T]he foundation of any continuity as such is our relationships to one another - in other words, our kinship with other humans and the rest of creation. Such kinship isn’t a static thing; it’s dynamic, ever in motion. It requires attentiveness; kinship is best thought of as a verb rather than a noun, because kinship, in most indigenous contexts, is something that’s done more than something that simply is. (Heath Justice 2008: 150) The novel highlights a sense of kinship with both the land and the other crea‐ tures that inhabit it - a kinship not based on familial roots, but on the common goal of survival. This is rooted in traditional knowledge, but also a deep under‐ standing that a coexistence with other creatures should not be exploitative. When the young protagonist, Frenchie, encounters a moose - a possible and desperately needed food resource for his group - he decides not to kill the animal because they would have to leave much of the meat behind: “I couldn’t let it come to this, not for him and not for me.” (Dimaline 2018: 49-50) In the process of making this decision, the boy sees himself from the perspective of the animal, establishing a sense of kinship or becoming-with: [t]he moose watched all this play out on my face, a dirty boy tangled in the roots of an upended tree, hiding from the world, hiding from memories of a family and days without pursuit. And he stayed perfectly still. His eyes were huge, dark globes that reflected back their surroundings. I was sure I could see myself in there, in the trees, a long-haired warrior taking aim. (Dimaline 2018: 49) While this scene invites a reading as a formative encounter with a non-human animal, it builds on an underlying cultural understanding of similarity and kin‐ ship that is established early on in the novel when the young protagonist is confronted by a “pack of guinea pigs” (Dimaline 2018: 7) - presumably former pets who have gone feral - just after his elder brother has been caught and taken to a ‘school.’ His first impulse is to yell at the animals, but he then compares his own newly changed situation to theirs: I looked at their round eyes, wet and watching but not nervous enough for the threat of a human. Their dad was there, after all, and they knew they were safe. I felt tears collecting behind my own eyes like sand in a windstorm. I opened my mouth … to say what? To apologize to a group of wild guinea pigs? To explain that I hadn’t meant what I’d said? To let them know I just missed my family? (Dimaline 2018: 8) 96 Anya Heise-von der Lippe The use of the words ‘dad’ and ‘family’ establishes a similarity between the human boy and the young guinea pigs that is not based on a wish to make contact or a condescending assessment of the animals’ fluffy cuteness as potential pets. Instead, as in the encounter with the moose, the autodiegetic narrator sees him‐ self through the eyes of the animal, describing their assessment of him in a way that suggests agency: “I cupped a dirty hand over my mouth […] but not before the male smelled my fear and turned his back on me. I was no danger to them. I was no danger to anything.” (Dimaline 2018: 9) Rather than read this narrative acknowledgment of similarity and kinship with non-human animals as a glorification of a Rousseauean ‘noble-savage’ ideal or an invitation to a new-agey type of cultural appropriation of Indigenous practices, I think we should focus on how the kind of narrative put forward in The Marrow Thieves serves as a much-needed counter-narrative to the common assumption in Western cultures that we - ‘rational’ humans - can somehow exist above and unrelated to a radically opposed concept of nature. It is a nar‐ rative intervention into the current critical discussion of the future of (post-)hu‐ manity, highlighting humanity’s entanglement with the non-human, whose de‐ nial, as Jeffrey Jerome Cohen suggests, “belies a complicated reality, an intertwined environmentality. Inhuman forces and objects ultimately […] refuse reduction into familiar tales as ancillaries and props.” (Cohen 2014: iv) Read in the context of Native American criticism, The Marrow Thieves also presents a model of kinship as a practice that extends beyond the human. As Heath Justice argues, this is one of the most fundamental concerns in the struggle for land and sovereignty: the relationship of the People to the earth. […] While the land herself is of central concern to most indigenous epistemologies, we don’t know her outside of our relationship(s) to her (or to the other peoples who depend on her for survival). (Heath Justice 2008: 162) Texts like The Marrow Thieves, appropriately targeted at a young-adult reader‐ ship that will have to shape their own future, visualize these entanglements and provide alternative narratives to counter the apocalyptic logic of the Anthro‐ pocene. This is something we need to consider not just concerning the fictional narratives we choose to engage with, but also, as Haraway and Heath Justice suggest, concerning the way we use narrative as a means of understanding our entangled presents and of envisioning possible futures together. 97 “What language do you dream in? ” Re-Imagining the Future of (Post-)Human Kinships Works Cited Aldiss, Brian Wilson (1973). Billion Year Spree. New York: Doubleday. Braidotti, Rosi (2013). The Posthuman. London: Polity. Carville, Olivia (2018). ‘The Super Rich of Silicon Valley Have a Doomsday Escape Plan.’ Bloomberg, 5 September. www.bloomberg.com/ features/ 2018-rich-new-zealand-doo msday-preppers/ (accessed 19 September 2019). Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome (2014). ‘Introduction: Ecostitial,’ in Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, ed., Inhuman Nature. Washington DC: Oliphaunt Books, i-x. Dimaline, Cherie (2018). The Marrow Thieves. Toronto: DCB. Driskill, Qwo-Li et al. (2012). ‘Sweet Dark Places: Letters to Gloria Anzaldúa on Disability, Creativity, and the Coatlicue State,’ in Norma Alarcon et al., eds., El Mundo Zurdo, vol. 2, San Francisco: Lute Books, 77-97. Emberley, Julia V. (2014). The Testimonial Uncanny: Indigenous Storytelling, Knowledge, and Reparative Practice. New York: State University of New York Press. Fukuyama, Francis (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press. Grusin, Richard (2017). ‘Introduction,’ in Richard Grusin, ed., Anthropocene Feminism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, vii-xix. Haraway, Donna (2000). ‘A Cyborg Manifesto,’ in David Bell and Barbara M. Kennedy, eds., The Cybercultures Reader. London: Routledge, 291-324. Haraway, Donna (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham and London: Duke University Press. 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New York: Norton. Washuta, Elissa (2016). ‘Apocalypse Logic.’ The Offing, 21 November. https: / / theoffingm ag.com/ insight/ apocalypse-logic/ (accessed 19 September 2019). Zizek! (2005). New York: Zeitgeist Films. Žižek, Slavoj (2016). ‘Slavoj Žižek would vote for Trump.’ 3. November. https: / / zizek.uk/ slavoj-zizek-would-vote-for-trump/ (accessed 18 September 2019). Zuboff, Shoshana (2018). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. New York: Hachette. 99 “What language do you dream in? ” Re-Imagining the Future of (Post-)Human Kinships Herakut / Onur / Wes21: “As long as you are standing, give a hand to those who have fallen” (Berlin-Moabit, 2018, reproduced with permission) II . Interactions Kinship and Collective Action Astrid Franke The question of what prompts and enables collective action has become ex‐ tremely relevant to us for a combination of two reasons: first, we face challenges such as planetary health and climate change, injustices following a history of colonialism and related exploitation, an increasing awareness of violence per‐ petrated against women in different parts of the globe, or, the very latest on the list, a global pandemic and accompanying existential hardships - all of which can only be met by many people working together across countries and cultures, and also across generations. But secondly, in large parts of the Western world we face these challenges with less and less faith in larger ideological frameworks that were able to bind together and mobilize people in the past, such as religion, Socialism, Communism, single concepts such as Freedom, or utopian visions of ideal communities. So what is it that could make people cooperate to bring about sustainable change in our current historical situation? Sometimes, a perceived threat may lead to an immediate collective response, perhaps relying on existing structures of communication and interaction - the reaction of small communities to fires, floods, or avalanches may come to mind. But a trickier and more topical scenario is surely one where the need for action and change is not equally perceived by everyone and where large numbers of people have to be persuaded or forced to act together. ‘Large’ is, of course, a relative term here - its meaning differs according to the place and time in human history. Conceptually, the difference to the small community reacting to an im‐ mediate threat is that people who are not immediately affected or do not see themselves as such should be persuaded to become active nevertheless. In the pragmatist tradition of political theory, this process is connected to the demo‐ cratic “public” (Dewey 2016 [1927]: 15-16): to create a public issue means to persuade people they should be concerned about something even though it may not seem to affect them directly, and, as a result of that concern, they should act together: press legal changes or pay rises, for instance, vote in a certain way or, if the routine procedures seem insufficient, demonstrate, strike, boycott, seize public spaces, subvert and sabotage, practice civil disobedience. The term col‐ lective action and the phenomena surrounding it are usually not used with re‐ gard to traditional political parties nowadays, but are applied to the work of social movements trying to affect change: if a social movement as an instance of collective action is successful this will lead to changes in the collective life of the group that are sustained even when the movement has subsided somewhat. In the context of the question of what may thus bring about sustainable change, kinship has been offered as one more answer, joining older ones such as appeals to reason, solidarity, a sense of injustice, or identity. At first this may seem surprising: what is needed for collective action is that people relate to one another and to an issue; appeals to reason and a common good, solidarity, or a sense of injustice were meant to widen our sense of relation rather than narrowing it down to that of family or community - of kith and kin. (see West-Pavlov above) On second thought, and with a historical perspective, however, it appears that many modern developments such as the formation of the nation-state or social movements of the 19 th and 20 th century used mythical or metaphorical allusions to kinship as blood relation to suggest a unity of pur‐ pose and a sense of mutual obligation: most European nationalisms are based on the myth of ethnic homogeneity as a foundation (see Hobsbawm 1990) and thus on an idea of common descent - the references to family in words like patriotism, Founding Fathers, or the German Vaterland underline this ideolog‐ ical content; the appeal to ‘Brotherhood’ and to a lesser degree ‘Sisterhood’ is part of many movements such as Abolitionism in the US , Socialism, the Wom‐ en’s Movement or trade unions such as the African American Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; Fraternité is, of course, one of the three signature concepts of the French Revolution, but brotherhood is also evoked by the Ku Klux Klan and other organizations of white supremacy and seems to have an affinity with the use of violence, “to fraternity as terror implying both election and exclusion.” (Ozouf 1998: 101) Given the competitive and often hostile nature of the relationship amongst siblings as it has undoubtedly been experienced by many through the ages, ex‐ acerbated by the legal framework of property and inheritance law and inscribed in many cultural narratives in the west (as, for instance, in the Bible or in fairy tales) this ambiguity is perhaps to be expected. The Bible is a good example for a powerful story of hostility between brothers (Cain and Abel), followed by benvolent notions of brothers under God as father figure. A certain skepticism toward fraternité as a model for supportive relationships might be a reason for it being the most ambiguous and controversial concepts amongst the values of 104 Astrid Franke 1 Mona Ozouf ‘s entry on ‘Fraternity’ (see Furet and Ozouf 1989: 694ff) liberty and equality in the French Revolution. 1 (see Ozouf 1989) In the best of cases, the exclusive understanding of blood relations has been stretched to be‐ come more and more inclusive by imagining, for instance, all Christian men as brothers, or eventually “the human family,” as in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948. (United Nations 1948) With varying degrees of emphasis on the duties following upon inclusion, the kinship terms in these examples of collective action are meant to evoke a sense of mutual obligation with people who are regarded as one’s equals, whom one has not necessarily chosen but is united with in a common endeavor and whom one is asked to help, assist, and support. On a less binding end of the scale, inclusion in the human family means we are to recognize each other as human beings with the respect and the ac‐ knowledgment of human dignity this recognition is supposed to entail. As common descent in the narrow sense is no longer foregrounded, the universalist claims couched in family, and thus often highly gendered, terms sound unfor‐ tunate and antiquated - while ‘Sisterhood’ may still enjoy currency in some feminist circles, ‘Fraternities’ will make them and many others shudder. With the problematic history of kinship terms used to mobilize in the context of nationalism or patriotism, and the unresolved tension between all-inclusive universalism and the exclusion associated with family relations, one may well wonder what made kinship come back. It is therefore despite this history that kinship has returned to thoughts on collective action as in this volume. In artistic practices of performance, music, dance, and poetry, the function of kinship as a term seems to veer far away from the strong, mutually binding bonds described above. Instead, kinship is used to evoke an elusive, fragile, and often temporary sense of recognition and care for one another. People singing together in the streets of Kairo, creating and spreading an icon of resistance, making and dis‐ playing a statue, or participating in a play are not bound together in bonds of mutual obligation beyond the process of creation or the duration of perform‐ ance. Yet, these fleeting moments and relatively vulnerable creations can lead to very powerful experiences of collectivity and togetherness. Whether they can actually create them is another question, but where some kind of community exists, art may arise as a form of collective self-expression and in turn offer people a way to recognize and enjoy themselves in the experience. In the words of John Dewey, whose aesthetic theory has dealt extensively with these ques‐ tions: “Works of art that are not remote from common life, that are widely en‐ joyed in a community, are signs of a unified collective life. But they are also marvelous aids in the creation of such a life.” (Dewey 2008 [1934]: 87) “Unified 105 Kinship and Collective Action collective life” might sound even worse than “family” for its exclusive, homog‐ enizing thrust, but Dewey actually conceives of community “pluralistically, containing a plurality of cultures and communal groups” trying to reconcile universality and diversity, perhaps especially through aesthetic experience. (Ickstadt 2016: 15) It seems to me that ‘kinship’ is employed with a similar ob‐ jective in the following essays. To examine the bonds that arise from people sharing aesthetic experiences or building a shelter, preparing meals and eating together, or experimenting with new forms of communal life (practices which, for Dewey, may all have aesthetic components) is to look at collective action from the bottom up: unlike identity, solidarity, or ideology, a focus on kinship starts with people interacting with each other, often in distinctive spaces in face-to-face encounters, but also in virtual space, sharing hashtags, images, or short messages. It emphasizes not so much cognitive insights into injustices, common goals, or costs and benefits but affective notions accompany practices that may become habitual. This kind of bond, the term suggests, is a small building block of social cohesion that one may build upon - perhaps towards a sense of collective identity or the embrace of a common goal in solidarity. It may also be important when it comes to sus‐ taining the changes that have been achieved; the historical experience of African Americans or women may serve as examples for backlashes as soon as ‘waves’ of collective action subside. Still: these examples as well as the problems mentioned at the beginning of this text remind us that there is a wide gap between the nature of relations captured by the term kinship and the ones needed to face global challenges - even when they have to be dealt with at local levels. To evoke the pragmatist understanding of ‘public’ again: when it comes to coordinated action with regard to climate change, for instance, it is difficult to see how the affective ties of kinship may ever reach the level of decision making that is necessary to translate ‘care’ into political action. To bring back the pragmatist notion of the public, some problems need to be brought to the attention of people who are not directly affected and when these live far away on other continents, kinship is inade‐ quate - unless it approaches the abstract level of the human family. This brings us to another aspect of kinship that I have so far left out because it might not immediately seem to be connected to collective action - at least not in the sense this is usually meant: kinship, in contrast to older family terms used as metaphors for bonds between humans, can embrace the non-human more easily than ‘the human family.’ When the project is to rethink the ways we organize ourselves from the bottom up, then older, rural households as well as modern ones suggest the inclusion of animals. The names of dogs and cats, but 106 Astrid Franke 2 Deuteronomy 20: 19-20 is ambiguous with regard to a possible comparison of fruit trees to men. (see Wolff 2011) also of pigs, goats, chicken, geese, cows, sheep, or horses already suggest a rec‐ ognition as individual members of a household in the widest sense. By way of fruit trees whose individual usefulness to humans is perhaps the most obvious, the understanding of an affective bond demanding restraint, perhaps prohibiting needless destruction can be enhanced to comprise the kingdom of plants. 2 It is this understanding of kinship that seems most relevant today when it comes to issues of climate change and planetary health. While, at the moment, the col‐ lective action we may think about is that of humans whose acknowledgment of kinship with the non-human might help in mobilization, it remains to be seen how quickly we might recognize collective action in the non-human. Works Cited Dewey, John (1991). The Public and Its Problems. Athens: Ohio University Press. Dewey, John (2008). Art as Experience. The Later Works, Vol. 10, 1925-1953. Jo Ann Boy‐ dston, ed. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Furet, François and Mona Ozouf, eds. (1989). A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution, transl. by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hobsbawm, Eric (1990). Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ickstadt, Heinz (2016). ‘Aesthetic Experience and the Collective Life: An Introduction,’ in: Susanne Rohr, Peter Schneck and Sabine Sielke, eds., Aesthetic Innovation and the Democratic Principle: Essays on Twentieth Century American Poetry and Fiction. Hei‐ delberg: Winter, 11-28. Ozouf, Mona (1998). ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,’ in Pierre Nora, ed., Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past. Volume III: Symbols, transl. by Arthur Gold‐ hammer. New York: Columbia University Press, 77-116. United Nations (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Preamble. https: / / un.org/ e n/ universal-declaration-human-rights/ index.html (accessed 2 April 2020). Wolff, Akiva (2011). ‘A Closer Examination of Deuteronomy 20: 19-20.’ Jewish Bible Quarterly, 39.3: 143-151. 107 Kinship and Collective Action The Voice of the People: The Role of Kinship in the Songs of Sayed Darwish Amina ElHalawani Keywords: Sayed Darwish, 1919 revolution, music, song, performance, kin‐ ship, solidarity, collective action It is not an exaggeration when in an essay about Sayed Darwish (1892-1923) published in Al Jadid magazine in 2001, Habeeb Salloum writes: For more than three quarters of a century, his [Sayed Darwish’s] tunes have been on the lips of millions of Arabs from the Atlantic to the Arabian Gulf. His light opera melodies and lyrics expressed the longing of the Arab people for freedom and played an essential role in rousing national feelings against the colonial powers that occupied almost all of the Arab lands at that time. Known for his revolutionary contribution to Arabic music both on the meta‐ phorical and literal levels, Darwish’s music remains very much alive. In recognition of Darwish’s central role in the 1919 Revolution, Wael El- Mahalawi, Associate Professor at the Department of the Arts at the American University in Cairo, celebrated the centenary of the Revolution through working with his students to archive songs of 1919, namely those of Sayed Darwish (“ AUC Commemorates Egypt’s 1919 Revolution” 2019). Despite being a century old, it is important to note how these songs have neither lost their popularity nor their political fervor. In fact, in 2011, Darwish’s revolutionary song “Oum ya Masri” found new life in Tahrir Square as people flooded into the streets. The song, which was written during the 1919 Revolution against the British occu‐ pation, “the Marseillaise of the Arab nationalist movement” as Nayif Hamdan Qatnany (1996: 201) calls it, was now being performed in the streets to express contemporary discontent and desire for protest. موق اي ،يرصم رصم امئاد كيدانتب دخ يرصنب يرصن نيد بجاو كيلع [Rise, Egyptian! Egypt is always calling for you Take my hand to triumph, my triumph is a debt that is your duty to pay] (Darwish “Oum ya Masri”; my translation) So almost a century after it was first sung, the tunes of Sayed Darwish’s song and Badi‘ Khayri’s lyrics calling on the Egyptians to rise, reverberated in the streets of Cairo. What does that new revival of Darwish’s legacy mean? And why were his songs relevant to the movement on the street? According to Georges Didi- Huberman, there is a tendency to revive a whole repertoire of images etched in people’s memories in association with revolt or uprisings. (see Didi-Huberman 2016: 15-21) I would add, not just images are retrieved and recycled but gestures, behaviours, tropes, etc. are used again, too. As Butler puts it, “One uprising cites another, becomes reanimated with its imagery and story. As uprisings start to happen here and there, and again and again, a historical legacy is produced.” (2016: 31) Butler thinks there is indeed a marked degree of repeatability and even inspiration from past events, experiences and their representations with every act of revolt. Sayed Darwish’s musical archive thus becomes iconic not just of that one revolt in 1919; it rather becomes part of a collective national (or even regional) memory of uprisings. In their book, Music and Social Movement, Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison point out: In the creative turmoil that is unleashed within social movements, modes of cultural action are redefined and given new meaning as sources of collective identity [. . .] and, as the movements fade from the political center stage, their cultural effects seep into the social lifeblood in often unintended and circuitous ways. (1998: 6) In the same way, the significant role that music played for the 1919 revolution highlights the potential efficacy of art and artworks for political movements. Songs and artistic performances played a major role in the political sphere in 1919 - to the extent that there were two co-existing figures leading the revolu‐ tion in different ways: politically, Saad Zaghloul Pasha was the leader of the nation, while artistically, Sayed Darwish was known as the artist of the people, hence the title of this article. (fig. 1) 110 Amina ElHalawani Fig. 1: Art, Kinship, and Collective Action Before defining what qualifies Sayed Darwish as the artist / the voice of the people, an understanding of what ‘people’ stands for is important. Once we mention ‘people,’ there is immediately a process of forging an identity at play, which by definition includes some groups and excludes others. According to Butler, when a group or collectivity start speaking in the name of ‘the people,’ “they wield discourse in a certain way, making presumptions about who is in‐ cluded and who is not, and so unwittingly refer to a population who is not ‘the people’.” (2015: 4) In other words, regardless of how inclusive a certain selfdeclared ‘people’ are, Butler reminds us that “every determination of ‘the people’ involves an act of demarcation that draws a line, usually on the basis of nation‐ ality or against the background of the nation-state, and that line immediately becomes a contentious border.” (2015: 5) The aforementioned song, “Oum ya Masri” does exactly that: defining who is an Egyptian is key here. However, national identity is defined in performative terms, and inclusion and exclusion here is not simply based on ethnicity but on a person’s willingness to act, an image of active civil participation. An Egyptian, according to Sayed Darwish, is one who would rise against the occupation and call for the economic welfare of the country, and that definition is a lot more inclusive than many might think. بح كراج لبق ام بحت دوجولا هيا ىراصن ؟نيملسمو لاق هيا … ؟دوهيو يد ةرابعلا لسن دحاو نم دودجلا [Love your neighbor, before you love existence! So what Christians, Muslims? So what, Jews? The real story is one lineage from our ancestors! ] (Darwish “Oum ya Masri”; my translation) A collective identity based on love and care is forged here to overcome divisive identity politics based on religious differences, for example. Religious affiliations do not break the collective identity of the people here, who all trace their lineage 111 The Voice of the People: The Role of Kinship in the Songs of Sayed Darwish to the pharaohs and in religious terms to Adam. One of the major slogans of the 1919 Revolution for instance, was “Religion is for God, and the Patria is for ALL ,” which relegated religious affiliation to the private sphere, and in the case of Darwish’s song, brought about active participation, through rising up, love, and caring for one another, as a form of active citizenship. This definition of identity as a performative act driven by care for the col‐ lective body politic becomes crucial here for the formation of kinship and the instigation of collective action. Identity formation — both in terms of inclusion and exclusion — is necessary for the development of kinship, which in this case is not a given but is based on the fostering of certain networks of solidarity which work towards a common goal. Once realized, this kinship may in turn be able to trigger collective action, which may then create stronger bonds of kinship and / or even cause that basic collective identity to be reformulated. By ad‐ dressing this interplay of identity formation as a mode of fostering kinship to instigate collective action, this paper aims to explore the role of kinship and its relation to collective action in Sayed Darwish’s songs. 1 The Artist of the People Darwish was born into a modest family (his father was a carpenter) and was brought up in a popular area, Kom al Dikka, in Alexandria, which qualified him with a quasi-innate understanding of the working classes. Darwish was inter‐ ested in music, so after graduating from a religious school, he went to study music. During his youth, he sang at coffee shops and also worked as a con‐ struction worker before he became a musician. He used to sing while working, and his supervisor noticed how his singing motivated workers and thus en‐ couraged him to sing for them. It was probably experiences like these that helped Darwish understand the nature of communal singing and the language of the common workers. (see Salloum 2001; see Qatnany 1996: 202) It was also during this time that he was discovered by a small band from Syria, the Atallah Brothers, who took him along to Syria with them, a place he revisited again in 1912, and which played an important part in his musical education. Darwish’s experience on a tour with the Atallah Brothers in the Levant contributed to his education in classical Arabic music forms such as the muwashah and the dor (see Salloum 2001; see Qatnany 1996: 202-3), which enriched his already cosmopolitan ear having been born and raised in Alexandria, and finally brought out the talent in the young musician. (see Qatnany 1996: 202) Inspired by the theater of Sheikh Salama Hegazi, Darwish moved to Cairo in 1917, and started writing music for the theater before dying in 1923. In those six 112 Amina ElHalawani 1 This declaration was even preceded by a series of announcements on the part of the British imposing Martial Law and denying Egyptians the right to assembly. (al-Rafe‘i, 1987: 26) years, Darwish wrote more than 20 operettas and hundreds of musical master‐ pieces revolutionizing Arabic Music as a whole. He was one of the first to write down his scores in musical notes, i.e. fixating them, while in the past Egyptian music relied on much improvisation based on the singer’s voice. (see Zahra 2006: 67) Darwish wrote songs that had innovative features unfamiliar to Egyptian audiences at the time: a faster beat, a repeating chorus, and different polyphonic harmonic textures, ushering Arabic music into the modern era. (see Fahmy 2011: 115) According to Hazem Shahine, the famous Oud player and musician, “What makes him [Darwish] so unique is the fact that he was greatly influenced by previous music icons. But when he created music, he made a new style of music that does not resemble any of those that proceeded [sic] him.” (qtd. in Noshokaty 2006) Shahine also highlights the cosmopolitan nature of Darwish’s music which “echoed the cosmopolitan culture of Egypt at the time, where music had several forms, from religious tunes (Christian and Muslim Sufi chants), to Greek, Italian and classical.” (qtd. in Noshokaty 2006) Although Darwish died before fulfilling his wish to go to Italy to study the art of opera, his contribution to the musical legacy of the nation pushed au‐ thorities in 1962 to name the Alexandria Opera House, built in 1918 and previ‐ ously known as Mohamed Ali Theatre, after him. (“Alexandria Opera House”) What really added to Sayed Darwish’s importance as a national and cultural figure, however, was the fact that his music and theater intersected with and addressed grand political issues at a time when questions of independence, freedom, and economic welfare were crucial for the history of the whole nation. 2 A Country in Turmoil After the failure of the Urabi revolution in 1881 and the British Bombardment of Alexandria in 1882, the British started having military presence in Egypt. With the outbreak of WWI , Britain feared loss of control over the Suez Canal, so they declared a Protectorate over Egypt, at once terminating Ottoman sov‐ ereignty over Egypt, as well as deposing Khedive Abbas Helmi II and replacing him with Prince Hussein Kamil as Sultan. (see al-Rafe‘i, 1987: 30-35) 1 The years that followed saw a huge influx of British soldiers into the country. The soldiers were deeply hated for their abuse of the Egyptian population, as well as for their compulsory recruitment of Egyptians to fight the war of their current occupiers. In his book on the Revolution of 1919, Abdul Rahman al-Rafe‘i 113 The Voice of the People: The Role of Kinship in the Songs of Sayed Darwish 2 For more on the conditions and grievances of Egyptian peasants, refer to Ellis Gold‐ berg’s “Peasants in Revolt - Egypt 1919.” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 24.2, 1992, 261-280. 3 A later version of ‘salma ya salama’ was made popular by the Egyptian-Italian singer Dalida who produced Arabic and French versions of the hit in the late 70s, although the majority of the lyrics were changed to create a song about love and homecoming. gives a detailed account of how Egyptian recruits were violently abused and forced to enlist by the British. (see al-Rafe‘i 1987: 69-73) 2 Darwish’s songs played a huge role in documenting such happenings, the contemporary conditions of life, as well as the social and political conflicts of the age. One such song is “ya ‘aziz ‘einy” performed by the famous singer Na‘ima al-Masriyya: اي زيزع ينيع … انأ زواع حورأ يدلب يدلب اي يدلب … ةطلسلا تدخ يدلو [O, Apple of my eye … I want to go back to my country O, my country, my country … The authority has taken my son] The song expresses the pain of the parents at losing their children to the war. Another song “salma ya salama” 3 is about the safe return of Egyptian soldiers and their excitement to be home, while yet another, “Ista‘gibu ya Afandiyya” [What a shock, Gentlemen! ], speaks of the deteriorating economic conditions as a result of the war. This latter song, for example, contemplates how the price of kerosene had risen dramatically due to the outburst the First World War. By the end of the War, Egypt, like much of the decolonizing world, seeking independence from foreign rule and the right for self-determination, wanted to present its case at the Peace Conference in Paris. It was in that context that Saad Zaghloul, Ali Sha‘rawy and Abdul Aziz Fahmi requested to meet with Sir Wingate, the British High Commissioner in Egypt to call for Egyptian inde‐ pendence. (see al-Rafe‘i 1987: 111) Within days they founded a party, al-Wafd [or the Delegation], and to legitimize their actions, they started collecting sig‐ natures from the people to speak on their behalf, which increased their popu‐ larity both in Cairo and beyond. However, in December 1918, they were denied travel by the British High Commissioner. When the Wafdists refused to stop their endeavors to travel by March 1919, the British decided to exile the Wafd leaders to Malta, which sparked the uprising. (Goldberg 1992: 261) The Revolution started in the form of peaceful protests, mainly by students, in Cairo. The next day, however, saw the first instances of bloodshed and vio‐ lence, followed by a general student strike and continued demonstrations. All classes of people participated and women, too, organized Women’s Marches. 114 Amina ElHalawani (al-Rafe‘i 1987: 209-215) Yet, the British resorted to Martial Law, which only made matters worse and by the 25 th of March, the Revolution turned nationwide. This allowed al-Wafd leverage to start negotiations, which was not a smooth process, but in 1922 Britain ended its protectorate over Egypt and declared its independence. This was not the end of British intervention, however, since Britain was intent on securing its interests in the Suez Canal especially as a threat of a second world war was on the rise in the 1930s. So in reality, it was not until the 1954 Anglo-Egyptian treaty was signed that the full evacuation of British troops from the Suez Canal was agreed to finally materialize in 1956. (see Selak 1955) 3 The Artist of the Revolution Sayed Darwish was very much part of the grand events of the 1919 Revolution. According to the famous playwright Tawfiq al-Hakim, his songs would “spread like wild fire with the people.” (qtd in Zahra 2006: 69; Amin 2001: 70; my trans‐ lation) His presence in the revolution was not only through song, however, but through joining people physically in the streets during protests. He was always present wherever the crowds were present. He would stand at the heart of the demonstrations with his chest held high riding the horse carriage, along‐ side Badi‘ Khayri. And in his distinctly loud voice he would hail the life of the country and the people, he would cry for full independence and the fall of the occupation firing up the enthusiasm of the demonstrators. The crowds knew him, and the minute they would see him, they would gather around him to sing patriotic songs full of enthu‐ siasm. The demonstrations would go around the streets of Cairo, when suddenly Aus‐ tralian troops under the direction of the English soldiers would surround them […] and the voices would rise with cheers and voices like thunder would reverberate with the eternal slogans of the revolution: ‘Full independence or immediate death’, ‘Long live the crescent with the cross’ […]. (Amin 2001: 61-2; my translation) Sayed Darwish along with Badi‘ Khayri are said to have been present in the midst of the demonstrations. Darwish would play his ‘oud and sing, while the crowds would get fired up as they sang along. The large masses would jump with him and Badi‘ Khayri on the carriage almost transforming into actors, very much like in inclusive and participatory experimental theater, where people are encouraged to go on stage and take part in the action. One time they even broke the carriage wheel (see Amin 2001: 62), but usually they would roam the streets of Cairo with the British soldiers racing after them trying to break the demon‐ strations. It is almost funny to imagine the racing carriage, the swarms of people 115 The Voice of the People: The Role of Kinship in the Songs of Sayed Darwish running to protect it, and behind them the British soldiers trying to break the masses. What this image portrays is a clear illustration of the dynamics of mass dem‐ onstrations in redefining public space. As Butler asserts, it is important to always consider that the very character of a space as public “is being disputed, and even fought over, when these crowds gather.” (2015: 70) In other words, this image demonstrates a negotiation of power over the public space. As Butler explains: Although the bodies on the street are vocalizing their opposition to the legitimacy of the state, they are also, by virtue of occupying and persisting in that space without protection, posing their challenge in corporeal terms […] the body […] exercises a right that is being actively contested and destroyed by military force and that, in its resistance to force, articulates its way of living, showing both its precarity and its right to persist. (2015: 83) The control of the British troops here over the public urban space is contested, and instead the space is reclaimed by the people, whose bodies occupy the space and whose voices reverberate in it. The image of the authority - in this case the colonizer- attempting to break the demonstrations, led by a musician and whose main weapon is song, highlights the potent role of the arts and cultural pro‐ duction not only in expressing a people’s aspiration to a better future, but also in bringing the people together in both metaphorical and literal terms. In line with Butler’s view on how, “[b]oth action and gesture signify and speak,” (2015: 83) Antonio Negri contends that both words and action are crucial for an uprising to take place: The uprising is linguistic, performative, and a shift from saying to doing, but without the saying, it would not exist. A manifesto, a text, a message, a symbol, a flag, or a simple shaking of the hands to ask or approve, or a clenched fist: these are words. (2016: 44) This little anecdote of Sayed Darwish and the carriage is both about saying and doing combined. It is about words spoken in song and drawn in movement carrying the notion of uprising beyond thought or sentiment and into the sphere of performative action, where the precarity of the situation pushes participants (both the singer and the demonstrators) to come together, and in their coming together lay claims on their right to express themselves, to occupy the public space, and even their very right to exist. 116 Amina ElHalawani 4 Preaching Kinship Darwish’s song, “Aho dah elli Sar,” whose lyrics were also written by Badi‘ Khayri, is another example of a revolutionary song aimed at building sol‐ idarity among Egyptians in the face of occupation. This is what happened, that’s how it went You have no right, you have no right to put the blame on me How could you blame me, boss When our country’s riches are not in our hands? Tell me of things that are beneficial to us And then you can blame me. Egypt, Mother of all wonders, Your people are genuine while your enemy is shameful. Take good care of your loved ones These are the champions of the cause. Instead of giving the envious a reason to gloat Put your hand in mine and let’s get up and fight We’ll all become one And our hands shall become strong. (my translation) There is a very clear expression of solidarity here in the image of their facing shared blame and a shared predicament. This is cause for them to unite as a front, to join hands for a common “cause.” The dividing lines here are expressed in an image of a loving people who are only laying claims to their rights to live and benefit from their own country’s riches vis-a-vis an enemy (colonizer) who is usurping it and leaving them in poverty. Singing as a shared activity then helps create a sense of oneness, where the many voices unite in harmony in song, creating out of the many networks of solidarity cohabitating the streets a form of kinship based on the active pursuit of their rights of citizenship. This manifests best in a form of a unified, non-sectarian struggle, also expressed in “Oum ya Masri” and its reference to religious diversity, which is repeated in different versions in other songs. In one song, “nam ya khufu,” he sings: Sleep, Cheops, and rest in peace We have united, and the hardships we have seen have passed Who will forget this lesson throughout the ages? Oh, you great one who has built the pyramid, The Christians and the Muslims Are all here voluntarily at your service And their unity is strong. 117 The Voice of the People: The Role of Kinship in the Songs of Sayed Darwish Tomorrow we’ll become the most advanced of nations. (my translation) Once again, resorting to a common pharaonic history beyond religious sectar‐ ianism is utilized to galvanize the people around a common cause, that of na‐ tional independence. Another interesting revolutionary song in one of his plays, also written by Badi‘ Khayri is “Ya Balah Zaghlul.” With political censorship in place to inhibit further unrest, Saad Zaghloul’s name was banned from use in public, so instead of singing his name, the song, which was part of a play, makes a clever pun about red dates, in Egypt called “Zaghlul.” The song imitates the market sellers calling on the dates. The seller would normally roam the streets calling: “Ya balah Zaghlul, Zaghlul ya Balah,” which the song brilliantly makes use of while the rest of the song makes the connection to the Revolution very clear. In one verse it says: اي حلب لولغز اي ةويلح اي ،حلب اي حلب لولغز كيلع ،يدانأ يف لك يدان تنا ،يدارم لولغز اي حلب [Oh Zaghlul dates, oh beautiful dates, Oh Zaghlul dates [which is the call for selling the dates] I call on you everywhere You are my desire, oh zaghlul dates.] The humor and irony inherent in Sayed Darwish and Badi‘ Khayri’s song in defiance of the British generate its efficacy as the people immediately start singing the song during the demonstrations. This song presents an example of an artistic response, which transforms from being a simple song to a clear aes‐ thetic revolutionary gesture, “a word [of uprising]” in Antonio Negri’s terms (2016: 44), especially as it eventually becomes a chant in the uprising. The theater and its songs spill into the streets. After all, it is “urban public space [which] continues to serve as the key theater of contentions” as Asef Bayat points out. (2013: 12) And during these moments, the limits and the rules of what and who governs and in fact owns the public space are negotiated, based on the ensuing action, exposing a tension between the agency of the silenced and the legitimacy of the ruling power. As Butler points out: [T]he limits of the political are exposed and the link between the theatre of legitimacy and public space is severed; that theatre [held by those in power] is no longer unpro‐ blematically housed in public space, since public space now occurs in the midst of another action, one that displaces the power that claims legitimacy precisely by taking over the field of its effects. (2015: 85) 118 Amina ElHalawani The action which is taking place in that instance is two-fold. One is the presence of bodies in the streets asserting their ownership of public space and the other is the singing which creates a new songscape of the streets, which includes not only the everyday collectivity of sounds and noises of the urban environment, but in which also the singing (or rather the soundwaves it produces) becomes a central and inseparable part. Second, it is important to point out, as Christopher Small does in his book Musicking, that “[m]usic is not a thing at all but an activity, something that people do.” (1998: 2) The singing is itself, to put it in the words of Didi-Huberman, a “corporeal form” (2016; 301), and being a collective action it helps in forging solidarity on the ground. This collective singing, however, plays an even more important role; it carries the gesture of rising up further, transposing it through space. In a way, the singing is analogous to the image Didi-Huberman points to in Mikhail Kalatozov’s film Soy Cuba, the image of the revolutionary leaflets, papillons (butterflies in English) being thrown in the air. When “[t]he paper butterflies rise up: we do not know who will receive the message of uprising carried by the wind.” (Didi-Huberman 2016: 372) Here too, when the singing rises no one knows who it will reach and who it will move, but what is most certain is that these songs breathe life into a novel urban architecture. A soundscape echoing with the songs of revolution is created, and in that instance, power is displaced. This, in turn, results in the politicization of artistic performance in the public space posing a clear contestation of power through exercising control over or ownership of such space. For Darwish, the street belongs to the people. That is why he resorted to the streets not just to perform but also to get inspired. Sayed Darwish himself con‐ fesses: “I owe the street a lot, I took a lot from it […]. The people are the authentic artists. I wish we had some of their art that is natural and pure. Skill, no matter how powerful and inventive, can never reach the artistry of the people.” (qtd. in Qatnany: 205-206; my translation) This appreciation of the aesthetics of the everyday and the common people is actually something very special about Darwish. He truly viewed music in the light of performance as an activity, per‐ ceiving his audience (the people) as partners in the work of art. In a way, Darwish liberated the genre of song and reinitiated it into the street, giving it new meaning and new life. Darwish seems to have understood his urban environ‐ ment in terms very much like Jane Bennett’s view of vibrant matter, the urban space for Darwish is filled with “vital materialities that flow through and around us.” (2010: x) In this view, Darwish’s music can be theorized in Bennett’s terms as a product of “encounters between ontologically diverse actants, some human, some not, though all thoroughly material.” (2010: xiv) The sounds and the lan‐ 119 The Voice of the People: The Role of Kinship in the Songs of Sayed Darwish guage of the streets, its urban architecture, dynamic movements, the political, social, and economic relations and flows gave life to, as well as came to life in, his songs and music which in turn affected, and continue to affect whenever revived, the space in which they are produced and the relations and dynamics in place within its architectural organization. 5 Performing Kinship for Collective Action If we are to describe social interactions in Deleuzian terms of “strata and as‐ semblages” as this collection puts forward, then Darwish can be said to have treated the collective as an assemblage, neither static, nor fixed, but ever changing, ever becoming. In Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus revo‐ lution lies in “the connection of flows, the composition of nondenumerable ag‐ gregates, the becoming-minoritarian of everybody / everything.” (1987: 473) Darwish’s songs seem to have expressed not only the circumstances in response to which they emerge, but also the fluid relations of the “multitude” to borrow Antonio Negri’s and Michael Hardt’s terminology; a multitude which is not homogeneous, whose members are different though united by common goals and shared aspirations. According to Hardt and Negri: “[t]he multitude is an internally different, multiple social subject whose constitution and action is based not on identity or unity (or, much less, indifference) but on what it has in common.” (2004: 100) Very much like what Hardt and Negri describe, Darwish believed in the power of individual alliances, regardless of race, religion, creed, etc. in the creation of a revolutionary proletariat. To him, an eye on the trajec‐ tory, a form of politics of desire was capable of forging kinship through per‐ forming the many vernaculars of class, ethnicity, gender, religion, and all kinds of categorical divisions. In that sense, Darwish sought not only to express a desire for kinship but he forged such kinship through its very performance, through a performance of solidarity amongst different individuals and across ethnic, religious, and social borders. This solidarity is expressed through dif‐ ferent activities which define an identity and a common goal: from singing to spreading awareness, to active civil participation, culminating in protest. Darwish was of the people, and he sang for and with the people. To borrow Bennett’s theory of vibrant matter once more, the streets are vibrant in his songs as much as his songs are vibrant in the streets. Within this framework, it is important to remember that while our discussion of the street as a public space so far has been mainly concerned with moments of insurrection when the streets are transformed to the arena upon which conflict is being enacted, “[s]treets, as spaces of flow and movement, are not only where people express grievances, 120 Amina ElHalawani 4 This was not the only example. Another song “helahhallah,” often referred to with a title quite similar to the previous, as “ya Ding Dinih,” also portrays the life of the Suda‐ nese and Nubians in Cairo. It expresses their sentiments of homesickness, and gives them voice through imitating their own dialect. As Ziad Fahmy points out, contempo‐ raries of Darwish, like Yunis al Qadi, mention that he frequented a bar in a neighborhood highly populated by Sudanese and Nubian people to absorb some of the rhythms of their dialect and singing. (Fahmy 2011: 159) but also where they forge identities, enlarge solidarities, and extend their protest beyond their immediate circles to include the unknown, the strangers.” (Bayat 2013: 13) Darwish recognizes in the street a potential to create such intercon‐ nected networks of solidarity which would have the possibility then to foster sentiments of kinship especially once collective action is invoked. That is why the urban soundscape lives in Darwish’s music as much as his music gives rise to a unique song-scape capable of creating harmony out of disparate individual sounds. Darwish brilliantly brings together a polyphony of musical sounds and voices from the street in his songs. This is reflected both in the melodies and in the words. One of the challenges faced while writing this paper, for example, was that the song lyrics simply defy translation, as they are very colloquial and local in nature with many casual idiomatic and proverbial phrases. To illustrate this polyphony of voices in Darwish’s songs further, the song “Dingi Dingi” is a good example. Before the revolution, there was tension about the continuity of the unity between Sudan and Egypt, in response Badi‘ Khayri wrote the lyrics for this song, and Darwish composed the music for it as well as sang it, marking the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration between the two artists. The song is believed to imitate Sudanese dialect and expresses a solidarity and even a form of kinship between the two peoples. 4 There is nothing called Egyptian, there’s nothing called Sudanese The river Nile has its head on one side and its legs on the other The upper part would be doomed if it is forsaken by the lower […] Black or white … we live together The Sudanese has dignity, the Egyptian has always been our brother Two neighbors in dingi… the wall beside the wall […] our flag is the same, and should stay the same forever. (my translation) In the abovementioned quote, kinship is again conceptualized beyond the limits of ethnicity or race. The Egyptians and Sudanese are presented as caring “brothers,” and loving neighbors brought together under one flag, which they should be intent on protecting. 121 The Voice of the People: The Role of Kinship in the Songs of Sayed Darwish But the variety of voices did not stop at just religious and ethnic diversity, almost all segments of society were represented in Darwish’s songs. The Sanay‘eya [the artisans] have a song, “el hilwa di,” which is one of Darwish’s most famous songs. Covers for it were sung by almost every Arabic artist on their way to fame, including the legendary Lebanese Fayrouz. The idea is that of a young woman who wakes up at dawn to bake bread, and on her journey to the bakery she meets, greets, and encourages the workers to set off to work. We hear her speak to them, call them by name, for example: “Osta Attiyya.” There is a sense of closeness we rarely encounter. The language is simple, down to earth and the music resembles the sounds needed for the interaction. Hence, there is a consistent beat for her walking and intermittent changes for her brief encounters. Another instance is the song dedicated for the saqayin [the water sellers], who used to carry the water around town. When the foreigners took over the water company, Darwish and Badi‘Khairy responded to their now threatened situation: نوهي ،هللا ضوعيو هللا ع نيياقسلا لود نينايقش نيترفعتم م ةينابوكلا اهتاجاوخ انوج انوشفطيح . هيل ؟انوزاريب يد ةعنص انوبأ ! انوربعتام اي قيالخ [Ease it on us Allah, make it up for us Allah We’re the Saqayin, we’re tired We’re frustrated with the kobanniya [the water company] The foreigners have come and they are going to drive us out. Why are they bothering us? It’s the job of our fathers Why don’t you help us, people! ] He sang on behalf of the luggage carriers, facing poverty, “shid el hizam” [buckle up your belt] Buckle up your belt around your waist Nothing else can help you There must come a day when God will make things better. If carrying luggage on your back annoys you, It is better for a free man than to hold out his hand asking for charity. (my translation) He also sang for the workers who were on strike to protest against their dete‐ riorating living conditions: “hiz el hilal ya sayed” [Wave your crescent, Sayed], meaning wave your flag, since the flag had a crescent on it. He composed songs for women both to push them to call for their rights, like the one written for him by Amin Sidqi: 122 Amina ElHalawani هد كتقو هد كموي اي تنب مويلا يموق يحصا نم كمون يكادايزب مون [This is your time, girl of today, get out of your slumber, enough sleep! ] (“dah wa’tek dah youmik”) As well as to congratulate them on their participation in the 1919 Revolution, like Badi‘ Kairy‘s: هد فأب نيم يللا سلأي يلع تنب رصم يهنأب، ؟شو يبنلاو يرجي سيلتي ام علط همالك زط و شف [What an ass would make fun of the daughter of Egypt? What face do they have? Let them screw themselves, their words have amounted to nothing at all] (“bint masr”) He had a song basically for everyone and in their own voice: the waiters, the Armenian bar tenders in Alexandria, even the hash smokers, as in his song “el tohfageya.” The latter, whose lyrics are written by Badi‘ Khairy, enacts one of their eve‐ nings as they smoke and start to get high. They stop at utterances midway, they repeat the beginnings of words, they laugh extensively. The whole mood is like that until the very end when their conversation touches upon the affairs of the country, that’s when they get serious and start welcoming a revolution: Tell you the truth? The day we find the country has fallen into hardship, To hell be with you Jawza [the apparatus used to smoke], […] we have divorced you as being useless. Egypt needs an alert community, ya Marhab [hello]! (“el tohfageya”; my translation) This inclusiveness of all walks of life and all social players allows Darwish a populism necessary for inspiring any kind of collective action. In his discussion of the role of revolutionary pamphlets, a role very much similar to that played by Darwish’s songs, which were often disseminated and chanted in the squares and streets of Cairo, Didi-Huberman writes: It does not suffice to disobey. It is critical, also, that disobedience—the refusal, the call for insubordination—be transmitted to others in the public space. To rise up? […] to circulate this very gesture. To give it, in this way, a political meaning. […] to throw it into the air, so that it spreads over the space in which we breathe, the space of others, the entirety of the public and political space. (2016: 370-2) This is what Darwish did from his singing carriage excursions and till his dying day, circulating the gesture of rising. His songs like the papillons hovered over 123 The Voice of the People: The Role of Kinship in the Songs of Sayed Darwish the entirety of the public space. Even on his dying day, his songs were echoing in the streets of the country. Darwish’s death happened on a day as much charged as his revolutionary spirit, the day of the return of Saad Zaghloul after the unilateral declaration of independence. It almost seems as if his mission had ended. He had composed two songs for the occasion “Misruna Saaduna” and “Bilady Bilady” which took its first line from one of Mustafa Kamel’s nationalist speeches, and later (in 1979) became the Egyptian national anthem. Darwish managed to circulate this revolutionary gesture through the expres‐ sion and the performance of kinship, which allowed him access to and influence on every stratum of society. In writing an elegy to Darwish, Fouad Hadad, one of Egypt’s most famous colloquial Arabic poets wrote: رمسا هيجو نوللا و هيف هبش نم نيعبرأ نويلم و يف هديا هنح و هشير و نيرطسم و حالس ، ناك يرصم لماك ناك لماع و ناك حالف و ناك ديس و ناك شيورد و ناك دحاو ناكو لكلا [Of a dark handsome color … sharing a resemblance with 40 million, In his hand, henna, a feather, a trowel and a weapon. He was a full Egyptian. He was a worker. He was a farmer. He was Sayed [a master]. He was Darwish [a dervish]. He was One; He was Everyone]. (Hadad, 2002: 108; my translation) The brilliance of Darwish’s songs, and perhaps what endows them with the potential to become a unifying power, is their remarkable ability to preserve differences while expressing kinship, the ability to create affect, to strike a chord which awakens a common desire for liberty and turns it into collective action. Their participatory nature and their capacity to address and inhabit the lives of people from different social strata and speak their vernacular allows them to perform part of what Deleuze sees as the “aggregate of processes of minoritarian becomings,” (Deleuze and Parnet 1989) which marks the left in Deleuze’s phi‐ losophy, giving it life in song. 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(1955). “The Suez Canal Base Agreement of 1954.” The American Journal of International Law, 49.4, 487-505. Small, Christopher (1998). Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening. Middle‐ town: Wesleyan University Press. Zahra, al-Sayed (2006). ‘Sayed Darwish Fanan al-Sha‘b wal Thawra al Da’ima [Sayed Darwish the Artist of the People and the Perpetual Revolution].’ Adab wa Naqd [Lit‐ erature and Criticism], 247, 65-75. https: / / search.mandumah.com/ Record/ 296942 (ac‐ cessed 2 November 2018). 127 The Voice of the People: The Role of Kinship in the Songs of Sayed Darwish Conquering, Chanting, and Protesting: Tools of Kinship Creation in the Girls of Enghelab Street (Non-)Movement in Iran Sama Khosravi Ooryad Keywords: Girls of Enghelab Street, Iranian women’s (non-)movement, po‐ litical kinship, public space, songs 1 Introduction Since December 2017, Iranian women’s protests have emerged in momentous and creative forms. One of the most prominent examples is a diverse group of women known as the Girls of Enghelab Street, who climbed onto urban utility boxes between December 2017 and March 2019 and removed or waved their scarves in the main streets and subways of Tehran and other Iranian cities. Alongside the country-wide protests in response to the intensifying economic crisis and inequality of laws in Iran, women have creatively claimed their rights despite continuous efforts by government agents to regulate and limit their ability to live freely. These movements have involved groups of women who have ventured into certain urban spaces - such as main streets, subways, and parks, where prohib‐ itive laws apply to the rights of women to enter and dress freely - to claim their right to appear as they like in public. While demanding such a right to exist in urban spaces without obstruction, they have utilized urban and cultural tools for creative protest through, for example, the unprecedented practice of climbing onto utility boxes on the street and waving their scarves bareheaded. (see Rezai 2018) However, this innovative reclamation of urban space has not been limited to the recent conquering of utility boxes; women have also chanted revolutionary songs from earlier feminist and leftist movements in public spaces, thereby connecting with these ‘past’ movements and incorporating their gains and remaining struggles into the present. Moreover, the cultural and po‐ litical dimensions of the chanting have materialized in public spaces, such as subways and parks, in which the women’s chanting is not allowed. These di‐ mensions have been amplified by virtual activism, including the production of video collages with images from past Iranian women’s protests and recent women’s chanting demonstrations. The combination of these incidents and the creativity that is evident in the women’s style of protest has gained extensive national and international atten‐ tion and praise from various groups. The women’s performative and unique form of protest in urban spaces had been largely unexpected. Their innovative use of songs has aimed to highlight meaningful (kinship) links with past Iranian feminist movements. All of these incidents raise the following questions: how have Iranian women been reclaiming their right to appear in public space? Which strategies and cultural tools of protest can create (political) kinship with past movements? Finally, how could this kinship further galvanize Iranian women’s movements? To address these questions, this chapter primarily ex‐ plores the interdependence of public and virtual spaces and urban objects in claiming “the right to appear” (Butler 2015: 25) in the public sphere as well as in constituting “historically situated kinship” (Haraway 2016: 201) among cur‐ rent protestors and past feminist and progressive movements in Iran through the use of cultural tools by members and supporters of the Girls of Enghelab Street (non-)movement. Asef Bayat has conceptualized the invisible, ordinary, “fragmented yet col‐ lective” forms of social activism among Iranian women as a “nonmovement.” (Bayat 2007: 168 and 169) According to Bayat, the nonmovement or “movement by implication” is a type of social nonmovement that pursues change through everyday practices of public dissent and “power of presence” (Bayat 2007: 161) and is practiced mostly by women through bad-hijabi (not wearing the head cover properly) and the urban youth and the poor living in the peripheries or undergrounds in Iran. (see Bayat 2010) However, Bayat has ceased to expand the terms “passive networks” and “movement by implication” for other urban and grassroots activities of feminists or ordinary women who later engaged with the public space as a platform to strategically form (non-)movements. Hence, following this concept, I suggest that the recent protests are a logical outcome and continuation of such everyday practices of dissent yet simultaneously distinct from them, as the protests were deliberate and disrupted the public space in a crucial political moment. There‐ fore, I enclose the ‘non’ in parentheses to both distinguish my term from Bayat’s 130 Sama Khosravi Ooryad 1 Though rarely used in Western media, I prefer the term “DeyMah Uprising” in view of its widespread usage in Farsi. (Khizesh-e DeyMah) The name DayMah refers to the months of December / January in Persian calendar. as well as to reclaim the current protests as a highlight of Iranian women’s movements. My research assumes a feminist standpoint to demonstrate how Iranian women have reclaimed public spaces and cultivated political kinship within their local resistance collectives. It particularly examines their use of two largely overlooked creative tools that, in combination, result in an unprecedented ac‐ tivist force: revolutionary songs and the utilization of urban objects and places. The following section provides a historical retrospective of the 2017-2018 DayMah Uprising. Subsequently, it examines the public interventions of Iranian women and their strategic use of urban objects and places. The second section then analyzes three songs that were re-chanted or created by members and supporters of the (non-)movement during the protests against inequalities and discriminatory laws in Iran, such as compulsory hijab. I argue that the recent (non-)movement of the Girls of Enghelab Street and their supporters have cre‐ ated cultural kinship alliances with women’s past struggles in Iran by re-creating and chanting Iranian feminist and revolutionary songs and lyrics. It is essential to address the significance of these cultural alliances and linkages in galvanizing current collective action by Iranian women in order to consider future possi‐ bilities for women’s creative protests as well as more powerful ways of de‐ manding and eventually obtaining their rights. 2 Background On December 28, 2017, Mashhad city - and, in consequence, the whole of Iran - witnessed a mass uprising that was unique among those that had erupted since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in the country. This DeyMah Uprising 1 was driven by the poor, the invisible, the peripheral, and the doomed people of Iran, whose demands were less concerned with governmental reforms than with “unem‐ ployment, inflation and the looting of national wealth.” (Ahmadi Arian 2018) These individuals, who were predominantly residents of small cities and prov‐ inces, protested the increasing prices of basic goods and food, such as eggs and bread. Thus, the DeyMah Uprising was undoubtedly a working-class movement from below. Scholars and journalists have compared the DeyMah Uprising to the 2009 Green Movement and outlined drastic differences between the two events. (see Karimi 2018; see Ahmadi Arian 2018; see Kamali Dehghan & Graham-Harrison 131 Conquering, Chanting, and Protesting 2018) They have described the protestors in the Green Movement and previous movements in post-revolutionary Iran as non-violent and peaceful (see Tahmasebi-Birjani 2010), although the Green Movement eventually encoun‐ tered police brutality, killings, and mass arrests. In contrast, the months-long DeyMah Uprising indicated the extent to which Iran’s workers and poor were frustrated and angry with the government, whose policies they viewed as the main reason for their precarious lives, the high inflation, and the poverty in the country. In the Khorramabad province in central Iran, protestors set the local governorship ablaze, while protestors in Ahwaz, a city in the south of Iran, set fire to police and anti-riot vehicles. Peaceful strategies, such as “giving flowers to the anti-riot police” or addressing the police as “part of the people” (Tahma‐ sebi-Birjani 2010: 83), which were emblematic of the 2009 protests, were mostly absent from the 2017-2018 uprising. Moreover, while the 2009 Green Movement challenged the fraudulent presidential election and conveyed support for the reformist Mir Hossein Musavi, the DeyMah Uprising and its protestors, who had lost faith in both of the dominant political parties in Iran, targeted the Islamic government by shouting slogans such as “the reformist and the hardliner, your time is over”! (SecularDemocracy 2017) Hence, the DeyMah Uprising was ar‐ guably the “first independent protest by the dispossessed against the govern‐ ment,” (Karimi 2018: 191) as it was driven by neither partisan nor religious af‐ filiations. Alongside and among the workers, the unemployed, and the dissidents, women from all walks of life joined the protests. These women ranged from teachers and workers to environmental activists, and they immediately and prominently participated in the wave of demonstrations. The issues that women addressed extended beyond the question of compulsory hijab, which had been the central issue of protest by Iranian women since the Islamic Revolution, to include the wage gap, environmental problems, and workers’ issues. Neverthe‐ less, the protests that attracted the most national and international prominence were those in opposition to compulsory hijab. Moreover, consistent with the unanticipated nature of the DeyMah Uprising, which emerged suddenly and uncompromisingly from the periphery, opposition to compulsory hijab, as part of the Uprising, and its novel performative mode of protest were surprising at the time. 3 The Girls of Enghelab Street: A Many-Headed (Non-)Movement Iranian women began protesting compulsory hijab four decades ago in 1979 after Ayatollah Khomeini delivered a speech that contained one of the most infamous 132 Sama Khosravi Ooryad announcements regarding Iranian women: that wearing a veil (hijab) would be mandatory for women in workplaces. (see Hoodfar 2008; see Matin and Mohajer 2013) This notorious proclamation, which occurred one week after Khomeini assumed power, sparked one of the largest demonstrations in the history of Iranian women’s movements. (see Afary 2009) That protest is now widely known as the six-day uprising of Iranian women against compulsory hijab. (see Matin and Mohajer 2013) Despite the demonstrations, the mandated dress code for women was gradually implemented in all public spaces. (see Hoodfar and Sadr 2009) Since 1979, when the Islamic Revolution encountered women as its first radical opponents, creative forms of dissent and protest have continuously manifested within Iranian women’s movements “against all odds” and “despite the Islamic Republic, against the Islamic Republic, and even against Islam as the dominant discourse in the country.” (Najmabadi 2000: 30) As secular, leftist, and “post-Islamist feminists,” (Bayat 2007: 165) Iranian women have challenged, ne‐ gotiated, lobbied, and protested inequalities from within the Islamic government on various fronts. One day before the nation-wide uprisings in December 2017, and alongside the trajectory of activism and protest against an unjustifiable law and ideology that regulates Iranian women’s bodies and appearances, a woman climbed onto a utility toolbox on Enghelab (English: Revolution) Street in Tehran. She held a stick, around which she had wrapped her scarf, and she remained on the box silently while shaking the scarf-wrapped stick to peacefully protest compulsory hijab. Her performance lasted for only a few minutes before police arrested her; however, bystanders captured the event on their mobile phones and posted it on social media, so the woman’s name and performance could no longer be as easily erased from public view. Vida Movahed is the courageous individual who carried out this act. For a long time, her face and age were unknown, and her identity was disputed; however, her name has become memorable and prevailing in Iranian contemporary history as well as in Iranian women’s contention of unjust mandatory laws. The DeyMah Uprising and Vida Movahed’s performance to oppose compul‐ sory hijab did not coincide by chance. Rather, their occurrence is a logical out‐ come of years of targeted state repression of women and the working class. Likewise, Movahed’s act attracted viral attention when it was posted on social media, and it seemed that everybody, such as the following Twitter account, was discussing the uprising and the woman of Enghelab Street at the same time. (e.g. @Mottahedeh) Days after her performance, women in other Iranian cities who had appreciated her creative form of protest also climbed onto utility toolboxes, wrapped their scarves on sticks, and waved them in silence. Social media plat‐ 133 Conquering, Chanting, and Protesting forms were flooded with images and videos of these courageous women, and local and foreign news agencies covered the story of the Girls of Enghelab Street together with news about the mass uprising due to the precarious conditions of the working class. (see Bengali and Mostaghim 2017) One month after Movahed’s protest, two women named Narges Hosseini and Azam Jangravi climbed onto the utility toolbox on the same street on January 29 and February 15, respectively. They stood upon it bareheaded but were im‐ mediately targeted by police violence and consequently injured. The image of Movahed standing on the utility box as the first woman of the protest garnered sympathy from many people, and numerous social media users changed their cover photos and profile pictures to her image. Moreover, Iranian political car‐ toonist in exile, Mana Neyestani, drew a cartoon based on these women’s pro‐ tests. (see Figure 1) All of these women once again demonstrated their “power of presence” (Bayat 2007: 161) through impotent and disparate yet collective action in public, and their activism was ascribed to the Girls of Enghelab Street. The performative and singular approach of their protest gained immediate pop‐ ularity, and opponents of compulsory hijab expressed support through social media platforms and by hailing the women when they witnessed their protests in the streets. Figure 1: Vida Mohaved, first woman of the Girls of Enghelab Street (© Mana Neyestani, all rights reserved) Unsurprisingly, the state responded to these women’s protests with arrests and prison charges. However, the act of climbing onto utility boxes and benches 134 Sama Khosravi Ooryad 2 The color white symbolizes peace, and women who used a white scarf intended to peacefully protest against compulsory hijab. Later, social activists showed solidarity with them by using red scarves and posters (as red flag symbolizes leftist and socialist politics) in their protest. continued for several months as a popular form of protest against compulsory hijab, and authorities could not arrest every woman who performed it. There‐ fore, their (non-)movement proved to be “many headed” (Hoodfar 2008: 9) as well as non-identifiable, as their bodies could multiply and practice their dis‐ tinctive form of protest in many streets. 4 Conquering Urban Utility Boxes: The Right to Appear in Public Space The Girls of Enghelab Street are historically in alliance with the remarkable uprising of Iranian women in 1979. However, rather than simply discussing the content of their protests - and therefore immediately linking the Girls of Enghelab Street to the six-day uprising of women against compulsory hijab at the dawn of the Islamic Revolution - it is significant to foreground individual ways of protesting compulsory hijab, such as through the creative spirit of wrapping one’s scarf around a stick and climbing onto an urban object that reflects the urban and performative originality of these recent protests. Public space remains a seminal site of many civil demonstrations. In Tehran, Azadi (English: Freedom) Street and Enghelab Street are two popular main streets in the capital that have welcomed rebellious, dissatisfied people in many public demonstrations in Iran over time. The catalyst of the creative feminist protest in Enghelab street in December 2017 was also a driving force in re‐ claiming public spaces and achieving visibility of the invisible and regulated female body. Many mass demonstrations are named after the main street or occupied square in which the participants assembled. For instance, the demonstrations in La Plaza del Sol, Tahrir Square, Gezi Park, and many other sites bear the name of the central urban space that people (re-)claimed as a site to express their demands. The (non-)movement of the Girls of Enghelab Street is yet another example. From the onset, the protesters employed creativity and climbed onto utility boxes as if to conquer such typical urban objects and, with bare heads, waved their white (and later red) 2 scarves on sticks. Moreover, as stated above, creativity has been a crucial tool of Iranian women’s movements for strategically surpassing the impositions within the country and rendering their claims vig‐ orously visible. 135 Conquering, Chanting, and Protesting There are notable specificities of the particular urban object at the center of the recent (non-)movement, Enghelab Street itself, and the women’s protests. Utility boxes are typical objects of Tehran and other Iranian cities. They have long been present and are part of the very fabric of these cities, so they are usually invisible to those who pass by them. However, the boxes acquired his‐ torical and political significance once Movahed and the subsequent women climbed onto them. The political specificity of the utility box as an urban object is an integral part of the collective memory of the protest that the Girls of Enghelab Street initiated. These women not only walked on Enghelab Street, which is a historical location for public demonstrations in Iran as well as a cul‐ tural center for street book vendors, but also transformed the notion of street politics (see Bayat 1997) by creatively using an unnoticed urban object on this street for support. The utility boxes assumed political visibility - much like the women who climbed onto them - and became vital to the women’s demonstra‐ tions as more women in other cities practiced the same model of protest. More‐ over, the women who were involved in the protest utilized these urban objects and spaces in a mutually performative way that marked a crucial political mo‐ ment in Iranian women’s protests. In view of the demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Cairo and the uprisings in the Arab world in 2011, Judith Butler theorizes about notions of public assembly and public space. In this regard, she focuses on two assertions: first, that as‐ semblies and demonstrations reconfigure the materiality of public space; and second, that public spaces, such as streets and squares, are themselves part of the theories of public and corporal action. (see Butler 2011: 2) The second proposition is particularly compelling because it moves beyond the usual understanding of street politics - which views streets, squares, and other urban spots as rigid materials that become revolutionary only after human bodies step on them - to consider a participatory materiality for the space in which actions and demonstrations take place: “at the same time, those material environments are part of the action, and they themselves act when they become the support for action.” (Butler 2011: 2) In addition, since the street and the square are not present merely as the background for collective action, Butler proposes that these urban spheres should be considered part of the materiality of the action. For instance, when trucks and cars become platforms for delivering speeches, these urban objects and “the material environment [are] actively re‐ configured and re-functioned.” (Butler 2011: 2) In this sense, the urban spaces and objects involved are not static sites at which human actions take place but are transformed into a podium to literally mobilize people to engage in more forceful collective protest. 136 Sama Khosravi Ooryad Therefore, once urban objects become equal partners of action, there is no longer a one-way relationship between collective action and the people who gather to protest in public spaces. On the contrary, bodies not only produce the public by “seizing and reconfiguring the matter of material environments,” (Butler 2011: 2) but also act in a mutual relationship with supportive objects in the public arena. In this regard, the protests of the Girls of Enghelab Street occurred in a mutual relationship with urban utility boxes and the political street as their tools for practicing “a plural and performative right to appear.” (Butler 2015: 11) This creative form of protest also illustrates that a body that speaks in a political moment does not necessarily do so in a vocal or written form; rather, “the persistence of the body in its exposure calls that legitimacy into question and does so precisely through a specific performativity of the body.” (Butler 2015: 83) Therefore, the women’s demonstrations against compulsory hijab surpassed the content of their protest to creatively demand a livable life in public space as well as recognition of their value as women in Iran. According to Butler, the notion of “the right to appear” should function “as a coalitional framework, one that links gender and sexual minorities with preca‐ rious populations more generally.” (Butler 2015: 27-8) Such a context reveals promising conceptual potential for exploring the nature of recent demonstra‐ tions in Iran as well, as supporters of the Girls of Enghelab Street have hung red posters and scarves to not only protest compulsory hijab but also express sol‐ idarity with the DeyMah Uprising and the working class in particular. This col‐ lective action by a coalition of women’s and workers’ rights activists, as enacted through a feminist performative protest, constitutes yet another exercise of freedom that supposedly occurs between people and derives from the bond that they establish “at the moment in which [they] exercise freedom together, a bond without which there is no freedom at all.” (Butler 2015: 52) Moreover, as Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari propose, a line of becoming revolutionary “remains indifferent to questions of a future and a past of the revolution; it passes between the two. Every becoming is a block of coexis‐ tence…[it] is always in the middle; [and] one can only get it by the middle.” (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 292-93) An inquiry that considers a line of be‐ coming as a material and performative action could accordingly approach the (non-)movement of the Girls of Enghelab Street in relation to other sociopolitical factors in contemporary Iran. This (non-)movement did not occur in a void but rather in the process of and “in-between” other movements, namely the mass uprising of people and consecutive protests around the country in 2017 and 2018. The ‘micropolitical’ aspect of the Girls of the Enghelab Street protests, in the Deleuzian and Guattarian sense of the term, which suggests “an ethos of 137 Conquering, Chanting, and Protesting permanent becoming revolutionary,” (Parr 2005: 163) is evident in the mobili‐ zation of a horizontal, spontaneous network of multiple forces among women from around the country that created a “many headed” (Hoodfar 2008: 9) net‐ work of protestors in relation to - not dominating - one another. For instance, the specific and contextualized moments that visually combine the form of pro‐ test by the Girls of Enghelab Street with that to promote workers’ demands are evident mainly in the protests of Iranian social activists who have continuously supported and promoted their form of collective action by going above benches and utility boxes while simultaneously emphasizing the rights of working-class women. Among the various forms of collective action, bodily performativity and on‐ line activism also characterize the (non-)movement of the Girls of Enghelab Street. According to Butler, [n]ot everyone can appear in a bodily form, and many of those who cannot appear [freely in certain public spaces], who are constrained from appearing or who operate through virtual or digital networks, are also part of “the people,” defined precisely by being constrained from making a specific bodily appearance in public space. (Butler 2015: 8) When space becomes an impediment to activism and the participation of people - particularly of women - or when, in authoritarian contexts, the state severely limits and controls the movement and mobilization of bodies in public space, other tools are needed to amplify such interventions. The spectacle of censorship attempts by state authorities and its online exposures are relevant to confrontations between people and the police when bystanders record such moments of coercion in the streets or witness a violent event from their houses. The idea of “embodied performance” (Butler 2015: 19) encompasses this combi‐ nation of street politics and public assembly that is suppressed by the police as well as the use of technological means to expose such aggression. In this regard, public space and the online sphere both actively collaborate in the production of (the space of) appearance and the possibility to intervene by demanding rights and reclaiming those spaces. Online space is also an excellent platform on which Middle-Eastern feminist activists can establish a dialogue about the marginalization of women in society and the gendered nature of online and offline arenas. (see Newsom and Lengel 2012) Online platforms were once perceived as an elite sphere that only privi‐ leged women and academics could utilize. (see Newsom and Lengel 2012) Over the course of recent years, however, digital activism has become more accessible and widespread. Consequently, it is now vastly utilized by women of every class 138 Sama Khosravi Ooryad and background, and the act of recording police action and posting these videos on social media “has become a key way to expose the state-sponsored coercion under which freedom of assembly currently operates.” (Butler 2015: 19) When a public site is blocked, a virtual site can support and uphold resistance. (see Abbasgholizadeh 2014) Still, in view of the power of street politics and public interventions, theories and understandings of grassroots activism through the strategic occupation of a public location and associated conditions of appearance should not be fully dependent on social media. Although political and social demands and activism should be supported by all available tools - virtual or otherwise - the space in which equal freedom and participation of women must be fully achieved is still a material, public site and environment. Thus, by choosing a specific location and object for their disparate yet col‐ lective action, the Girls of Enghelab Street literally, performatively, and collab‐ oratively reconstituted “plural forms of agency and social practices of resist‐ ance.” (Butler 2015: 9) Their performative protest should not be approached merely through the lens of its initiator, but also in relation to the practitioners and supporters of the protest, as well as the online, offline, and urban spaces and objects that they utilized. In the case of the Girls of Enghelab Street, I further argue that their demand to freely appear in public space necessarily mingles with the need to create a “rhizomatic” (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 8) network of online / offline relations with allies and supporters as well as to occupy decentralized and disparate public spaces. This network or field acts horizontally and multiplies not according to rigid stratifications but on the basis of “nonmetric, acentered, rhizomatic mul‐ tiplicities” (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 371) that could arise from creative forms of protest. None of these forms is prioritized, and each emerges alongside the others. For instance, if the recording of the first woman’s protest had not been posted on social media, few people would have been triggered to perform the same act, and her protest might not have multiplied. In addition, even after most of the members of the Girls of Enghelab Street experienced violent arrests and prison charges, the (non-)movement’s strategic usage of objects and places be‐ came integral to the cultural online / offline force of the many-headed collective action of women in Iran. As discussed above, the utility box has become a political object in contem‐ porary Iranian urban demonstrations because of the undeniable visibility and multiplicity that it has provided to Iranian women in collaboratively demanding the right to appear in the street. In response to the demonstrations, the govern‐ ment installed an inverted v-shaped structure on the top of every utility box on Enghelab Street and surrounding streets to inhibit other women from climbing 139 Conquering, Chanting, and Protesting onto them to protest. (see Figure 2) Strikingly, this measure to prevent visibility effectively memorialized the protests in public space. Figure 2: A man installs an inverted V-shaped steel structure on the top of the utility box on Enghelab Street, February 22, 2018 (source: https: / / khabargar.co/ / بيش - ندرکراد - تسپ - یاه - قرب - یارب - یريگولج - زا ) After these governmental measures to suppress dissent, it seemed unlikely that another woman would repeat this form of protest. However, on October 29, 2018, a woman - who was later revealed to be Vida Movahed again - bravely walked onto Enghelab Square, the central square in Enghelab Street, and shook off her scarf along with several colorful balloons. Her performance proves that urban objects can be multiplied in support of public protests: women first climbed onto utility boxes; once these objects had assumed political visibility and were consequently re-shaped by authorities to prevent their use as a site of protest, a larger urban site came to the fore: Enghelab Square. Thus, sites and 140 Sama Khosravi Ooryad 3 The Organization of the Iranian People’s Fedai Guerillas (OIPFG) was an armed leftist party active from 1971, which fought against the Pahlavi regime. Its members were mostly killed or executed, either during the Shah regime or after the revolution, by Islamists in prison. One of its most prominent members was Saeed Soltanpur, an active member of the party as well as a poet, who wrote most of the songs’ lyrics. objects were multiplied and transformed into spaces of protest in support of the Girls of Enghelab Street. Through these acts, the activism of the Girls of Enghelab Street created a ‘rhizomatic network’ of scattered yet collective actors and urban spaces. This network is both promising and consciously formed even though it is not con‐ trolled by any hierarchical organization. Moreover, it strongly echoes Butler’s perspective of collective protests: Gatherings are necessarily transient, and that transience is linked to their critical function. One could say, but oh, they do not last, and sink into a sense of futility; but that sense of loss is countered by the anticipation of what may be coming: “they could happen at any time.” (Butler 2015: 20) Prominent Iranian feminist activists, such as Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani, have attempted to explain why the protest of the Girls of Enghelab Street did not continue. They have argued that the protests cannot be categorized as part of the Iranian women’s movement since the women involved in the protests were more concerned with having their online selfies circulated on social media and that they were not part of an organized community. (see Ahmadi Khorasani 2018) Following Butler, I argue that such transient, rhizomatic, and disparate collective acts “could happen at any time” precisely because of their non-hier‐ archical, horizontal, performative, and many-headed nature. Such acts will sur‐ prise us at the very moment that we have almost lost faith in them, and they will demand their right to appear in the most elaborate ways imaginable, which is precisely the goal of these protests. Moreover, such protests have created links with the past movements through using similar innovative tools. Therefore, the tools utilized in such disparate protests are significant parts of these (non-)move‐ ments. 5 Songs as Tools of Kinship Creation Songs have been a seminal part of women’s and leftist movements in Iran. There is a rich tradition of leftist revolutionary songs, including those created by members of the Fedai Guerillas 3 and their supporters. One song in particular has endured over years of Iranian feminist activism and has been sung countless 141 Conquering, Chanting, and Protesting 4 Although there are many women who joined the (non-)movement of Girls of Enghelab Street, the first ones who protested in Enghelab street got more social media attention. Azam Jangravi was among the first protestors who has been active on Twitter and has tweeted about her protest and the resulting arrest. times by feminists and activists. This ‘Song of Equality’ was the outcome of a collaboration of Iranian feminists from the One Million Signatures Campaign. In addition to occupying public spaces and conquering urban objects for sup‐ port, members and supporters of the Girls of Enghelab Street (non-)movement have prominently used songs and chants. On March 8, 2018, at the Haqqani subway stop, three women entered a train that was going to Tajrish. The hustle and bustle of Tehran’s subway made it possible for them to assemble and engage in a unique activity: chanting. They stood up and performed a song to celebrate International Women’s Day. As they sang, they attracted the attention of all of the women in the gender-segregated Tehran subway, and a recording of their chanting gained viral attention and it was widely circulated on social media. (e.g. Barabari TV 2018) In one of the recordings we see an old woman smiling at the chanting women as though she recalled the song or it were being sung specifically to her to encourage her to feel happy and create a meaningful bond with the activists. The ‘Song of Equality’ is a famous feminist song. Interestingly, one of the three women who chanted in the subway on International Women’s Day was a member of the Girls of Enghelab Street (non-)movement as well, who had climbed onto a utility toolbox and protested compulsory hijab prior to chanting in the subway. The persistence of chanting through the years and its most recent use by members and supporters of the Girls of Enghelab Street demonstrate that the very act of chanting songs has become an indispensable part of (feminist) col‐ lective action in urban protests by Iranian women. The ‘Song of Equality’ was written and is sung by Iranian feminists; thus, the choice of this specific song could indicate that the protesters were conscious of the local historical struggles that past women’s (non-)movements have enacted and sustained. Such aware‐ ness has been acknowledged by members of the Girls of Enghelab Street. Azam Jangravi, who is one of the widely known members of the (non-)movement, 4 has shared the ‘Song of Equality’ and its lyrics on her Twitter account alongside a clip that traces women’s activism since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The lyrics are as follows: I will blossom upon wounds on my body / Just on the basis of my existence / Because I am a woman, woman, woman / If we unite our voices / Step forward together / And 142 Sama Khosravi Ooryad 5 Mothers of Laleh Park are a group mostly of supporters of mourning mothers of arrested and killed political prisoners and protestors who have been active since 2009. They started their protest by gathering in Laleh Park, chanting songs and demanding justice for their children and other political prisoners. hold each other’s hands / We’ll be free of repressions. (@azijangravi 2019; my trans‐ lation) The simple lyrics of the song convey a powerful message that resonates with Iranian women’s longstanding fight for equality. This relevance could account for its prominence and longevity among Iranian women in protesting unequal laws. On March 8, 2018, a similar event occurred in the form of a protest gathering of feminist activists in front of the Iranian Ministry of Work. As a result of this protest, some activists, women and men, were arrested and put in jail for a couple of days. Among the people arrested was the activist-journalist Marzieh Amiri. After her arrest, Amiri’s friends and allies posted a video of her on Twitter and Facebook. The video included an image of Amiri with audio accompaniment of a female voice singing a song called ‘The Blood of Redbuds,’ which is an iconic revolutionary song for both young and old generations of Iranian social activists. The song has been chanted during many political developments in the history of contemporary Iran. Its lyrics predict a revolution, which is compared to a tempest, that will be carried out by those who are angry and tired of injustices: “There is a tempest dormant in the blood of the wounded and the exhausted people / so look towards the futurities, and the time, and the approaching tem‐ pest.” (Siahkal.com; my translation) Roya Saghiri and Azam Jangravi, who are members of the Girls of Enghelab Street, temporarily posted parts of the lyrics of this revolutionary song on their Twitter accounts. The sharing of these excerpts, along with the creation of video collages containing the song, reflects the mutual dependency of cultural tools of protest and their online manifestations that have aided and materialized in the recent protests of Iranian women. ‘Sun Planters’ is another song from the Fedai Guerillas (see Onitmaro 2015) that gained popularity during the 2009 demonstrations and was sung by the mourning Mothers of Laleh Park 5 as well as other activist groups. There are numerous videos online of the mothers and their supporters singing the song in the park and in cemeteries to peacefully protest the arrests and killing of their children during the 2009 protests. (e.g. Madaraneparkelale 2011; see Freedom Messenger 2018) In Iran, public mourning for the intellectual and political dead is fundamentally a political act since any act of public mourning is immediately 143 Conquering, Chanting, and Protesting suppressed. Thus, chanting revolutionary songs virtually, through video col‐ lages or during demonstrations, has allowed protests to proceed with relatively little pressure from authorities. Songs have thereby become a tool of protest and have forged bonds among the protestors by fostering a shared identification among them. By using their voices to chant songs and demand justice for the political prisoners, women once again adopted a cultural and creative strategy to perform their protest not only peacefully but also artistically. All of the chanting and the associated historical moments have woven together to form strong ties among Iranian women. These ties could be more elaborately theor‐ ized as exemplary of Donna Haraway’s “political kinship.” (Haraway 1991: 156) Political kinship, which emphasizes the recognition of situated historical and local “specificities, priorities, and urgencies” (Haraway 2016: 207) among wom‐ en’s or other movements, is an important concept because it takes into account specificity and context. ‘Kin making’ refers to the process by which assemblages of “past, present and to come” (Haraway 2016: 101) combine with a focus on every historical context and its specific political moments. Thus, “kin making is making persons, not necessarily as individuals or as humans,” (Haraway 2016: 103) but as forces, collectives, and political ties. According to Haraway, making kin is necessary but should not be understood solely in a genealogical or bio‐ logical sense of the term. Rather, one should constantly ask, “what shape is this kinship, where and whom do its lines connect and disconnect? ” (Haraway 2016: 2) Given Haraway’s understanding of the cyborg as female, many-headed, mon‐ strous, and oppositional (see Haraway 1991), feminist cyborgs are conscious, oppositional women who constantly revolutionize the political struggle by forming situated alliances. In this regard, Haraway has clarified that the alliances and coalition politics of feminist cyborgs are based not on a myth of unity but instead on “contradictory, partial and strategic identities.” (Haraway 1991: 156) Such strategic and partial identity is claimed to “[mark] out a self-consciously constructed space that cannot affirm the capacity to act on the basis of natural identification, but only on the basis of conscious coalition, of affinity, of political kinship.” (Haraway 1991: 156) Revolutionary songs have proven to be instrumental in the creation of kinship among the members and supporters of the Girls of Enghelab Street. The mar‐ velous capacity of Fedai’s songs to resonate with many groups of people, in‐ cluding protestors, numerous political activists, mourning mothers, and the Girls of Enghelab Street specifically, reveals the potential of these revolutionary songs to facilitate a conscious coalition of diverse local voices of protest as a strategic tool. Iranian women have adopted revolutionary songs as one form of protest that enables them to engage in the shared cultural memory of resistance 144 Sama Khosravi Ooryad 6 Khoroos is a Soundcloud account that posts revolutionary songs. It probably belongs to a group of Iranian leftist activists in exile who own and direct the digital magazine Manjanigh. against inequalities. Furthermore, they have protested as “many-headed mon‐ strous cyborgs,” (Haraway 1991: 154) whose online and grassroots activism has caused problems for the unjust system of repression under an authoritarian government. The above-mentioned songs, which have been chanted by women in specific political moments, illustrate the interculturally and intergenerationally similar strategies that employ feminist and revolutionary songs as a common means of protest. The songs have arguably created a “kinship alliance” in Iranian women’s activism and among political moments and have indeed formed a strategic link that has galvanized their protests. Still, it might not be entirely accurate to claim that the mere presence of songs that have been performed by diverse groups of women at various times easily translates to the unification of their demands and protests. By emphasizing the alliance-making potential of the songs, I do not seek to dismiss the specificities of or differences between women’s protests. Yet, there is a political necessity to address the importance of the songs and their repeated chanting by women in protests over time to form new alliances and kinship. For instance, the dominant presence of songs and chanting and the urge to compose new songs to match the specificities of every protest eventually led to the development of a new song for women in the Girls of Enghelab Street (non-)movement. Shortly after the women and their supporters began to sing in the subway and in video clips, a song called ‘Women of the New Path’ was released by an account called Khoroos 6 on Soundcloud. The song addresses this specific (non-)movement as follows: “They [women and men] are united in being angry / angry at the traditional rituals / and are following the Girl of Enghelab while chanting.” (Khoroos 2018; my translation) The user who posted the song on Soundcloud explained that the women’s struggle was “creatively finding its own vocabulary which will overthrow the current system of oppres‐ sion.” (Khoroos 2018; my translation) All of these forms of conscious coalitional kinship creation illustrate the awareness among Iranian women’s (non-)movements and their supporters of past feminist political struggles in their country’s history. From (social) activists and mothers of the political dead to members of the Girls of Enghelab Street, Iranian women have sustained and propagated the cultural practice of resistance through chanting. Thus, I underscore that feminist and revolutionary songs are among the prominent tools of political kinship creation that have strengthened 145 Conquering, Chanting, and Protesting Iranian women’s movements at numerous political moments in contemporary Iranian history. Furthermore, these songs have played an important role in mul‐ tiple urban places, such as subways, parks, streets, and cemeteries. In this regard, I argue that songs and other vocal tools, in addition to urban objects and sites, have the capacity to alter the public space, reconfigure and re-create the spaces of demonstration (see Butler 2011), and support the protests. With reference to songs that were produced by supporters of the Fedai Guerillas, I highlight that acknowledging these cultural tools of kinship creation within political and feminist activism - alongside the urban objects that sup‐ ported the performativity of the right of women to appear and protest - is im‐ perative for current and future collectives to situate themselves within the local and micropolitical strata of their struggle toward a just society. According to Haraway, the processes that lead to meaningful kinship creation “demand our best emotional, intellectual, artistic, and political creativity, individually and collectively, across ideological and regional differences, among other differ‐ ences.” (Haraway 2016: 208) Hence, it is crucial to recognize the ongoing prom‐ inence and presence of these songs of past generations of women and men ac‐ tivists in order to cultivate diverse yet historically conscious and artistic political kinship bonds that can eventually aid the Iranian women’s movement in more powerfully demanding their rights. The act of chanting during a protest is not only a singular cultural and artistic practice of kinship alliance formation among Iranian women’s past and present (non-)movements but also a means of creating strategic and situated links among women who oppose compulsory hijab. On March 8, 2019, exactly one year after the chanting on the subway, a group of three women entered a train car in the Tehran subway and played ‘Song of Equality’ on their mobile phones to peacefully protest compulsory hijab again. (see Peykeiran 2019) Their per‐ formance clearly referred to the previous chanting in the subway, which had attracted widespread attention and respect. Therefore, the process of creating kinship alliances has evidently mingled with an artistic and collective way of protesting mandatory laws that hinder Iranian women’s freedom. This process has been facilitated by the situated use of (feminist) songs and chanting to es‐ tablish strategic bonds between the present members of women’s (non-)move‐ ments. To describe the innovative and courageous forms of protest that Iranian women in general and the Girls of Enghelab Street in particular have adopted to date, a member of the (non-)movement asserted on her Twitter account: “We won’t be stopped but will multiply.” (@azijangravi 2018; my translation) By ad‐ dressing the future women who will advance the protest as creatively and stra‐ 146 Sama Khosravi Ooryad tegically as past and present activists, Iranian women have reclaimed their rights through conscious connections and hopeful multiplication, and their protests have transcended their individual selves to reach the next generation of pro‐ testors. The development of such linkages through the adoption of creative strategies once again indicates that Iranian women’s collective action is not futile and could indeed ‘happen at any time’ until they achieve the livable ex‐ istence that they deserve. 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Listening to the slogans of the Women’s March ‘79 recorded by US feminist Kate Millett & thinking of #GirlofRevo‐ lutionist#iranprotest#iranelection “We didn’t start a revolution so that we could go backward” “Attacking women means the failure of the revolution.” [Tweet] https: / / twitter.com/ negaratduke/ status/ 960922100331630592? s=20. Najmabadi, Afsaneh (2000). ‘(Un)veiling Feminism.’ Social Text 18. 29-45. Newsom, Victoria A. and Lara Lengel (2012). ‘Arab Women, Social Media and the Arab Spring: Applying the Framework of Digital Reflexivity to Analyze Gender and Online Activism.’ Journal of International Women’s Studies, 13.5, 31-45. Onitmaro. ‘ یاهدورس یبالقنا ناريا - دورس ناراکباتفآ لگنج [Iran’s Revolutionary Songs-Sun Planters in the Jungle].’ youtube, 4: 40, September 25, 2015. www.youtube.com/ watch? v=BCEkK5yTcLA. Parr, Adrian (2005). The Deleuze Dictionary. New York: Columbia University Press. Peykeiran. ‘ تشه ،سرام زور نز رد ورتم نارهت [March 8 th , Women’s Day in Tehran Subway].’ youtube, 3: 11, March 8, 2019. www.youtube.com/ watch? v=QYpbpdPy5AM. Rezai, Omid (2018). ‘Interview with an Enghelab Street Woman Protesting Compulsory Hijab.’ Radiozamaneh.com, 16 February. https: / / en.radiozamaneh.com/ 28836/ (ac‐ cessed 15 July 2019). SecularDemocracy. ‘# تاضارتعا یرسارس برد هاگشناد نارهت ) بلطحالصا ارگلوصا هگيد همومت ارجام [#Mass protests: in front of Tehran university’s entrance: The reformist and the con‐ servative, your time is over].’ youtube, 30 December. www.youtube.com/ watch? v=Jw ZyMGgZf8c. Soundcloud: Khoroos (Producer) (2018). ‘ دورس نانز هار ون .’ Soundcloud. www.soundcloud.c om/ khoroos/ 0oj7je0vtutb. Khoon-e Arghavan-ha [Blood of Redbuds], Lyrics. Siahkal.com. www.siahkal.com/ audio / soroud-text/ khoone-arghavan-ha.htm. Freedom Messenger. ‘ دورس یربارب نانز رد ورتم .’ youtube, 8 March. www.youtube.com/ watc h? v=CwWfme$% LoJblw. 149 Conquering, Chanting, and Protesting Designing Kinship: Creative Processes and Collective Action Ana Nolasco Keywords: kinship, collaborative practices, Torre de David, We are Here, Rigo 23 1 Introduction At a time when emotion-mobilizing activism is being used to serve the interests of agents that perpetuate social injustice, it has become urgent to reformulate the strategies that mobilize these emotions. In the search for social emancipa‐ tion, the old paradigms of universal utopias have been replaced by protest movements linked to specific people and communities. In this context, I aim to reflect on the potential of collaborative art and design practices to create kinship bonds and promote collective action seeking social emancipation. A number of studies demonstrate that community cohesion is a decisive factor for triggering collective action to bring about social emancipation. (see Intae 2011; see Hwahn et al. 2018; see Kobza 1998; see Chavis & Wandersman 1990) An individual’s identification with a given group is a complex phenomenon where individual psychological processes intersect with specific material con‐ texts. In other words, the way in which individuals perceive themselves through a group interacts dialectically with the way in which society, at a given time, sees them. This process is volatile because these elements are performative, which is to say that they are constantly recreated and reenacted, altered or reinforced through actions and non-actions which influence the whole in a kind of chain reaction. As demonstrated by Intae (2011), a community’s capacity for resistance is determined by its kinship structure, biological or otherwise, which creates a stable network capable of resisting adversity. Here I adopt the viewpoint of Kubicek, McNeeley, Holloway, Weiss, and Kipke (2012), who claim that social 1 Here Sahlins is referring to cultures such as the Iñupiat on the Alaskan North Slope or the Inuit in Greenland, among others, where bonds of kinship are not determined by consanguinity, but by the sharing of the name of a deceased person with whom family ties may not exist. In this case, the child “reincarnates” the soul of the deceased person and is able to change his / her name and family four or five times throughout his / her life. It is in reference to a somewhat similar idea of “transubstantiation” that Sahlins discusses the sharing of food, citing examples like New Caledonia, where it is believed that the dead fertilize the earth from which food - like the yam - grows. The sharing of this food therefore becomes a “blood” tie, as is also the case with the Malays. (see Sahlins 2011: 3-5) These bonds of kinship all share the transubstantiation of something through a deliberate act of commitment and are not biologically predetermined. creativity can be a form of resistance that creates a snowball effect, allowing for the sharing of emotions which involve intergroup recognition, while also pos‐ sibly changing the individual’s perception of himor herself, shifting it from an understanding of the individual as an isolated self to that of an individual as part of a group. In this line of thought, I will hence/ consequently adopt Sahlins’ notion of kinship as a “mutuality of being” (Sahlins 2011: 2) that can be caused by, among others, the “sharing of food, reincarnation 1 , co-residence, shared memories, working together, adoption, friendship, shared suffering” (Sahlins 2011: 5): kin‐ ship as shared ideas and experiences that can lead to collective action. This notion converges with the cultural turn operated by Schneider that re-framed the concept of kinship as a social process and not as an exclusively biological one. In this sense, kinship is not a pre-existing condition, not something innate, but a performance, a collection of actions that one cultivates. Here, through the analysis of four case studies - 1) the We Are Here project ( WAH ), 2012-13, organized by refugees in the Netherlands fig. 1 ; 2) The Tower of David in Caracas, 2007-14 fig. 2; and two works by RIGO 23, 3) Isto o Povo N-o Esquece, 2010, fig. 3, 4) and the statue of Leonard Peltier, 2017 fig. 4 and fig. 5 - I intend to show that art and design can contribute to the development of bonds of kinship and trigger collective action thanks to the way in which they help build self-esteem and construct a positive identity. 1. WAH , 2012-13, is an initiative triggered by the displacement of people from a refugee centre in Ter Apel, Groningen, in the north of the Neth‐ erlands. With the help of its supporters, including artists, architects, and designers, the WAH project organized the Parliament for Refugees and the Theatre for Hope, gaining considerable political recognition. Ana‐ lyzing the development of WAH helps us to understand the importance of artistic expression and design for the group’s social emancipation, and 152 Ana Nolasco consequently, for its political representation, thereby revealing the way in which positive identity is always constructed within a social context. 2. The Tower of David ( TOD ) in Caracas, 2007-14, a 45-story building in ruins at the centre of Caracas that was occupied by 1,300 people who lived there for seven years, creating their own informal structures - from stores to basic sanitation - in a participatory democracy. The example of TOD shows that, given the opportunity to stay in the same space, in the mid to long term, an underprivileged community can, with collaborative de‐ sign practices, strengthen bonds of kindship through the creation of a positive identity and self-govern, implementing bottom-up strategies and the supervision of a central community. 3. Isto o Povo N-o Esquece (this the people will not forget), 2010, on the island of Madeira, Portugal, which envisaged the creation of a statue to celebrate a dispute between the local community of Ribeira Seca and the Portuguese Catholic Church. Through their symbolic representation in art, the bonds of kinship that cemented the resilience of a marginalized community be‐ came a potential source of inspiration for other marginalized communi‐ ties in the world, stirring up emotions outside of that particular case. 4. The statue of Leonard Peltier, 2017, was conceived in support of the movement for the release of the Native American rights activist who was arrested 44 years ago and remains in jail to this day. In contrast to Isto o Povo N-o Esquece, where bonds of kinship served as the work’s inspira‐ tion, in this case it was the process of creation itself - the work’s most important part in RIGO 23’s opinion - which mobilized emotions, and bonds of kinship around a common cause. In both of these works, the actions of the artist, working in collaboration with an underprivileged minority, can be considered a kind of collective action in so much as they are undertaken in the name of this community. These two case studies also show how bonds of kinship can catalyze symbolic representations that contribute to the creation of collective imaginaries, which, in turn, reinforce the bonds between the members of a community. (see Taylor 2002) However, before undertaking an analysis of these case studies, I would like to contextualize the concept of ‘kinship.’ The concept of kinship as determined by consanguinity has been questioned by various critics since the 1950s. (see Bloch 1973; see Goody 1973; see Kuper 1982; see Leach 1961, 1968; see Lewis 1965; see Needham 1971; see Worsley 1956) The most influential was put forth by Schneider in What is Kinship All About (1972) and later in A Critique of the Study of Kinship (1984). Schneider criticized what he considered the “biologistic” 153 Designing Kinship: Creative Processes and Collective Action (Schneider 1984: 175) concept of kinship that he found to be at the root of Eu‐ rocentric anthropological perspectives on social structures and gender issues. These critiques were followed by the development of constructive approaches by other authors (see MacCormack and Strathern 1980; see Carsten 2000; see Borneman 2001, among others) and by the formulation of kinship as a way of including alternatives to the heteronormative family model (see Collier and Yanagisako 1987; see Franklin and Ragone 1998; see Hayden 1995; see Strathern 2001; see Levine 2008), giving rise to a cultural turn and a re-flourishing of Kinship Studies. This was by no means only a trend in theory, but was also mirrored by a number of technological advances of the past decades - such as the first in vitro fertilization in 1978 that led from its beginning to a distinction between social and biological parentage (see Strathern 1992) which could also be regarded as a reconceptualization of kinship. In 2016, this tendency acquired a new degree of complexity with the birth of the first child possessing the genetic material of three individuals - one man and two women (see Vlaardingerbroek 2017), opening the way to the design of human embryos in the future. But the more far-reaching turn that is implied in such developments - the creation of trans‐ genic animals, genetically modified seeds, and patented gene sequences, as well as the development of artificial intelligence - is manifested in the progressive erosion of the frontiers between the natural and the artificial, touching on the question of the future of ‘humanity’ as such. Feminist theorists, in particular, criticized the idea of biology as a fixed reality legitimizing the concept of gender and produced a theoretical corpus that strengthened the separation of the notion of kinship from that of biology, as proposed by Schneider (1984, [1972]) and others. This turning point is part of a wider movement which also led to the questioning of the unchanging essence of ‘biological facts’ in the field of biology (see Lewontin 1991; see Leon, Lewontin & Rose 1984), denouncing it as a cultural construction. Ironically, as a result of this movement, the current conception of kinship is once again analogous to the discourse produced by new notions of biology. Along this line, Butler, in Antigone´s Claim: Kinship Between Life & Death (2000), begins with an analysis of the conception of Antigone in Hegel and Lévi-Strauss and of their subsequent psychoanalytical development by Lacan: the patriarchal structure of kinship was considered a norm by these authors. The implicit transgression of these marks the passage of the household gods into the law of the state: from nature to culture in Hegel and Lévi-Strauss, and from the pre-symbolic to the symbolic through the establishment of language 154 Ana Nolasco in Lacan. From here, Butler reflects on the way in which the category of kinship was first established to appear immutable when in fact it is amenable to change. Butler points to the fact that the very character of Antigone, the incestuous daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, is ambiguous and fragile. (see Butler 2000: 1- 26) In this way, Lévi Strauss conceives of the nuclear family, with its distinct gender roles and genealogical outlines, as precultural (Franklin 2001), unlike Morgan (1974 [1877]), who considers the switch from matriarchal to patriarchal lineage, and the subsequent establishment of a hereditary line accumulating masculine capital, as the peak of civilization. In either case, as can be seen in the works of both authors, the concepts of paternity, property, and inheritance con‐ verge to constitute the idea of kinship, which - as noted by authors such as Delaney, Coward and Franklin (2001) - works as a kind of exclusive branding distinguishing some members of the community from others. In this vein, au‐ thors like Haraway (1997) and Butler highlight the similarity between the pat‐ terns of kinship and the patenting of products or the structures of language that determine power. I believe that it is within this global context that we should understand Haraway’s call to “make kin not babies” (Haraway 2016: 102) as the territorial disputes at the root of the genealogical lines governing the transmission of property have, at various points throughout history, caused fratricidal wars. In the contemporary period, designated as the ‘Anthropocene,’ the urgency of the ongoing environmental crisis and its consequences must force us to contemplate another understanding of ‘kinship,’ which prioritises our shared responsibility for the future of humanity, independent of affiliation, race, or religion. In her book Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Donna Haraway calls for making “kin in lines of inventive connection as a practice of learning to live and die well with each other in a thick present.” (Haraway 2016: 1) She points out that blood ties “have been bloody enough already” (Haraway 1997: 265), and that the genealogical line has dominated the normative paradigm of kinship studies in western societies since the Middle Ages. Haraway proposes a non-anthropocentric notion of kinship, which includes not only humans, but also all other animals, as socially active partners. (see Haraway 1997: 8) Ac‐ cording to this conception of the term, humans, non-humans, and inanimate objects are in a constant state of becoming, at times mixing, at other times sep‐ arating to create new configurations. For Haraway, it is only by becoming aware of the interdependence and mutual influence that exists between humans, non-humans, and inanimate objects that we might be able to turn back from the 155 Designing Kinship: Creative Processes and Collective Action 2 The term ‘Chthulucene’ is derived from the Pimoa Cthulhu, a species of spider in whose web Haraway sees a metaphor for a world with no hierarchy between the different species. destructive path that has led us to the era known as the ‘Anthropocene Epoch’ (which Haraway prefers to call Chthulucene 2 ). Although I agree with Haraway, especially in this last point, such an allencompassing notion of kinship does not fit within the confines of this study, where I intend to analyze the potential of kinship bonds and collaborative art and design practices to mobilize emotions and trigger collective action seeking to achieve social emancipation. In this way, as I aim to demonstrate with the case studies under analysis, processes of mutual influence between kinship and collaborative art and design practices always occur in a specific cultural context and are in a constant state of transformation. In other words, the positive iden‐ tity that contributes to collective action is the result of the individual’s image being reflected back to him / her through the eyes of others, creating a labyrinth of mirrors that is always navigated through human social interaction. In the chapters that follow, with reference to the aforementioned case studies, I will seek to demonstrate how art, design, and kinship are significant not only as a trigger for collective action, but also as its result. I will therefore show that they do not pre-exist independently of this process, which is always - albeit sometimes indirectly - a collective, daily action, a continuous process of sharing. Fig. 1: ‘We Are Here’ group members (photo: Hans C. Bouton, courtesy of Hans C. Bouton) 156 Ana Nolasco 2 Design and Social Movements 2.1 We Are Here The development of the We Are Here ( WAH ) group is paradigmatic of the com‐ plexity and non-linearity of the various factors that come together to create bonds of kinship. Indeed, under certain circumstances these factors which in‐ clude creativity and mutual support in difficult situations, among others, can also lead to the weakening of an individual’s perception of himor herself as a member of a group in spite of shared experiences and difficulties. We Are Here ( WAH ) was the first political group of refugees to protest the negation of citizenship rights in an organized and united fashion and has gained support within Dutch civil society. (see Stall 2013: 37) Its creation resulted from the implicit understanding of refugees’ need to help each other and to share their lives and resources in order to survive and fight for their rights. The group comprises over a hundred refugees from mostly African countries to whom asylum was denied and who can no longer safely return to their countries of origin due to war or persecution. The movement began in September 2012, when a group of refugees set up a camp in front of the center from which they had been evicted: the Refugee Center of Ter Apel. According to the Dutch Alien Act, the Dutch government guarantees the safety and rights of those who have had their requests for asylum rejected but cannot return to their home countries. Under the Law on Identification and the Benefit Entitlement (Residence Status), a temporary permission is granted that ensures shelter, food, and work to those individuals who cooperate with their deportation, although the exact meaning of the word ‘cooperation’ is undeter‐ mined. In practice, however, very few permissions are in fact granted. (see Dadusc 2017) Since 2012, all undocumented migrants are issued a warning to leave the country by their own means in fewer than 48 hours under penalty of arrest, whereby they are held in detention centers. This practice, however, effectively means that the majority of refugees to whom asylum was denied disappear from the authorities’ sight. Detention periods are undefined, contact with the outside world from within these centers is severely restricted, detainees are not granted judicial support and in the majority of cases they are “dumped” back on the 157 Designing Kinship: Creative Processes and Collective Action 3 Numbers from 2008 reveal that only 20 percent of immigrants who were detained for over three months were actually deported by the end of their sentence. After six months of detention, this percentage had dropped to virtually zero. 4 M2M (Migrant to Migrant) is a non-profit foundation based in the Netherlands. streets following detention 3 (see Stronks 2013: 71), thus completing the cycle of a “legal creation of illegality.” (Dadusc 2017: 277) Although this group initially came together out of a need to survive, its mem‐ bers’ awareness of the injustice that they suffered due to their status as refugees reinforced their identification as ‘refugees’ in similar circumstances. This in‐ justice causes a level of indignation that surpasses the mere satisfaction of a need to survive at the same rate as the individuals involved begin to perceive themselves, not as separate selves, but as a collective self. Consequently, the feeling that moral values are being violated leads to collective action, understood as any action, which aims to improve the position of the group by acting to represent it. (see Wright, Taylor & Moghaddam 1990; see van Zomeren & Lyer 2009) This type of action involves not only the disadvantaged groups that are directly affected, but also more privileged groups that identify with them. In this way, the WAH group gained widespread support from the civil society shortly after its foundation, when, in 2012, some 90 refugees, inspired by the Arab Spring movements in the Middle East, gathered on Notweg street in the Osdorp neigh‐ bourhood and occupied it with tents. (see Gavin 2014) The Osdorp camp quickly became a center for organization and protest, ral‐ lying supporters from local Dutch society. Among these were artists, architects, and designers. They shared methods of design thinking and artisanal techniques with the members of the WAH , and “several design workshops were organized by volunteer social designers.” (Krabbendam and Schwartz 2013: 87-89) It was during the first of these workshops - Designing the Future, held on October 13, 2012, co-created by M2M 4 and ‘The Beach’, by the social designer Diana Krabbendam - that the concept of the ‘Theatre of Hope’ was born. It was first staged on October 20, at the Sandberg Academy of Design. The ‘Theatre of Hope’ consists of a building, a structure in which a group organizes its activities, developing an interface between the refugees and the Dutch society. It seeks in this way to solve the two pressing concerns of the WAH : the need for warm shelter and a venue in which to organize the movement. (see van der Spek, 2012) While refugees were not allowed to work, they were free to express them‐ selves creatively. This allowed the group to explore new forms of political rep‐ resentation and social mobilization. (see Staal 2013: 17) WAH was therefore able to collaborate with the Dutch artistic community in order to create various artworks. Some involved work on furniture pieces, but 158 Ana Nolasco 5 A reference to the Salon des Réfusés, the exhibition of works rejected by the jury of the official Paris Salon in 1863. 6 In reference to their struggle, the group always appends the prefix Vlucht, “escape,” to new shelters. In this case to the word Kerk, meaning Church. also theater plays, dances, and the Salon des Réfugiés Réfusées  5 . (see We Are Here 2015) According to one of its members, Yoonis Osman Nuur, it was in this context at Osbourn that they first became conscious of themselves as a collective, rather than a group of individuals. (see Staal 2013: 34) That same month they were expelled from Osdorp. With the help of Christian activists and such of the Occupy movement, the group found shelter at the Vluchtkerk  6 , where 120 of its members already resided. (see Staal 2013: 20) This move attracted volunteers, journalists, and artists, gaining media coverage for the group. WAH organized protests and meetings and developed its political strategy, putting forward the composition of its members by country of origin. The movement worked extensively on the spaces it occupied, “fireproofing the homes, building bedrooms, wiring electricity, fixing plumbing and more.” (Gavin 2014: 2) Following their expulsion from the Vluchtkerk, the group has occupied a string of other spaces: empty office spaces (Vluchtflat, Vluchtkantoor, Vlucht‐ gebow, Vluchttoren), a government-owned building (Vluchtgarage), a former hospital, and a school. (see Dadusc 2017: 276) The collective solution that is sought is, as noted by Gavin, Fryda, and Xanel, “outward looking and global” (Gavin, Fryda & Xanel 2014: 7), seeking not only to tackle the problems faced by the group but those of all others in similar sit‐ uations. This was demonstrated in the protests organized by the group in 2014 directed at the European Union. They criticized the lack of homogeneity among European refugee laws and spoke out against the Dublin II Regulation. (see Gavin, Fryda & Xanel 2014; see Jonas 2013) The latter stipulates that refugees must seek asylum in the first EU country they have entered and limits these requests to one. The result is that Northern European countries will extradite refugees found within their borders to Southern Europe, the initial point of entry. Historically, there have been three main ways of understanding collective action: the first prioritizes a cost / benefit evaluation in the decision to participate (see Olson, Herman & Zanna 1986), a vision in which the efficiency of the action is deemed to be a decisive factor; the second considers non-utilitarian factors to be the most important, believing that the principal motive for participation is a feeling of injustice, a feeling which requires strong moral convictions - aka Relative Deprivation Theory, or RDT (see Runciman 1966; see Stouffer, Suchman, Devinney & Star 1949); the third is the Social Identity Theory ( SIT ) 159 Designing Kinship: Creative Processes and Collective Action 7 As noted by Dadusc, WAH was innovative in this respect, since previous forms of protest by refugees were generally individual efforts, often using their own, individual bodies (hunger strikes, self-immolation) to draw attention to their fate. (see Tajfel & Turner 1979; see Tajfel 1978), which considers that the most im‐ portant factor is the desire to affirm a positive social identity, consolidated by the group to which one belongs. Recently these different approaches were in‐ tegrated into the Social Identity Model of Collective Action, or SIMCA (see van Zomeren, Postmes & Spears 2008), which considers all of these variables to be equally important factors in collective action. I believe that this case corroborates the aforementioned theory, as here col‐ lective action arose not only from a cost / benefit analysis (see Klanderman 1997), but also from moral imperatives. The consolidation of these two factors by the group’s self-identification were furthermore created through bonds of kinship. As captured in the words of El Mouthena: I didn’t want to be an activist even in the beginning, but I didn’t have a choice. Life pushed me to be an activist. I’d like to help all people get to freedom because these people, [the rejected asylum seekers], are good people. They used to be in university and now, if they get papers, they can do a lot for society. (Gavin, Fryda and Xanel 2014: 8) El Mouthena’s comment contains two revelations: firstly, his decision to become an activist was not motivated by personal interests, but by a heightened sense of identification with the group; secondly, this action made El Mouthena change his perception of himself, leading him to gain the new identity of a social activist. This identity can, in turn, overcome other determining psychologies (see Kelly 1993) and sustain activism, even when the probability of a given action’s effi‐ ciency is low. (see Andrews 1991) As a weapon of protest, WAH has used the collective occupation of spaces where they can organize and gain visibility. 7 According to Yoonis Osman Nuur, “[t]he only thing we knew at that time was that we did not want to be divided.” ( Jonas 2013: 34) In this way, the group’s capacity for resistance was born from unity, the only certainty that its members had at the time. These shared experiences have intensified the bonds of kinship between members of WAH . During an interview Yoonis Osman Nuur noted that individually we had nothing; this group was now our only family, the only thing we would have. Naturally, we began to take care of each other. We referred to one another as brothers and sisters. This was the most important thing about the experience - it’s something that I will always keep with me for the rest of my life. ( Jonas 2013: 34) 160 Ana Nolasco These ties would endure: when asked whether he believed the group would ever grow apart, including the ideal scenario in which citizenship would be granted to every member, Yoonis answered No, I don’t think so. We have all become such good friends. Even if we were to live apart, we would always have something that unites us: the power of brotherhood and sisterhood. That is the best thing about these most difficult circumstances. There is too much love. ( Jonas 2013: 38) This comment reveals that bonds of kinship can exist independently of biological links: the patriarchal family structure, with its rituals and its establishment of relationships through trading and gift-giving, provided one framework within which such bonds can be forged, but many others are possible. These bonds are particularly strong when they result from the sharing of extreme experiences in which people reveal themselves independently from the norms of their cul‐ tural origins. One could say that a certain kind of dialectic process is developed through this experience: one of increasingly mature political consciousness and of the consciousness of collective action by some members of the group, like Yoonis Osman Nuur and El Mouthena. Despite the portrayal by supporters of the group as a cohesive, pro-active unit, the reality is that many members of WAH protest only through their presence and their denial: they refuse to be deported and do not adhere to the expectations coming from outside the group which anticipate that they will correspond to a western model of what an ‘activist’ is, i.e. that they will be politically engaged and take the initiative for action. (see van der Spek 2012) In my view, the non-adherence to collective action can be the result of the weaker identification with the whole that is common among groups stigmatized for their sexual orientation (see Sturner and Simon 2004), weight (see Simon 2008), or refugee status as in this case. Collective action strategies emerge from the individual perception that “the only way for him to change these [disad‐ vantageous] conditions is together with his group as a whole.” (Tajfel 1981: 247) In other words, the perception of ‘group efficacy,’ i.e. that present objectives are attainable through collective action, is a necessary premise for the optimism that leads to collective action. Previous studies carried out on the reasons for which people do not partici‐ pate in community actions that aim to improve their living conditions indicate a weak sense of community cohesion as a decisive factor. Identification with the community is therefore not innate, but can arise for a number of reasons - as the result of a collective strategy to improve the group’s conditions, for example, 161 Designing Kinship: Creative Processes and Collective Action when such strategy is successful. (see Taifel 1981: 217) The fact that these ref‐ ugees experienced successive failures in obtaining the status of exiles, that many of them were subjected to humiliation and, at times, acts of violence, makes them susceptible to the three behavioral elements analyzed by Seligman in the Theory of Learned Helplessness (see Peterson, Maier, Seligman 1993): a story of events that are beyond their control, cognition of helplessness, and maladaptive pas‐ sivity. This last element results from the fact that they are in a foreign country of which, for the most part, they do not speak the language. Without the per‐ ception of a ‘collective self ’, frequently absent among low-status minorities (see Sturmer and Simon 2004; see Simon 1998), then non-action becomes a form of action; an affirmation of a non-alignment with any external imposition. Considering the personal histories of individual refugees, and what many have had to endure on their way to Europe, it is understandable that the differ‐ ence in status between volunteers - who have had the privilege of choosing to help - and the refugees does not automatically lead to the form of activism that is defined and desired by well-meaning westerners. But their presence, and most of all them conforming with that model, constitutes a form of protest as well as stark, saddening evidence of the failure of the global policies to which they have fallen prey. However, they now belong to a group where they can find support. According to Jo van der Spek, journalist, member of WAH and director of M2M, beyond successfully providing shelter to an average of one hundred people at any given point throughout the years, with about 100 people having successfully obtained exiled status, the WAH has saved the squatters from becoming a negligible factor in the social life, since squatting buildings for the damned of the earth is a new and respectable mission (and) has prevented the criminalization of so-called illegal aliens, as was the intention of the government. (van der Spek 2012) As noted on their website, instead of being on the street alone, people now belong to a group. And in a group you can share grief, frustration and happy moments. And the group has built net‐ works. Networks of supporters, of lawyers, of lobbyists, of medical care organisations, of buddies, of refugees that got their status, of activists, squatters, cooks, shops that donate food, people who donate money, funds, etc. etc. (We Are Here 2016) Hence, in my view, the development of the WAH group reveals the importance both of relations of care and affection, and of expression and representation in the creation of bonds of kinship. Indeed, it is through the recognition of one’s 162 Ana Nolasco own image, materialized in actions and artistic or design-related expressions, that one can see one’s own reflection in the eye of the other, helping one to interpret oneself and understand one’s status as a member of the group. When he was in Osdorp, creating furniture and plays, among other artworks, Yoonis Osman Nuur said that it was when they were acknowledged by society that they became aware of themselves as a group. These forms of creative expression can be useful, for example, in the case of refugees who have internalized their repeated failures and become skeptical about the possibility of altering their situation. This helplessness is not defini‐ tive, nor is it applicable in all situations, only in those where a person has had unsuccessful experiences. In part, it is created by the people’s perception of themselves because, in this case, the very understanding of these injustices is interpreted, or narrated, subjectively. In this way, a person’s sense of identifi‐ cation with a group is an important factor in the development of a non-victim‐ izing narrative, as well as in stimulating collective action. (Awakami & Dion 1993) I therefore consider that art and design can contribute to the creation of bonds of kinship and trigger collective action, in the sense that they contribute to the development of self-esteem and the construction of a positive identity. Fig. 2: The Tower of David (photo: Iwan Baan, used with permission) 2.2 The Tower of David The next case study that I will analyze, the TOD , also involves a marginalized group with a shared feeling of injustice, where bonds of kinship have been strengthened by intense experiences of communal suffering and an awareness of the fact that ‘unity is strength.’ However, thanks to the fact that, in contrast 163 Designing Kinship: Creative Processes and Collective Action to WAH , those involved in the TOD were able to occupy the same space for a long period of time - seven years - this case can be seen as a kind of experimental laboratory demonstrating the community’s capacity for self-regulation and in‐ frastructural implementation. The TOD is part of a building complex of five structures in the center of Caracas. The complex was left unfinished after the dreams of its principal in‐ vestor, David Brillembourg, were curtailed by the economic crisis of 1994. The 45-story building had been projected to hold a luxury hotel and office spaces topped by a heliport. (see Urban Think Tank 2013) The group responsible for the undertaking, Cofinanzas, went bankrupt, construction was suspended, and the state Social and Bank Deposit Protection Fund ( FOGADE ) took possession of the building. After an unsuccessful attempt to sell the complex it was aban‐ doned, leaving this somber specter hanging over the city, a symbol of the failures and unbounded hopes of 1980s capitalist euphoria. (see Fonseca and Schlueter 2013: 33) The growing housing crisis, together with a series of laws giving greater control to the government over public and private land and the election of the Chavez government in 1998, inspired the practice of occupying public and pri‐ vate spaces to become common practice. (see Urban Think Tank 2013) In this context, on September 17, 2007, a group of families seeking shelter occupied the building. From 2007 until their expulsion in 2014, about 750 families (~3000 people) (see Fonseca and Schuelter 2013: 94) took residence there, creating the largest vertical community to date. (see Urban Think Tank 2013) The Tower gained a negative reputation within Venezuelan society, especially following the release of the television program Tower of David, on October 13, which depicted the leader of the community, El Nhô as a mercenary governing a lawless com‐ munity. (see Goméz 2014) However, the community had organized itself democratically and had banned violence, as related by several surprised people that visited the TOD . (see Goméz 2014; see Fonseca and Gouveia 2015) The occupiers organized shared spaces and chores, revealing, through the creativity of the solutions found, an innate capacity for design, which we can designate as ‘dif‐ fuse design’. (see Manzini 2015) According to Manzini, the best way to develop this capacity is through initiatives which create conditions for processes of co-design. In this case, the initiatives did not come from outside the TOD ’s community, but were created spontaneously by the community itself out of ne‐ cessity, leading to moments of “conviviality […] built by doing things together.” (Manzini 2015: 24) Besides creating balustrades, the group added new walls, guardrails, and other features to make the structure safer. To improve security along stairs, hallways, 164 Ana Nolasco and balconies, residents employed rebar, scavenged trusses, PVC pipes, and un-mortared bricks, to varying degrees of stability and durability. In other places they broke through the original walls, both to allow more air to circulate and to build bridges from the garage to the residential quarters. (see Fonseca and Schlueter 2013a: 34-35) They also created a basketball court, a gymnasium, grocers, a bakery, an ice cream shop, and a hair stylist, among others. Because there were no elevators or stairs, only a ramp, they also developed a transport system based on motor‐ cycle-taxis that transported the residents to their floor of destination for pay. Lodgings varied enormously, spanning a range of sophistication and comfort. According to the designers David and Alfred Brillembourg, the infrastructure of the TOD , which used what the latter called the “Rube Goldbergian system of water distribution” (Fonseca and Schlueter 2013a: 34-35) was among the more obvious manifestations of collaboration. These practices of collaborative design developed the capacity for coopera‐ tion among the members of the community, cementing bonds of kinship, rein‐ forcing belief in the effectiveness of group action and boosting self-esteem. Fur‐ thermore, they also stimulated the group’s self-awareness, creating conditions for it to self-govern. A system of self-government was effectively created, with strict rules of con‐ duct and a three-strike rule leading to expulsion from the community. The laws included a ban on domestic violence, limits on noise, etc. Each resident paid a monthly 15 $ to a cooperative tasked with establishing rules, maintaining the space and paying for various services. Two guards were kept on service 24 hours a day for security and each story counted one coordinator. (see Walker 12 014) Residency in the Tower was procured by application. Allocation of living quar‐ ters was decided by community leaders and subject to criteria decided on by the residents through the Vivienda Caciques de Venezuela Cooperative ( CCV ), es‐ tablished in 2009 by the occupiers, and dependent on factors, such as health status and age, with the elderly and the young assigned to the lower stories. Negotiation on the apartments was conditioned on approval by the ‘floor co‐ ordinator’ or by members of the CCV . (see Goméz 2014: 217) These facts demonstrate that communities are capable of organizing them‐ selves through participative democracy as long as they are supported by a net‐ work of stable kinship bonds. These facts also suggest that social creativity - at play in this particular context because there was no architect or designer on hand to direct the projects being undertaken - can become a source of resistance, as previously noted by other studies. (see Kubicec, McNeeley, Holloway, Weiss and Kipke 2012) 165 Designing Kinship: Creative Processes and Collective Action Although it was initially the recognition of the group efficacy which led to collective action, as creative adaptations of space and experimental design ap‐ proaches proved successful, the identity of the group was also strengthened. This led to a form of self-governance, which brought together consensus-driven bottom-up strategies, and the supervision of a central community. To complement the Social Identity Model of Collective Action ( SIMCA ), Thomas, McGarty & Mavor (2009) proposed an alternative and complementary role for social identity in the Encapsulation Model of Social Identity in Collective Action ( EMSICA ). The EMSICA proposes that the feeling of indignation that is triggered by injustice and the belief in the effectiveness of social change through collective action can precede the creation of a group identity. I consider this to have been the case with WAH and TOD . Both of these case studies involve stigmatized minorities in different contexts. In both cases bonds of kinship and care were created which both generated and were strengthened by creative ac‐ tion. In both situations, collaborative practices contributed to growing confi‐ dence in group efficacy and a strengthened awareness of a collective self. It can further be considered that the design of governance, of the sharing of spaces and of the division of labor contributed to the creation of a group identity, as did the forms of artistic expression explored, in so much as they were an in‐ strument for collective action and the resulting creation of kinship, that is of an attitude of care and protection among members of the same community. Fig. 3: RIGO 23, Isto o Povo N-o Esquece, 2010 (image courtesy of Rigo 23) 166 Ana Nolasco 8 He was reinstated on June 16, 2019, after having been suspended for 42 years. 3 Activist Art and Kinship 3.1 Isto o Povo N-o Esquece Whereas in the last two case studies that we analyzed, it was social creativity which strengthened bonds of kinship, we will now turn our attention to Isto o Povo N-o Esquece, in which pre-existing bonds of kinship gave rise to the crea‐ tivity that would go on to crystalize them, making them symbolically universal. In this way, Isto o Povo N-o Esquece creates a language of local resistance that is capable of communicating beyond the specific community in question and is therefore able to promote the establishment of other bonds of kinship - based around shared ideas - with people in other geographical locations. We now consider two cases in which bonds of kinship preceded collective action and even artistic practices. In this section, I will analyze two works by the artist RIGO 23: Isto o Povo N-o Esquece, 2010, and the Peltier statue, 2017. RIGO 23 was born on the island of Madeira, Portugal, in 1966. He eventually took up residence in San Francisco where he was part of the first generation of the San Francisco Mission School artistic movement. He is known within the local community for his public murals bearing large and enticing texts and for a strong sense of social compromise. Isto o Povo N-o Esquece consists of an installation and of a public mural. As its central motif, the installation features a frontless statue of the Virgin (i.e. with backs on both sides). Lists of signatures from a community petition, em‐ broidered in linen strips by local artisans, hang on the walls, among other sym‐ bolic gestures, accompanied by a wall painting of the façade of the church of Ribeira Seca. The mural was inserted in an urban space in Serralves, painted on a façade, and bore the words Isto o Povo N-o Esquece. The project was first ex‐ hibited at the Museum of Serralves, Porto, in 2010, and was re-instated in 2012 on the island of Madeira, as an homage to Father Martins Júnior, an important figure of the post-revolutionary history of Madeira, in celebration of the 50 th anniversary of his ordination. Father Martins was suspended from his duties by the church hierarchy in 1977 8 for being a free thinker. (see Melim 2012) The piece centers on an episode, which took place on May 8, 2010 during a visit to Portugal by Pope Benedict XVI . In the course of that visit, the bishop of Funchal requested that the pilgrim image of the Virgin travel to the 52 parishes on the island except Ribeira Seca, where, having been prevented from entering the local church, it was left in front of the building with its back purposefully turned towards the church and the community. The local community - about 167 Designing Kinship: Creative Processes and Collective Action 3,000 people - has been the target of discrimination and violent actions over the past 40 years for its defense of father Martin Júnior. They have suffered every‐ thing: from having their power cut off, to the illegal invasion of its church by the police, a ban on the buying of bells and holy bread to the intentional omission of its name from road signs. Already in 1985, on February 27, the locally built church had been surrounded by a 70 people strong police force. The population defended the building without reserve, organized protests, and set up daily and nightly vigils. During the day while police forces besieged the church, local embroiderers would work in a ring around it; at night they would be replaced by their husbands. After 18 days, the police were tired and left. The community of Ribeira Seca has been an inspiration to RIGO 23 from the time of his youth in Madeira. Isto o Povo N-o Esquece is both a gesture of thanks for that inspiration and a way of preventing the memory of that community from being forgotten. In the aftermath of the episode of May 8, 2010, many letters published in the local press expressed indignation about the situation. (see RIGO 23 2011) In one of them a local parishioner wrote the words Isto o Povo N-o Esquece (This the people will not forget). On the other hand, the feeling of in‐ dignation over the contempt of which the community of Ribeira Seca is a target is latent in the decision by the embroiderers on the scene to refuse any monetary reward for their participation in the events. (see Donovan 2011) On the level of collective petitions, of strikes and passive protests (see Klandermans 1997), this gesture by RIGO 23 can also be construed as part of collective action. The main motivation behind this gesture is a feeling of viola‐ tion of something sacred, in this case the right to self-determination and the right to dignity of this community. But it is also a materialized artistic gesture, a sensible expression not just of a specific event, but of human nature and its conflicts, of its capacity to rise beyond a finite existence through the creation of a common horizon of values. In its refusal of total linearity between the artists’ intention and the public’s interpretation is the frontless Virgin ambiguous and its interpretations are con‐ sequently limitless. It calls out and troubles the observer, suspending the codes of interpretation that rule day-to-day life according to the laws of causality and efficacy in purposeful action. Without going so far as to consider it propaganda, since it does not lend itself to such a one-sided interpretation, Isto o Povo N-o Esquece is part of activist art in the sense that it seeks to provide an instrument for the visibility of discrim‐ ination in its denouncement. However, as was noted by Rancière (2000), art is political not only when its content is explicitly so, but whenever it challenges 168 Ana Nolasco the frontiers of what is sayable and of what is visible. It is the regime of power over visibility that creates reality (in the sense of the Greek word aisthesis, that which is perceptible to the senses, deciding that which is or is not granted public existence). In contrast to the social movements that we have studied previously, in Isto o Povo N-o Esquece it were bonds of kinship that gave rise to creativity. In the same way that an action carried out by a single individual can be considered a collective action when it is done in the name of the community, here we can consider this creativity to be a kind of social creativity. (see van Zomeren, Postmes & Spears 2011: 165) Isto o Povo N-o Esquece was created in collaboration with the weavers as a celebration of the independence of the community of Ribeira Seca, which decided to take its destiny into its own hands and fight for its ideals, precisely because of the strength of its bonds of kinship. In the next section, I will analyze another contrasting case study, in which art arises as a way of mobilizing emotions and creating bonds of kinship. Fig. 4: Statue of Leonard Peltier at American University (image courtesy of Rigo 23) 169 Designing Kinship: Creative Processes and Collective Action Fig. 5: Supporters standing on the feet of Peltier’s statue - among them, middle row on the right, Kathy Peltier, Peltier´s daughter, with her mother, Anne Begay, below them, Tom Poor Bear, Oglala Tribal Vice President (image courtesy of Rigo 23) 3.2 The Statue of Leonard Peltier The statue of Leonard Peltier was created in the context of a growing collabo‐ ration the artist developed with a Native American rights activist over the past two decades. During this time, he organized two itinerant exhibits of paintings of the activist himself. Leonard Peltier was sentenced to life in prison on murder charges in connection with the death of two FBI special agents on the Pine Ridge reservation in 1975. Peltier has maintained his innocence, and his imprisonment has been contested by human rights organizations in the US and abroad. The statue was conceived in support of Peltier by the end of the Obama pres‐ idency and was part of a larger movement of support for a renewed clemency plea following a previous denial under President G. W. Bush. The project was financed by supporters and members of Peltier’s community as well as by the American Indian Movement ( AIM ). The three-and-a-half meters tall statue is made of Redwood with components of steel. The base is built to match the dimensions of a prison cell (1.8 x 2.9 m). During its transportation from Los Angeles to Washington D. C., the artist vis‐ ited several important Native American sites, including the island of Alcatraz, the Pine Ridge Reservation and the Standing Rock Reservation, inviting the public and supporters of Peltier to take pictures by the statue as a sign of sol‐ idarity. (see Womack 2018) The statue was then taken to the Katzen Art Center at the American Univer‐ sity where a public discussion on Peltier’s clemency plea was scheduled to take place. However, following a complaint filed with the school by the FBI Agents Association, Neil Kerwin, the University’s president, announced that the statue 170 Ana Nolasco would be immediately removed, alleging the “art’s” and the “community’s safety,” (Lyle 2017a: 4) and declaring further that “the subject and placement of the statue unduly suggested that the American University assumed a position in defence of a clemency plea for Mr. Peltier, when no institutional position has officially been taken,” (Lyle 2017a: 4) thereby refusing to lend its support to Peltier’s cause. The situation was then picked up and manipulated by right wing media outlets like Campus Watch - a website which aggressively monitors ac‐ tivist activities among students and faculty members - leading to a string of violent anonymous calls to the school. (see Lyle 2017a: 4) Despite the movement’s failure to obtain clemency for Mr. Peltier, it high‐ lighted contradictions within society and the methods of repression latent in US democracy, ranging from the intimidation of a private university by the FBI to media manipulation that twisted reality on the ground. News stories reported tumultuous riots on campus the day the statue was installed, when in fact that day was a holiday and only a few students were present. But above all, the movement shed light on the imbalance between a minority standing for social justice and the American judicial system as well as big corporations with eco‐ nomic interests in exploiting Native American land. The statue thus can also be considered an example of collective action. This is due to the fact that it is situated within a wider social movement that seeks to solve the very issues it addresses through the involvement of Peltier himself - the author of the self-portrait that inspired the statue - and of all those sup‐ porters who photographed themselves with the statue. The latter thus advanced to the role of ‘co-authors’ and also participated in the exhibit that was organized at the Main Museum in 2018, Los Angeles, in which the movement, and the polemic it generated, was presented. This raises the question of what conditions enable these kinds of collaborative practices that culminate in collective action. Empathy is an essential element for the mobilization of people into collective action and it is developed over time through personal relations. For RIGO 23, these make up both the substance matter and the ultimate product of artwork: I collaborate with individuals and communities in resistance through art, but they collaborate with me through their own practices. (…) Together, we nurture relation‐ ships that need strengthening. They each bring their own context and expertise, their personal and collective history, their regrets and aspirations. A work of art results, sure; but so does a network of social relations, a set of shared experiences, and a community. (Donovan 2011: 12) 171 Designing Kinship: Creative Processes and Collective Action This comment echoes the notion of kinship proposed by Haraway and cited at the beginning of this text, which sees this phenomenon as a form of ‘inventive connection’ that seeks to “live well and die well with each other in a thick present.” (Haraway 2016: 1) Besides transcendental metaphysics, it is, above all, the thickness of the present, created in a space suspended between utilitarian ends, which, through its emotive intensity, allows for the creation of new net‐ works of kinship, not established through blood ties, but shared ideas. This conception of group identity neither involves, nor necessitates an affili‐ ation based on skin-color, social status or language. Rather it is rooted in a shared belief, in this case: in the virtue of justice. Accordingly, RIGO 23 regards the bonds of kinship created between collaborators in the course of the creative process as a fundamental part of the final work itself. In the case of Isto o Povo N-o Esquece, the bonds of kinship pre-exist the work, while in the case of the statue of Leonard Peltier they derive from it. I therefore claim that art and bonds of kinship can mutually strengthen each other, creating visions of alternative ways of life. 4 Conclusion Throughout the four case studies, we saw how bonds of kinship trigger crea‐ tivity and are reciprocally strengthened by it in a dynamic process. As Bornemann noted, human essence in practices and forms of kinship, marriage, gender, and sex, each of which has been defined in terms of a substance outside of time. In fact, anthropology has worked within a Christian tradition that assumes the possibility of Being in an eternity where everything is present at the same time. (Ricoeur 1984: 86) Transferred to the four case studies, this means that the urgent need for solutions of pressing social and political issues forged practices that strengthened those bonds of kinship between people, which ultimately forms a crucial part in both finding and fighting for a solution to these issues. The ways in which these three elements - kinship, collective action and cre‐ ative processes - interact vary from case to case. In my view, at the TOD , it was the sense of group efficacy that led first to collective action, generating in turn the bonds of kinship that result from mutual acts of care. Given that in this case, the probability of successfully bringing about systematic change through any kind of protest action was small, the group’s efforts were focused on solving everyday problems that they faced. Alternatively, for the WAH , while motiva‐ tion was at first purely driven by a need to survive, action began to take the 172 Ana Nolasco form of protests against specific systemic targets, as its members became more politicized (for example, they protested the Dublin II law and the lack of political homogeneity in Europe regarding the refugees). In both of the aforementioned social movements, the bonds of kinship did not precede collective action but were strengthened through the performance of action, that is, in the gesture of taking responsibility for other group members. Thus, it becomes evident that in the case of social groups of disenfranchised people it is due to a perceived inter-impenetrability of social groups - i.e. the impossibility of success in iso‐ lation - that mobilization for collective action is born, confirming Social Identity Theory. (see Tajfel & Turner 1979) The situation is different for the two works of art by RIGO 23. However, in Isto o Povo N-o Esquece the bonds of kinship were already present, strengthened in the course of decades of discrimination by the feeling of violation of a moral pillar, of something sacred. The creation of a work of art - despite its conception falling on the artist - materialized these bonds of kinship as a universal resist‐ ance against discrimination and became a poignant symbol of the resistance of a community against the Church and the Madeiran society as a whole. In the case of Peltier’s statue, despite the prior existence of a large movement for this cause, the work contributed to the mobilization of collective action. It also created new bonds of kinship, through both its promotion and the polemic generated in the process, shining a light on those mechanisms that generate bonds of kinship through injustice that is either felt by the minority or the com‐ munity, or empathized. In these two works, as is common in RIGO 23, what matters is not the final product but the process. This conceptualization of kinship therefore lies in the sharing of experiences and in the creation of bonds outside those allocated in a consumer society. In the first two case studies that we analyzed, design - as an innately human capacity for strategy and the rational, planned conception of how to use human and material resources - contributes to group efficacy, one of the factors iden‐ tified as a catalyser for collective action. (see Van Zomeren, Leach, and Spears 2010) A community’s belief in the efficacy of collective action grows as it accu‐ mulates successful experiments in space design and governance. This belief in the efficacy of collective action reinforces social identification with the group, facilitating the creation of kinship through communal living and the sharing of life experiences. Both in the case of WAH and in that of the works of RIGO 23, art contributes to the creation of a positive identity, albeit in different ways. The artistic ex‐ pression practiced by the members of WAH contributed to the group’s political representation and to the mobilization of society in support of its cause. Con‐ 173 Designing Kinship: Creative Processes and Collective Action sequently, it also contributed to the development of self-esteem. On the other hand, with Isto o Povo N-o Esquece (2010) and the statue of Leonard Peltier bonds of kinship that had arisen from the specific situations linked to the community of Ribeira Seca and the cause of Leonard Peltier were crystalized in the collective imaginary through the symbolic language of art. This process reinvigorated these bonds and transformed them into potential sources of inspiration in other geographical locations. These case studies therefore demonstrate how design and art can contribute to the creation of bonds of kinship. These bonds are strengthened through per‐ formative actions of care and affection carried out over time and contribute to the triggering of collective action seeking social emancipation. They also unveil the multiple competing variables at stake in collective action, such as the belief in its efficacy, identification with the group, community cohesion, and social creativity. They therefore reveal that, in the face of this volatility, the stability of kinship bonds catalyzed by social creativity can function as a catalyst for social renewal In conclusion, collaborative practices of art and design can serve as agents for the creation of kinship: design, because through the project, the subsequent optimization of efficacy and the resulting experiences of success, it creates the identification with the group that is necessary for collective action and art be‐ cause it reminds us of what we have in common, of the finitude of our existence and of the ever-present impulse to overcome it. 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After all, in its original meanings, ‘kin’ is all about making babies - creating lineages, families, lines of descent -, so much so that making kin and making babies appear to be almost tautologically connected. The Oxford English Dictionary gives us the following definitions for ‘kin’: “A group of persons de‐ scended from a common ancestor, and so connected by blood-relationship; a family, stock, clan”; “Ancestral stock or race; family; ” and for ‘kinship’: “Rela‐ tionship by descent; consanguinity,” and more specifically with reference to the use of the term in Cultural Anthropology, “recognized ties of relationship, by descent, marriage, or ritual, that form the basis of social organization.” ‘Kindred,’ too, points in the same direction: “Relationship by blood, descent, or mar‐ riage […] In some uses […] denoting specifically relationship by blood or descent, as distinguished from affinity by marriage.” Ancestry, consanguinity, descent, in short: family. That seems to be the core meaning of ‘kin,’ and what could be more (hetero)normative, the foundation of both patriarchy and hierarchy? But there is another story in that ‘kin’ also de‐ notes the possibility of connections across vast differences, connections forged by an assumption of similarities. In the words of the OED : “A class (of persons, animals, or things) having common attributes; a species, sort,” “figurative. Re‐ lationship in respect of qualities or character,” “figurative. Similarity of character, origin, or qualities; resemblance. Also: connection, relationship. In later use fre‐ quently in spiritual kindred.” It seems, then, that the genetically determined similarities between individ‐ uals connected by ‘blood’ give way to an understanding of much broader simi‐ larities, similarities for which one may claim a connectedness that is more than just coincidental, that is in a way essential, as if ‘by blood,’ without being in any way ‘natural.’ For Ludwig Wittgenstein (2001), ‘family likeness’ is a notion which provides a way out if we try to speak of conceptually and empirically connected clusters of thought or practice which defy any taxonomically precise and complete definition. That is, it is a term that allows us to see and claim connections beyond the strict exclusionary practices of logic, connections in kind and degree rather than absolute either / or divisions. For Haraway, ‘making kin’ is not so much the creation (‘making’) of ‘family’ as it is the establishment, conceptually and in practice, of an understanding of the essential connectedness of all life on earth. At this point, ‘kin’ becomes very much the opposite of family, clan, or ‘race,’ and ‘making’ becomes an act of claiming, and, before that, seeing and acknowledging the kinship between creatures. Far from cementing the narrow associations, commitments, and loyalties generated by ‘family,’ such kinships carry the promise of alternative and new forms of community as well as fostering new forms of community-building, and the contributions in this volume are about precisely such a claiming and seeing in variously angled forms and practices. Literature, in this, plays a vital role both by providing the narratives around which and through which kin may be claimed, and as a form of engagement by which readers enter into close encounters with other minds. Wayne Booth (1988) calls this the “company we keep,” and draws on the language of friendship to explain the ways in which we do more than merely ‘analyze’ when we read: instead, we form connections with others, which may be close or loose, troubled or comfortable, dangerous or reassuring, but which invariably involve the reader in the worlds encountered in and through fiction. Literature, then, is the privi‐ leged site on which a potentially infinite number of bonds may be forged, tried out, experientially explored. The novelist A. L. Kennedy speaks of the close en‐ counters that emerge in the act of writing and reading, as writers and readers learn to attempt the impossible: walk in another person’s (woman’s, man’s, child’s, non-human creature’s, or indeed any potential kin’s) shoes (see Kennedy 2013: 256): “As readers ourselves, we can appreciate these illusions as something wonderful: an opportunity to do the impossible, to see through another’s eyes, experience another’s world.” (Kennedy 2013: 298) Works Cited Booth, Wayne C. (1988). The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction. Berkeley: University of California Press. Haraway, Donna (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham and London: Duke University Press. 184 Ingrid Hotz-Davies Kennedy, A. L. (2013). On Writing. London: Vintage. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2001). Philosophische Untersuchungen, in Joachim Schulte ed. Frankfurt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. 185 Walking in Another’s Shoes: Making Kin Through Literature The Stories We Tell: Kinship and Collective Action in ‘Abd al-Rahmān Munīf’s al-Nihāyāt Joelle Tybon Keywords: human-animal kinship, stories, response-ability, collective action, endings 1 Introduction About halfway through ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Munīf ’s 1977 novel, al-Nihāyāt (تايهنلا or Endings), the men of al-Ṭība, a small village on the edge of the desert, hold a meeting to plan a hunting trip for several guests from the nearby city. As they always do, the organizers have invited ‘Assāf, the village madman and outcast, to attend because they require his knowledge and expertise. As the most expe‐ rienced hunter in the village, he knows better than anyone else where to take the guests to show them the best hunting ground the village has to offer. During the meeting, as the other men badger him with questions about hunting, ‘Assāf calls his dog, Ḥiṣān, to join him in the middle of the group of men. (see Munīf 1977: 69) His action shocks his fellow villagers, since they and ‘Assāf have come to a sort of arrangement in which ‘Assāf attends these meetings without having to greet anyone or shake anyone’s hand but leaves his dog sitting at the door. (see Munīf 1977: 68) ‘Assāf ’s defiance of the accepted arrangement in this in‐ stance speaks to the extraordinary circumstances in which this meeting is taking place: in the midst of one of the worst droughts the village has ever seen, some sons of al-Ṭība have returned from the city with four guests and have promised to take their guests on a hunting trip. ‘Assāf considers the trip to be reckless and wasteful, but he is unable to convince his fellow villagers of that fact, and so he reluctantly agrees to lead the hunting party the next day. (see Munīf 1977: 74) In a novel in which an entire village is threatened by severe drought, ‘Assāf ’s brazen inclusion of his dog at this meeting may seem like a relatively minor event. Yet it speaks to ‘Assāf ’s awareness that the people of al-Ṭība are not the 1 Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own, though Roger Allen’s English translation, Endings (Northampton, MA: Interlink Books, 2007), which I consulted often, is a wonderful and thoughtful translation. 2 Haraway very deliberately uses the term “critters” to talk about those with whom we live and die (2016: 1, fn.1) and Amitav Ghosh talks about “entities in the world” or “unseen presences” to talk about those nonhuman actors and forces that “inser[t] them‐ selves into our processes of thought” and have “played a part in shaping our discussions without our being aware of it.” (2016: 31) My use of ‘nonhuman actors’ and ‘nonhuman forces’ more closely aligns with Ghosh’s ‘presences,’ going beyond Haraway’s living critters to include elements like the landscape, rivers and, mountains, or even the weather. only ones affected by the proposed hunting trip and the drought more generally. During the meeting, ‘Assāf thinks: “ نكل ناك فرعي لها ،ةبيطلا فرعي رادقم دولا يساقلا يذلا هنوّنكي ،هل سحيو نا ةطبار هرمع تائم نينسلا هطربت لكب ام هلوح نم ضرأ رشبو راجشأو ،هايمو ناو هذه ةطبارلا نوكت دشأ ىوقأو نيح رمت ةنس ةبعص لثم هذه ةنسلا يتلا رمت ىلع ةبيطلا .” (Munīf 1977: 68) [“But he knew the people of al-Ṭība, he knew the amount of harsh affection for him that they hid; and he felt that a bond one hundred years old was tying him to every‐ thing around him, land and humans and trees and water, and that this bond was stronger and more powerful when difficult years like this year came to al-Ṭība.”] 1 While the rest of the villagers see the dog as marginal to their concerns at that meeting, as reflected in the dog’s physical position at the edges of the room, ‘Assāf recognizes that the people of al-Ṭība are intimately connected to the world around them. Ḥiṣān, his dog, is therefore implicated in the decisions made by the people of al-Ṭība, as are other nonhuman actors and forces, especially the birds that will be hunted the next day. ‘Assāf therefore summons his dog and includes him in this group of men as they make their plans, subtly gesturing to the broader network to which they all belong. (see Munīf 1977: 69) ‘Assāf ’s action at this meeting is not a singular event but is indicative of his worldview and of the central concerns of the novel as a whole. Al-Nihāyāt tells the broad story of recurring drought in the village of al-Ṭība but focuses on one drought year in particular, the year in which ‘Assāf and Ḥiṣān are killed in an unexpected sandstorm that arises during the aforementioned hunting trip. In its telling of that story, al-Nihāyāt proposes a kinship between human and non‐ human forces - the “land and […] trees and water” that ‘Assāf thinks about during the meeting (Munīf 1977: 68), those “critters” (Haraway 2016: 1) or “non‐ human presences” (Ghosh 2016: 5) 2 that act, impact, or influence other actors and forces, whether or not we recognize them as having “the capacities of will, 188 Joelle Tybon 3 While Haraway’s slogan may be new, the ideas behind it - namely recognizing kinship beyond traditional biological and genealogical lines - are not. American Indians and other indigenous groups have long seen themselves as part of a network that includes nonhuman forces, a fact that Haraway herself acknowledges. See, for example, Winona LaDuke’s article “Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Environmental Futures,” Colorado Journal of International Law and Policy 127 (1994): 127-48. thought, and consciousness” that we have for so long attributed solely to hu‐ mans. (Ghosh 2016: 31) This proposed kinship arises out of the mutual implica‐ tion of those forces in a shared future and the corresponding “response-ability,” to use Donna Haraway’s term (2016: 28), that accompanies that kinship. Apart from ‘Assāf, however, the people of al-Ṭība initially fail to recognize the vision of kinship proposed by ‘Assāf and the novel as a whole, and al-Nihāyāt narrates how they come to acknowledge their kinship with and response-ability to the birds and other animals with which their lives are entangled. After ‘Assāf ’s death in the sandstorm, the villagers bring ‘Assāf ’s body back to al-Ṭība and, during ‘Assāf ’s wake, the frame narrative is disrupted by a series of fourteen stories, which the narrator calls “Stories from the Amazing Night.” (Munīf 1977: 119) It is these stories, I will argue here, that are ultimately responsible for allowing the community to shift, both in its understanding of its kinship network and in its ability to take collective action to change its future. As the people of al-Ṭība narrate their relationships with the nonhuman forces and actors to whom they are responsible and with whom they share a future, each iteration situates the various elements in different relationships and thereby creates a diverse array of possible and potential connections between the various groups and actors. These multiple narratives allow the villagers to imagine their relationships anew and in a number of possible configurations, possibilities they can then enact in their world. 2 Making Kin Through Stories Almost 40 years after the publication of al-Nihāyāt, Donna Haraway, in Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, offers up a new slogan 3 for our contemporary moment: “[m]ake kin, not babies! ,” a slogan that Munīf ’s novel anticipates. Rather than traditional, biological notions of kinship, Haraway pro‐ poses tentacularity and “multispecies muddles, […] attachments and detach‐ ments, […] cuts and knots” (Haraway 2016: 31) - networks and connections (as well as breaks, gaps, interruptions) that reach beyond species boundaries and incorporate both human and nonhuman forces. She emphasizes sympoietic sys‐ tems of “making-with,” (Haraway 2016: 33) reminding us that human excep‐ 189 The Stories We Tell: Kinship and Collective Action in ‘Abd al-Rahmān Munīf’s al-Nihāyāt tionalism is a myth and that we are instead embedded in a web of life and do not construct our world alone but in conjunction with others. In short, Haraway argues for entanglement, the overlap and intertwining of our (human) lives with the lives of those with whom we come into contact - be they human or non‐ human. One of the key elements of Haraway’s conception of kinship, particularly in thinking about kinship in Munīf ’s al-Nihāyāt, is that of ‘response-ability.’ ‘Re‐ sponse-ability,’ as Haraway describes it, “is about both absence and presence, killing and nurturing, living and dying - and remembering who lives and who dies and how in the string figures of naturalcultural history.” (Haraway 2016: 28) It is not merely a requirement to protect those for whom one is responsible but the more complex back-and-forth, give-and-take of the string figures Haraway employs as a trope throughout Staying with the Trouble. In string fig‐ ures, two pairs of hands are necessary for the resulting sympoietic creation. Each time the string figure is passed, the one receiving the pattern must accept and remain relatively faithful to what has been given while the giver must trust in her partner, even though the pattern is now literally out of her hands and the partner can alter what was given according to her needs and desires. Re‐ sponse-ability is a practice in stark contrast to what Haraway describes as an “ordinary thoughtlessness,” the inability of humans “to make present to [them‐ selves] what was absent, what was not [themselves], what the world in its sheer not one-selfness is and what claims-to-be inhere in not-oneself.” (Haraway 2016: 36) In contrast to a position of response-ability, from which one must not only acknowledge lines of kinship but also respond to them, in practicing ‘ordinary thoughtlessness,’ we fail to see beyond ourselves and imagine our connections to actors and forces that are not ourselves but with which we are entangled in a larger network. For Haraway, we have a response-ability not only to ‘stay with the trouble,’ to continue to consider and reconsider the ways that we live and move in the world, but also a response-ability toward one another, to pay at‐ tention to the variety of ways our lives are entangled in a web whose threads are numerous and complex, the paths of which can be difficult to trace clearly from one actor to another. This response-ability to our kin arises from one of the most fundamental elements of traditional forms of kinship: biological kinship relationships and practices generally function as a means to better guarantee the continued exis‐ tence, into the future, of a family or tribe. Haraway explicitly refuses this con‐ cern in her conceptions of kinship and response-ability when she writes, “staying with the trouble does not require such a relationship to times called the future.” (Haraway 2016: 1) She instead imagines kinship as an effort fully con‐ 190 Joelle Tybon centrated in the present moment: “the task is to make kin in lines of inventive connection as a practice of learning to live and die well with each other in a thick present” (Haraway 2016: 1); with ‘thick present,’ Haraway means a present that does not imagine itself as distinct from past and future moments but ac‐ knowledges its indebtedness to the past that has shaped it and gestures towards the future to which it is responsible. The emphatic denial of the future in the nonbiological kinship Haraway proposes stems in part from the oft-repeated phenomenon in which action is delayed in the present moment in anticipation of those who will act in the future or the refusal to act now for a future that has no ostensible connection to our present moment. However, the questions of futurity and survival that mark more traditional kin relations cannot be dis‐ missed entirely. In fact, it is the futurity and survival inherent in kinship that allow us to develop a sense of response-ability toward one another. Our sympoietic systems require that the various actors continue to exist if we are going to continue to ‘make-with’ one another, not only in the thick present Haraway proposes but also into the shared future that the thick present gestures towards. To see an‐ other as kin means moving beyond the ordinary thoughtlessness that prevents us from recognizing the ways that we are implicated in one another’s actions, even when we see few similarities or connections between ourselves and another. Instead, we must recognize that our actions have consequences that extend beyond the immediate actors and affect a much larger kin network; these consequences may not necessarily be felt by all members of the kin network, human or nonhuman, in equal measure or at the same moment in time, but eventually the effects will be felt, if not today, then further into the future. Born out of the understanding that, with one another, we are mutually implicated in a shared future, that our living and dying is dependent on our kin as much as on ourselves, this response-ability becomes more than merely paying attention to that living and dying; it also inspires us to take action on behalf of ourselves and our kin. Often, however, the very actions that attempt to be response-able to “who is living and who is dying and how” (Haraway 2016: 28) cannot be accomplished through the efforts of a single actor. We can see this difficulty in the example of ‘Assāf and his attempts to make his fellow villagers aware of their kinship with the birds and animals that surround the village; he alone cannot protect the bird population, nor can he force the others to practice response-ability, an idea to which I will return below. Instead, our responses require collective action in‐ volving an extensive network of actors, working together on a collaborative project. The examples of response-ability Haraway provides throughout Staying 191 The Stories We Tell: Kinship and Collective Action in ‘Abd al-Rahmān Munīf’s al-Nihāyāt 4 Thank you to Amina ElHalawani, one of the participants at the Conference on Kinship and Collective Action, for introducing me to this text by Ashcroft. with the Trouble - among them a pigeon loft in Melbourne, Australia that in‐ volves city government, local park goers and, of course, the pigeons (2016: 26- 29); a crocheted coral reef created by eight thousand people from over twenty-five countries (2016: 76-81); and the Madagascar Ako Project to protect lemurs, which brings together foreign and Malagasy scientists, Malagasy schools, artists, and the lemurs (2016: 81-85) - are never the work of one person but arise from the collective action of many people, large groups of people, from a variety of backgrounds. According to Haraway, only these types of collective action can succeed in producing an effective response to the living and dying of our kin, because no one person can effect these types of changes alone. (see Solnit 2019) To learn to see one another as kin, to learn to practice response-ability to‐ wards our kin, and to learn to act in the interests of our kin, we need new stories about our relationships to our kin. In her discussion of kinship and entanglement and multispecies muddles, Haraway repeatedly reminds us that “it matters what thoughts think thoughts. It matters what knowledges know knowledges. It mat‐ ters what relations relate relations. It matters what worlds world worlds. It mat‐ ters what stories tell stories.” (Haraway 2016: 35) I want to argue that it is the last line of this statement that proves the most productive for making kin, not babies. One means for creating kinship networks that are not forged through traditional, biological relations is through the stories we tell, as Martha Kenney contends in her review of Staying with the Trouble. Kenney highlights the power of storytelling present in Haraway’s work and writes, “different types of stories engender different ways of attending, responding, and relating.” (Kenney 2017: 75) To alter the narrative we tell is to alter our position in that narrative and therefore our relations with and response-ability to one another. We can em‐ phasize connections or create distance; we can posit cause and effect in a variety of ways; we can include or exclude particular moments or events; we can rec‐ ognize or deny the different forces that participate in and contribute to our stories. Stories, then, can position us anew in our relationships with one another, a central tenet of Munīf ’s novel and its “Stories from the Amazing Night.” (Munīf 1977: 119) A similar sentiment is found in Bill Ashcroft’s Revolution, Transformation, and Utopia: The Function of Literature. 4 If Haraway insists that “it matters what stories tell stories,” (2016: 35) Ashcroft argues for the transformative power of art and literature in their ability to imagine alternative possibilities, worlds that 192 Joelle Tybon do not yet but could one day exist. As they prefigure alternative worlds, art, and literature affirm that those alternatives are possible though not yet realized. Though Ashcroft is speaking primarily about the utopian power of literature in moments of resistance and revolution, his idea that “movement into the future must first be a movement of the imagination” (Ashcroft 2014: 4) is equally useful in thinking about the reconfiguration of our kinship networks. Unlike Ashcroft’s utopias, however, the stories we tell about our kinship networks prompt us to recognize already existing relationships and entanglements. As Amitav Ghosh explains in The Great Derangement, his work on the cultural “patterns of eva‐ sion” that discourage us from accepting responsibility for climate change (Ghosh 2016: 11), this recognition is not seeing for the first time or the acknowledgment of one subject by another. (see Ghosh 2016: 4-5) Instead, it is a re-cognition, a rethinking or reconceptualization of something that we already know or are familiar with. As Ghosh describes it, recognition is a “change in our under‐ standing of that which is beheld […,] a renewed reckoning with a potentiality that lies within oneself.” (Ghosh 2016: 5) These networks and relationships, this kinship, already exist, but we must change our understanding of what we think we know. In order to rethink our relationships with others, we must first rec‐ ognize those relationships and then imagine them configured differently - as relations of entanglement, connection, and kinship. And the narratives we tell, the stories we tell, allow us to do so. 3 From Old Narratives to Recognizing Kinship Anew In al-Ṭība, it takes ‘Assāf ’s death to give the community a space to tell stories that “engender different ways of attending, responding, and relating.” (Kenney 2017: 75) Originally published in Arabic in 1977, al-Nihāyāt tells the story of a small village on the edge of the desert, a village plagued by drought repeatedly and often. The novel can be understood as a series of concentric circles, moving from broad generalities about the effects of drought on the desert villages and their inhabitants to a discussion about the village of al-Ṭība specifically, its human population and their standard responses to drought, before focusing on one particularly devastating drought year and the ill-fated hunting trip men‐ tioned above. Prior to ‘Assāf ’s death, the villagers rely on one particular narra‐ tive when threatened by drought: they simply pray for the needed rain and wait, rationing their provisions before turning to a thoughtless hunting of the bird population when their provisions run too low and no longer suffice. They also wait patiently for the nearby city to fulfill its oft-repeated promise to build a dam and lessen the effects of the drought. When ‘Assāf and his dog, Ḥiṣān, die 193 The Stories We Tell: Kinship and Collective Action in ‘Abd al-Rahmān Munīf’s al-Nihāyāt during an unexpected sandstorm that arises during the hunting trip, the men of al-Ṭība gather at ‘Assāf ’s wake and spend the night telling stories in what the narrative names “Stories from the Amazing Night.” (Munīf 1977: 119) While the pair of deaths causes the villagers to rethink the kinship networks to which they belong and their response-ability to those who constitute that network, ‘Assāf ’s wake provides a space for the villagers to tell new stories about that kinship and that response-ability, stories that ultimately motivate them to refuse their pre‐ vious passivity and take collective action, not only on their own behalf but also on behalf of their newly recognized, nonhuman kin. Though kinship is something the people of al-Ṭība eventually come to rec‐ ognize and reconfigure over the course of the narrative, al-Nihāyāt seeks to enlarge the notion of kinship to encompass not only the people of al-Ṭība but also the drought, the animals, and the landscape with which the villagers’ lives are entangled. To accomplish that project, al-Nihāyāt reduces the possibility of focusing exclusively on human kinship through its almost complete refusal to privilege individual characters in the story. It instead establishes the human community as one (collective) force among several. Rather than naming indi‐ vidual villagers, the narrator talks about the people who inhabit the village of al-Ṭība using broad, collective terms: primarily “the people of / in al-Ṭība” (لـهأ ةـبيطلا) and “the children of al-Ṭība” ( ءاـنبأ ةــبيطلا ). (see Munīf 1977) At times, the narrator simply refers to “al-Ṭība” when talking about the people who live there. Only a handful of men are ever identified by name, and when named characters do appear, it is well after a sense of the collective body has been established through the use of group nouns in talking about the villagers, those mentioned above as well as “the youth” ( ،بابشلا راغصلا ), “the elderly” ( ،نونسملا نينسملا ), “men” (لاجرلا), and “women” (ءاسنلا). It is thirty pages before ‘Assāf, arguably the novel’s central character, is introduced (1977: 31), and a second named character does not appear until forty pages later, a third of the way through the novel, when Na’īm, one of the sons of al-Ṭība who brought the guests back for the hunting trip, speaks during the meeting in which ‘Assāf calls Ḥiṣān to join him, as does the Mukhtār of the Eastern Sector. (see Munīf 1977: 72) Dialogue, another means by which individual characters could be distinguished by their individual voices, is also minimal, particularly in the first section of the novel. Amongst this collective, there are strong feelings of kinship and re‐ sponse-ability. The people of al-Ṭība clearly recognize a more traditional human kinship and the response-ability it entails, as demonstrated by the ways they take care of one another during drought years: throwing small quantities of wheat, sugar, and tea into the open doorways of large families that cannot sus‐ tain themselves on their own; cooking food for widowed women or the disabled 194 Joelle Tybon 5 Roger Allen’s translation. members of the village; taking up hunting and sharing their birds they kill. (see Munīf 1977: 55, 47) The children of al-Ṭība who now live in the city send back provisions as well: wheat, barley, lentils, sugar, and tea. (see Munīf 1977: 56) In these moments, the villagers practice response-ability toward one another, rec‐ ognizing that they are mutually implicated in one another’s survival and re‐ sponding to the needs of those they understand to be kin. Yet the villagers do not recognize that they have a similar response-ability to the nonhuman forces, the birds, animals, and landscape, with which their lives are entangled; they do not yet see them as kin. This inability to see kinship beyond the humans of al-Ṭība is reflected - and reified - in the particular nar‐ rative the people of al-Ṭība rely on in their attempts to survive droughts year after year. As the narrator explains in an almost ethnographic description, the people of al-Ṭība rely on the same behaviors and practices - the same narrative - every time drought threatens their survival. (see Munīf 1977: 22, 58) As they face this recurring crisis, the villagers see themselves as relatively passive actors, at the mercy of the weather as well as the city and its eternally unfulfilled promise to build the dam. Their one recourse to action is to hunt the birds that live in the environs of al-Ṭība, a task that, as the drought intensifies, they undertake with increasing enthusiasm (see Munīf 1977: 29-31) as well as with the “ordinary thoughtlessness” Haraway describes. (Haraway 2016: 36) They hunt the birds in times of drought as much for sport as for sustenance, and the stories they tell are about the best hunting practices and the best locations to hunt. When they do manage to hunt successfully, many of the villagers complain about the small amount of meat the birds provide or about the birds’ stupidity. (Munīf 1977: 30, 52) They do not recognize the birds as kin, those with whom they are “living and dying” and to whom they owe response-ability. (Haraway 2016: 28) This is not to say that the villagers are unaware of their dependence on the birds, as ‘Assāf makes clear in one of the many warnings he issues about over‐ hunting: “ مل َ قبي اننيب نيبو توملا ّالإ ،عارذ هذهو عارذلا يه ديصلا يذلا عيطتسن نا هرفون نيح يتأت راطمألا ةرم ىرخأ.” (Munīf 1977: 70) [“there is only a short stretch between us and death, and it is the game that we must preserve until the rains come again.”] 5 The villagers know that their survival during drought seasons depends to a large extent on the birds they hunt. Yet, in conjunction with this warning, ‘Assāf 195 The Stories We Tell: Kinship and Collective Action in ‘Abd al-Rahmān Munīf’s al-Nihāyāt explains to the villagers that although they are reliant on the birds for their survival, they can - and, given their dependence on the birds, must - hunt re‐ sponsibly: according to ‘Assāf, the hunters must be careful not to kill the female partridges, since they are the ones that provide all the rest, even though the females become easy targets when they do not flee the hunters’ bullets but stay to protect their young. (see Munīf 1977: 49) However, the people of al-Ṭība do not understand or ignore ‘Assāf ’s advice, hunting in ever greater numbers as the drought progresses (see Munīf 1977: 29-30) or shooting recklessly at what‐ ever birds cross their path out of an obscure sense of revenge. (see Munīf 1977: 54) This lack of response-ability is further evidenced in the villagers’ in‐ sistence on taking their guests hunting - not for food but as a sport and out of a sense of hospitality (see Munīf 1977: 65) - despite the dire conditions the in‐ habitants of al-Ṭība, both human and nonhuman, are facing during this partic‐ ular drought. This thoughtless way of hunting the birds, rather than the more responsible one ‘Assāf proposes, reveals the inability of the people of al-Ṭība to see the ways in which their own long-term survival is entangled with the sur‐ vival of the birds. It is important to note that this entangled relationship is not one-sided. Just as the villagers depend on the birds to survive drought years, the birds, too, depend on the villagers for their survival. Again, ‘Assāf is the one who gives voice to this sentiment, when he says, “ هذه رويطلا ،انل مويلا وا ،ً ادغ ىقبتسو انل اذا انظفاح ،اهيلع اما اذا اهانلتق ،اهلك اذا اهاندراط ،ً اريثك فوسف يهتنت وا ثحبت نع ناكم رخآ ”. (Munīf 1977: 49) [“These birds belong to us, for today or tomorrow. And they will continue to belong to us if we preserve them. But if we kill all of them or hunt them too much, they’ll make an end of it or look for another place [to live].”] The birds, then, are the responsibility of, and thus “belong to,” the people of al-Ṭība. The villagers have the power to decimate the bird population or to drive them away from their long-established habitat. This would not be the first time the villagers acted with “ordinary thoughtlessness” (Haraway 2016: 36) toward those who depended on them for their survival, as evidenced in ‘Assāf ’s de‐ scription of the gazelles and rabbits that once used to be found in abundance in the environs of the village. (see Munīf 1977: 71) In the case of the gazelles and rabbits, the villagers and their guests killed off most of these animals through reckless hunting. According to ‘Assāf, the birds around al-Ṭība face a similar risk if the villagers cannot recognize them as kin. 196 Joelle Tybon Even as the people of al-Ṭība struggle to see their kinship with the birds they hunt in times of drought, the opening pages of the narrative reveal that the lives of the humans of al-Ṭība are deeply entangled with the lives of both the animals and the landscape that surround the village. (see Munīf 1977: 7-28, 44, 56) An entangled kinship implies that the lives of the various actors and forces are intertwined; they overlap, crisscross, and intersect in a web of complex, messy, and sometimes invisible or untraceable connections that often make themselves present in unforeseen and unforeseeable ways. There is a mutual interdependence involved in entanglement, a series of shared consequences and therefore a shared response-ability, though that interdependence cannot always be clearly articulated. Tugging on one thread in that web does not necessarily produce the intended effects; in fact, it may even tighten what it was intended to loosen. The narrative itself suggests such an entanglement in the way it presents this broader kinship network to which the people of al-Ṭība belong. The narrator’s broad description of drought years moves from the climate and the people who inhabit the regions affected by drought (see Munīf 1977: 7-14) to a lengthy portrayal of the villagers interspersed with paragraphs that describe the landscape sur‐ rounding the village as well as comments on the behaviors of birds and animals during drought years. (see Munīf 1977: 15-28) Through the juxtaposition of the various elements, the narrative creates implicit connections between them without stating those connections explicitly or drawing clean lines between the various forces, instead suggesting an entangled kinship between them. Emphasizing an idea of kinship that extends beyond traditional biological, human kinship, the novel establishes this kinship network even before the human community of al-Ṭība is introduced. The central node of the network that connects the various elements is the drought that opens the novel and that threatens the lives of all those who inhabit al-Ṭība and its environs, not just human lives but those of the trees and plants, animals, and birds as well: “ هنإ طحقلا . طحقلا .. ةرم ىرخأ ! ” (Munīf 1977: 7) [“It’s a drought. Drought…again! ”] Though a drought is first and foremost a climatic event, a shift in weather pat‐ terns and a lack of rain, its effects are felt more widely, as the next lines of the novel attest: “ يفو مساوم طحقلا ريغتت ةايحلا ،ءايشألاو ىتحو رشبلا نوريغتي .” (Munīf 1977: 7) [“When drought seasons come, life and objects [things] change. And even humans change.”] 197 The Stories We Tell: Kinship and Collective Action in ‘Abd al-Rahmān Munīf’s al-Nihāyāt The inclusion of humans at the end of the list, as an addition and an extraordinary circumstance, begins to situate the villagers within a network that extends be‐ yond the humans of al-Ṭība. The first effects of drought are certainly felt by the land. In seasons of drought, without the necessary rain, the land is transformed; crops do not grow and trees wilt and die. This, in turn, affects the human pop‐ ulation of the village who, without recourse to their usual forms of sustenance, risk starvation. This connection between humans and the land (and the drought) is subtly underscored - and thereby deepened - in the narrator’s opening description of the changes in people that occur during drought seasons. Using the money‐ lenders to highlight some of those changes, the narrator explains the unusual practices of the moneylenders during times of drought. In such moments, the moneylenders insist on new terms that transfer large parcels of land to them and their sons. (see Munīf 1977: 10) Although the new terms do not address the direct effects of the drought on the land itself, they nevertheless demonstrate the connections between humans and the landscape. As the drought persists, villagers sign away greater and greater portions of their land, with little means or recourse to reclaim it once the drought has ended; the drought, then, has altered the villagers’ relationship to their land. With this discussion of the mon‐ eylenders, the connections between three elements - climate (the drought), land, and humans - are intensified, shown to exist on several different levels, as the narrator confirms: “ ةقالعلا نيب ةنيدملا امو طيحي اهب يه نم ةوقلا رارمتسالاو …” (Munīf 1977: 9) [“the relationship between the town and that which surrounds it is powerful and continuing.”] Yet the opening lines quoted above serve as a reminder that those humans are only a small subset of that which changes during drought seasons. The narrator notes that the effects of drought extend beyond changes to the land and threats to the human community of al-Ṭība: “ ال رصتقت هذه ةلاحلا ىلع ،رشبلا ذإ دتمت ىلإ تاناويحلا رويطلاو .” (Munīf 1977: 28) [“This condition isn’t limited to humans, but it spreads to the animals and the birds.”] Immediately following the passage about the moneylenders and the drought’s effect on the villagers and their land, the narrator moves on to describe the exceptional appearance of the sand grouse prompted by the drought. According to the narrator, sand grouse generally avoid pastured land and villages when 198 Joelle Tybon they have enough to eat and drink in the desert; however, in seasons of drought, the birds behave in unusual ways, abandoning their typical fear and venturing into the village and its environs. (see Munīf 1977: 11) Thus the narrative makes it clear that while the climatic changes produce palpable effects on the land, it is more than the land that is affected; the humans, animals, and landscape are equally implicated in the perpetual crisis of the drought and, implicitly, in the future of one another if the various groups want to survive. The humans have the power to destroy the bird and animal populations, but the humans cannot survive the drought without birds and animals to replace their other sources of food. Additionally, in the entangled kinship the novel proposes, if the villagers were to take action to alleviate the effects of the drought - insisting that the city build the promised dam, for instance - they would make water more readily available for all those who suffer from the lack of rain, thereby improving not only their situation but the situation of the birds and the landscape as well. Ironically, what prompts a rethinking of the established narrative is not a direct result of the crisis that the drought presents; in fact, the drought solidifies the conventional narrative since the villagers continue to endure drought years through their reliance on that narrative and the relationships it proposes: if they hunt the birds when other food sources are low, they will survive another year of drought, and perhaps, one day, the city will build the promised dam. Nor are the villagers pushed to a new understanding of their relations to others by ‘Assāf ’s many warnings about the consequences they will face if they cannot learn to think their relationships differently. (see Munīf 1977: 49-51) ‘Assāf cannot force the people of al-Ṭība to recognize the birds, just as his efforts alone, to return to the point mentioned above, are insufficient for an appropriate re‐ sponse to the living and dying of the villagers’ kin. Instead, ‘Assāf ’s death and the actions of his dog, Ḥiṣān, during the sandstorm lead the villagers to reflect on what kinship means, to rethink the previous nar‐ rative, and to imagine nonhumans as kin. When the men find ‘Assāf ’s body after the sandstorm, they also find the body of his dog curled around his head, at‐ tempting to keep the vultures away. (see Munīf 1977: 110) In its final moments, the dog does not flee but protects ‘Assāf, demonstrating a response-ability to his kin, an attention to “who lives and who dies and how” (Haraway 2016: 28) that the villagers had not previously imagined to be possible. Ḥiṣān’s actions have no place in the narrative the villagers tell about human-animal relation‐ ships and, Ḥiṣān’s actions prompt them to reexamine that narrative and rethink their connections to the birds and animals with whom they share the village of al-Ṭība and its environs, moving from a relationship of dependence to one of kinship and response-ability. ‘Assāf ’s and Ḥiṣān’s deaths therefore lead to pro‐ 199 The Stories We Tell: Kinship and Collective Action in ‘Abd al-Rahmān Munīf’s al-Nihāyāt found change, first when they are found together following the sandstorm and then through the stories the villagers tell at ‘Assāf ’s wake. 4 Kinship and Response-ability in the Stories from the Amazing Night Although set apart from the frame narrative with the title, “Some Stories of the Amazing Night” ( ضعب تاياكح ةليللا ةبيجعلا ) the fourteen stories told during ‘Assāf ’s wake draw almost all of their central elements, figures, character types, and themes from that frame. They feature dogs and birds and hunters. The same words and ideas from the larger narrative are repeated throughout the stories, mirroring its concerns: there are strangers (ءارغلا), silence (تمصلا), circles (،ةرئادلا راد), madness ( ، ّ نج ،نونجلا نونجم ), cars (تارايسلا), tears (عومدلا), games (ةبعللا), stories (صــصقلا), death (توــملا), and endings (ةــياهنلا), though each of these elements is repositioned in each story. The stories are told by a variety of first-person nar‐ rators, third-person narrators, and omniscient narrators, and the landscape is constantly changing, as stories are set in the desert, in towns, in gardens, in the city. Yet even as these stories share a number of elements, they are also distinct stories that can be differentiated from one another, each with its own specific characters and narrative arc. In The Great Derangement, Ghosh argues that, if we are to address the prob‐ lems of climate change, we must learn to tell stories that acknowledge the “presence and proximity of non-human interlocutors” (Ghosh 2016: 30) and the way “that those unseen presences actually pla[y] a part in shaping our discus‐ sions without our being aware of it.” (Ghosh 2016: 31) But aware of it we must become, if we are to recognize the kinship networks that extend beyond bio‐ logical notions of human kinship to encompass the nonhuman forces and actors with whom our lives are entangled and with whom we share a future. This is in fact what happens during the “Stories from the Amazing Night,” as the men of al-Ṭība use the stories told over ‘Assāf ’s body to reimagine themselves as the responsible kin of the birds and animals with whom they share a future. (see Munīf 1977: 119-96) This shift in understanding of kinship is evident in the baker’s comment during ‘Assāf ’s wake: “ بجعأ ءيش يف هذه ايندلا ةقالعلا نيب ناسنالا امو هلوح نم ،ءايشأ نم تاناويح راجشاو تويبو ،راهنأو ىتح ءارحصلا يتلا ال دعبت ً اريثك نع ةبيطلا قلعتي اهب ناسنالا يف تالاح ،ةريثك ّ نأل اهيف هتاجن .” (Munīf 1997: 112) [“The most amazing thing in this world is the relationship between man and the things that surround him: animals and trees, houses and rivers, even the desert which is never 200 Joelle Tybon very far from al-Ṭība. Man is connected to them in a number of circumstances because in them is his survival.”] While the baker still seems to suggest that “the things that surround him” are there for man’s survival, this is the first utterance by anyone other than ‘Assāf to suggest that humans have an explicit relationship with nonhuman forces. In fact, no one other than ‘Assāf expresses such a sentiment prior to his death. The men, then, have begun to recognize their kinship with nonhuman forces, and the “Stories from the Amazing Night” that are told during the wake over ‘Assāf ’s body enact that new vision of kinship in which “animals and trees, houses and rivers, even the desert” are equally kin. In these stories, kinship extends beyond the humans of al-Ṭība and response-ability is one of its central components. At the same time, that kinship network is not static but changeable and changing; if we can tell multiple stories in which we imagine a variety of different rela‐ tionships with other actors, we reduce our reliance on any single narrative, as the villagers initially rely on one narrative to survive the drought. While the drought creates a network that connects the people of al-Ṭība, the landscape, the city, and the animals, this series of fourteen stories demonstrates the rec‐ ognition by the villagers of that kinship and response-ability during the drought and into the future, as well as the ability to use stories to imagine new relation‐ ships for themselves and their kin. One of the most important aspects of these stories is their representation of a wide variety of kinship relations. Some of the stories speak of more traditional kinships, like the one in which a cocky, powerful dove purchased for his breeding capacity falls in love with a shy, tiny female dove. (see Munīf 1977: 143-48) Yet, even that form of kinship between two doves with two very different tempera‐ ments is considered odd by those who witness it. In addition, the narrative of the two doves uses the pronoun “he” to describe both the male dove and the man who bought him, but in such a way that, upon first reading, it is unclear which “he” is acting, thinking, or feeling, creating an implicit connection - and kinship - between the man and the dove. (see Munīf 1977: 143-44) More striking examples of the types of kinships Haraway encourages are found in the inter‐ species kinships imagined in some of the stories. For example, in the third story, Marjāna the dog engages in twice-daily skirmishes with two crows; however, once Marjāna becomes pregnant, the skirmishes cease and when Marjāna and her pups are killed at the end of the story, the crows attack the cart that takes their bodies away. (see Munīf 1977: 137-42) Given the event that immediately precedes this night of storytelling, the re‐ sponse-ability Ḥiṣān shows to ‘Assāf, it is not surprising that the majority of the kin relations in the stories are those between dogs and humans. The first in‐ 201 The Stories We Tell: Kinship and Collective Action in ‘Abd al-Rahmān Munīf’s al-Nihāyāt stance of a human-dog kinship comes in the fifth story, which tells of Viper, a herding dog who has his own unique way of herding sheep that pays little heed to the desires of his master, the Shaykh. (see Munīf 1977: 149-52) Yet the two learn to work together and develop a kinship that the storyteller claims is rarely found even between two humans. As testimony to the strength of that bond, two days after Viper falls into a well and drowns, the Shaykh dies too. (see Munīf 1977: 152-53) The story that follows the tale of Viper and the Shaykh pushes the idea of a human-dog kinship even further, demonstrating not merely the possibility of such a bond but its necessity: when a family is struck by the plague, a small boy is left for dead in the quarantined house; several months later, people enter the house and find the boy still alive, having nursed at the teats of the family dog. (see Munīf 1977: 155-56) In a later story, Rex is a little white dog who belongs to the Major and obeys his every command - in stark contrast to Viper’s constant defiance of the Shaykh’s wishes - and when Rex is killed by a pack of dogs, the Major quickly dispenses punishment to the animals that killed his pet. (see Munīf 1977: 173-77) In the final story of the series, the dog Karūf occasionally suffers fits of madness that can only be calmed by saying his dead master’s name. (see Munīf 1977: 193-96) Not only do these stories attest to human-animal kinship, but they also speak to the “living and dying - and re‐ membering who lives and who dies and how” (Haraway 2016: 28) that Haraway claims as an aspect of response-ability. In fact, each of the above-mentioned examples specifically speaks to death as a means to more clearly recognize the kinship that exists between the protagonists of these short stories, whether bird and bird, dog and bird, or human and dog. If the kinship between humans and nonhumans is celebrated in these stories, those humans who do not practice the requisite care for others and mistreat their animal kin are punished. The Bey of the thirteenth story is one such ex‐ ample of a destructive interaction between humans and animals, a character who decimates the gazelle population and is killed at the end of the story (see Munīf 1977: 187-92); a man who tries to knock a crows’ nest out of his walnut tree loses his eye in the process (see Munīf 1977: 157-63); and a hunter who recklessly shoots a rook out of sheer frustration is violently attacked by the flock when he goes to collect his game. (see Munīf 1977: 183-86) In these stories, humans who fail to recognize their kinship with animals, and the care necessary to that kinship, are often punished for the harm they cause. Instead of re‐ sponse-ability, these humans are guilty of an “ordinary thoughtlessness” that “could not entangle, could not track the lines of living and dying, could not cultivate response-ability, could not make present to itself what it is doing, could not live in consequences or with consequence.” (Haraway 2016: 36) The lack of 202 Joelle Tybon kinship between men and gazelles or birds in these stories is inspired by the villagers’ previous narratives about the birds, much like the human-dog bonds are inspired by ‘Assāf and Ḥiṣān. Yet in these stories, that lack of kinship has tangible consequences, consequences that were absent in the villagers’ earlier narrative about the drought. Through their depiction of interspecies kinship, as well as the repercussions felt by those who deny such kinship, these stories therefore suggest a new recognition of the kinship between humans and animals and the response-ability intrinsic to that kinship. But these stories do not just speak of an intimate kinship network that com‐ prises humans, animals, and the landscape. The stories simultaneously insist on the mobility of those relationships. Although the basic components of the stories remain fairly stable, repeated in story after story, the positions inhabited by the various actors change, and with those changes, the relationships between the actors are constantly being reconfigured and thereby “engender different ways of attending, responding, and relating,” as Kenney argues. (Kenney 2017: 75) The focus of the narrative changes in each story. There is no single narrator. The perspective through which the stories are presented shifts, offering new insights and different ways of seeing and understanding. There is no single location where the stories take place; the very landscape on which the elements are spatial positioned moves, and so those elements occupy different physical lo‐ cations and positions. Any sort of stable relationship between the various ele‐ ments is emphatically denied and no single narrative can become the definitive version. There are a number of examples of how the elements are repositioned in each story, as hunters, mothers, birds, and dogs, to name a few of the more prominent elements, vary greatly across the fourteen stories with regard to the forms they take and the relationships they have with other actors. Returning briefly to the dogs mentioned above, in this series of stories they all take diverse forms and fill various roles, none of them identical: sometimes pet, sometimes friend and companion, sometimes mother, sometimes nursemaid. They are therefore posi‐ tioned differently in each story, their relationships to other actors and their surroundings reconfigured with each new set of circumstances. It would be dif‐ ficult, from the series of stories, to create a singular expectation for human-dog relationships, to offer a fixed category for any of the central elements, or to clearly delineate the relationships between the different actors. Through these narratives, the people of al-Ṭība enact the kinship networks imagined by ‘Assāf, one in which humans, animals, and birds are not isolated forces but are inherently connected to and responsible for one another. Though not always easily envisioned, this entangled kinship encompasses more than 203 The Stories We Tell: Kinship and Collective Action in ‘Abd al-Rahmān Munīf’s al-Nihāyāt the people of al-Ṭība and allows for a reconsideration of the relationships be‐ tween the different actors without fixing those relationships anew. This is not one new narrative, which could easily become the singular narrative told about these relationships, but many. These stories “keep the edges open and greedy for surprising new and old connections.” (Haraway 2016: 101) The “Stories from the Amazing Night,” in which a number of characters and elements are em‐ plotted in different ways, provide a space for the villagers to explore new visions of community that do not (yet) exist in the real world, much along the lines of Ashcroft’s assertions about the power of narrative in moments of transforma‐ tion and revolution, that we must first be able to imagine different relationships before we can enact them. Because they operate figuratively, creating worlds based on possibility rather than lived experience, these narratives permit the villagers to recognize their kinship with others and to test alternate ways of configuring their relationships and entangling themselves with others - without the new relationships having to be realized. 5 New Kinship, New Stories, New Action Once the humans of al-Ṭība begin to envision their community more broadly and imagine all of their possible entanglements with the birds and animals, they realize that the narrative that has long defined their relationship to the city could also be told otherwise. The people of al-Ṭība do not possess the resources to build the long-promised dam on their own, and the city, in its own ordinary thoughtlessness, never builds it. (see Munīf 1977: 57-8) Instead of taking action to ensure its construction, the villagers sit and wait for the city to acknowledge its response-ability toward al-Ṭība (see Munīf 1977: 60); and while they wait, year in and year out, drought returns, further stressing both the small community and the bird population on which that community relies. Prior to ‘Assāf ’s death and the “Stories from the Amazing Night,” the villagers see themselves as marginal to the life of the city, though nonetheless entangled with it, much like their initial relationship with the birds. They therefore have no right to expect anything from it and have little faith in their ability to influ‐ ence the city’s decisions. This narrative of marginality and powerlessness is so deeply engrained that when one of the younger men encourages the elders of al-Ṭība to do more than write letters asking the city for the long-promised dam, the reply is immediate: “’ اذامو انديرت نا ؟لعفن ‘ لبقو نأ بيجي باشلا عبات لجرلا : ’ بجي نا ،فرعت ال دحأ عيطتسي ةمواقم ةموكحلا .‘” (Munīf 1977: 60) 204 Joelle Tybon [“‘What do you want us to do? ’ And before the young man could answer, the man continued: ‘You need to know, no one can stand up to the government.’”] In cutting the young man off before he can even suggest what they might do, the older man refuses the possibility of an alternate narrative in that earlier moment. But the power of the various narratives to propose a vision of kinship and community premised on response-ability and mobile relations spreads beyond the “Stories from the Amazing Night” and allows the people of al-Ṭība to reim‐ agine the narrative they tell about the city, one in which they position them‐ selves differently, and to take action, collectively, in an attempt to change their situation. The villagers realize that they no longer have to rely on the old version of the story, the one where they sit and wait for the city to remember them, to take care of them, and to build the dam. They no longer place themselves in a position of powerlessness in the story they tell about the city. They see that that story could also be told differently. (see Munīf 1977: 208-13) At the same time, as the “Stories from the Amazing Night” demonstrate, the people of al-Ṭība have come to recognize their response-ability toward their nonhuman kin. While this collective push for a dam will surely alleviate the effects of drought for the people of al-Ṭība, the birds and animals, as well as the landscape, will also benefit from its construction; a dam would alleviate drought conditions generally, reducing the threat of thirst and starvation, and it would also make it less necessary for the villagers to hunt the birds as a means of survival. Yet the birds and animals can themselves do little to promote the con‐ struction of the dam. If the villagers now see the birds and animals as kin, as the “Stories from the Amazing Night” attest, it becomes their response-ability to pay attention to “who lives and who dies and how” (Haraway 2016: 28) and to take action on behalf of the birds and animals, actions the birds and animals cannot undertake on their own. As the people of al-Ṭība finish burying ‘Assāf ’s body, “ راتخملا حرتقت … نأ بهذي ددع نم سانلا ةرشابم نم ةربقملا ىلإ ،ةنيدملا يكل ثحبي عوضوم ّدسلا ةرملل ،ةريخألا ام داك راتخملا يهتني نم همالك ىتح تناك ةباجتسالا ربكأ رثكأو امم روصت يأ ،ناسنا ملو رصتقت رمألا ىلع لهأ ةبيطلا ،مهدحو ذا ىدبأ ددع ريبك نم لاجر ىرقلا ةرواجملا مهتبغر يف نأ اوبهذي مهعم ىلإ ةنيدملا .” (Munīf 1977: 212) [“the Mukhtar suggest[s]… that a number of people should go directly from the graveyard to the city, to discuss the dam for the last time. No sooner had the Mukhtar finished his speech than the response was bigger and better than anyone could have imagined. And the affair was not limited to the people of al-Ṭība alone; a large number of men from the neighboring villages expressed the desire to go with them to the city.”] 205 The Stories We Tell: Kinship and Collective Action in ‘Abd al-Rahmān Munīf’s al-Nihāyāt And they do just that. The novel closes with “ يود تارايسلا ىلع قيرطلا يتلفسألا يهو هجتت ىلإ ةنيدملا .” (Munīf 1977: 213) [“the sound of the cars on the asphalt road as they headed for the city.”] In this moment, the people of al-Ṭība - and those from neighboring villages who have come out to ‘Assāf ’s burial - engage in collective action to alleviate the dangers of thirst and starvation that accompany the drought. Though we do not see the results of this trip to the city, for the novel ends with the sound of the cars on the asphalt road, the villagers have taken collective action in an attempt to change their circumstances as well as be responsible to their kin, for those who can do little about the drought by themselves. Clearly, merely telling new narratives will not necessarily lead to collective action, and not all narratives are equally useful in helping us to see our con‐ nections to one another. The possibility exists, however, and al-Nihāyāt imag‐ ines what those narratives might look like. As Haraway reminds us, “It matters what thoughts think thoughts; it matter what stories tell stories.” (Haraway 2016: 39) The “Stories from the Amazing Night,” and al-Nihāyāt more generally, con‐ sider the power and potential of narrative to reconfigure our understanding of our kinship with others, so that we can live together into the future. The stories reveal a new vision of kinship and the response-ability it requires; at the same time, because these relationships are seen anew, the people of al-Ṭība come to understand that they must act collectively if they are going to live together into a shared future and continue “making-with” the birds and animals that inhabit the village and its environs. In this moment of collective action, it is not merely the fact that the villagers now imagine their relationship to the city differently and are therefore inspired to go to the city to ask for the dam. The stories also cultivate the recognition that the birds and animals are kin and that, as such, the villagers are as responsible for those birds as they are for one another. Long before Haraway encouraged us to “Make kin, not babies! ,” al-Nihāyāt offered us one means of doing so: through the stories we tell. Works Cited Ashcroft, Bill (2015). ‘Revolution, Transformation and Utopia: The Function of Litera‐ ture.’ IAFOR Keynote Series. Aichi, Japan: IAFOR Publications. https: / / issuu.com/ iafo r/ docs/ bill_ashcroft_keynote (accessed 30 July 2019). Ghosh, Amitav (2016). The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 206 Joelle Tybon Haraway, Donna (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Kenney, Martha (2017). ‘Review: Donna Haraway (2016) Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene.’ Science & Technology Studies, 30.2, 73-73. https: / / doi.org/ 10.2 3987/ sts.63108 (accessed 1 February 2019). LaDuke, Winona (1994). ‘Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Environmental Futures.’ Colorado Journal of International Law and Policy, 127, 127-48. Munīf, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān (1977). Al-Nihāyāt. Beirut: al-Mu’ssissa al-arabia wa al-Markaz al-thaqafi al-arabi. Munīf, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān (1988). Endings. Trans. Roger Allen. Northampton, MA: Interlink Books. Solnit, Rebecca (2019). ‘When the Hero is the Problem.’ Literary Hub. Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature, 2 April. https: / / lithub.com/ rebecca-solnit-when-the-hero-is-the-p roblem/ (accessed 12 February 2020). 207 The Stories We Tell: Kinship and Collective Action in ‘Abd al-Rahmān Munīf’s al-Nihāyāt Identity, Kinship, and Revolution in the Narratives of Naguib Mahfouz Ayman Bakr Keywords: identity, kinship, revolution, centered structure, modernity 1 Introduction By the beginnings of the 20th century, Egypt and other Arabic cultures were trying to find a peculiarly Arabic formula of modernity. Culturally speaking, there are thinkers and novelists, including Naguib Mahfouz, who suggest in their works a road map to the future. At the heart of this map was the critical question of that time: how can we (Arabs) follow Western Modernism without losing ourselves? Consequently, the question of identity took a privileged place. Two main approaches were suggested by Arab intellectuals to construct an identity: islamic and / or Nationalist. The two identity projects have each formed their own structure of thoughts and beliefs. Within the Islamic project of identity, it was clear that kinship is crucial. However, this research is not trying to offer a comprehensive definition of kinship, because, as Nelson Graburn states, [k]inship systems are inextricably bound up with other aspects of social structure and, moreover, because notions of what constitutes kinship vary greatly from society to society. (Graburn 1971: ix) It is sufficient to use Radcliff-Brown’s definition of the kinship system as, firstly, “the punch of relations that are derived from kinship and marriage, or kinship and affinity.” (Radcliff-Brown 1952: 51) Secondly, clan relations, in which blood ties are not a necessity. Brown states that [i]t must be noted also that in some societies persons are regarded as being connected by relationships of the same kind although no actual genealogical tie is known. Thus the members of a clan are regarded as being kinsmen, although for some of them it may not be possible to show their descent from a common ancestor. It is this that distinguishes what will here be called a clan from a lineage. (Radcliff-Brown 1952: 52) This clan relation could be applied to religious brotherhoods, where deliberate pseudo-sister / brother relations are rigorously taking place. Members of such brotherhoods are capable of acting violently against their real family members in favor of their commitment to the brotherhood. In such brotherhoods, religion should be the only source of values, thoughts, and even feelings. Based on the past, religious kin is an almighty tie that is expected to give peace, inner strength, and safety to all the followers, both in life and afterlife. On the other hand, the word system is highly necessary for the current re‐ search because, following Brown, “that word implies that whatever it is applied to is a complex unity, an organized whole.” (Radcliff-Brown 1952: 53) In this sense, the word ‘system’ almost invariably suggests ‘structure.’ Members of a religious group are always regarding themselves as parts of a cosmopolitan structure of that kind, which is, moreover, holy, self-sufficient, and extended to the afterlife. In one of his novellas, A Story Without a Beginning, Without an End, Naguib Mahfouz tells about a Sufi brotherhood built on a closed structure of beliefs. Within the alley where the events take place, the identity of people is derived from this structure of beliefs, in which kinship is at the center. The story is about Mahmoud, a Sheikh who inherited the leadership of a Sufi brotherhood, and who believes that his cosmos enjoys stability and homogeneity because of its Holy Identity. Mahmoud suffers from the new generation that raises doubts about the history, honesty, and goals of the brotherhood. After a severe struggle between the Sheikh, and the new generation, the novella ends with a massive shock when he discovers that the leader of the new generation is his undiscov‐ ered son. This completely changes Mahmoud’s approach in life. As mentioned, the novella introduces a stable cultural / social / religious struc‐ ture that is based on kin relations, with a recognizable center that finds mate‐ rialist expression in the holy house of Al-Akram, the founder Sheikh of the brotherhood. According to the vital question of his time, Mahfouz suggests a solution to the pressing problem of modernization in his novella. In addition to the issue of identity, Mahfouz’s novella clearly discusses the ties of kinship within the Egyptian society, as both the structure and its center, the Sheikh's family, are based on kinship: the followers of the brotherhood’s kin, which is a kinship of belief and loyalty, and blood kin of the holy family at the center. 210 Ayman Bakr 1 A number of scholars agree that the departure point of the modern ages in the Middle East could be marked by the French invasion of Egypt and the age of Mohammed Ali. (see Colomb 2012: 35) After a short discussion of the problem with identity in Arab countries during the first half of the Twentieth century, the central questions of this paper will be: through the events of the novella where kinship is dominating and acting as the moving engine, what is the modernization formula that Mahfouz suggests? Furthermore, is it a revolutionary or a peaceful reform process? 2 About Identity and Kinship There is a schematic conception about struggling projects of identity in the Middle East since the French conquest of Egypt (1798-1801), and after this, the renaissance of Mohammed Ali’s era (1805-1848). 1 Hassan Hanafi suggests three identity projects: the Islamic, the liberal, and the secular. (see Hanafi 2012: 30- 31) Azmi Bishara notices that Arab nationalists used to consider religion part of the Arab identity, while Islamists, especially contemporary groupings, insist that the identity of this region is nothing but Islam. This Islamic approach creates an Islamic nationalism, which, for Bishara, absorbs the worst of nationalism, and borrowed its terms after Islamizing these terms. (see Bishara 2010: 162-63) For the sake of the next argument about the structure of kinship, which is represented by the Islamic streams, it might be necessary at this point to notice that both nationalist and Islamic identities constitute closed structures. How‐ ever, the Islamic one, in particular, covers itself with dense kin-relations, in which family, brother, and sister are both familiar and central terms. However, it is critical to this argument to notify that there is a distance, in Arab countries, between on the one hand, the image of the cultural identity, whether it is spread to the outer world through media and diplomatic channels, or cultivated within the culture itself mainly through education, and, on the other hand, what Bhikhu Parekh calls personal identity, which is the awareness of individuals, within a specific culture, of their identity, and which is “the source of such powerful and action-guiding emotions as pride, shame, embarrassment and guilt, and is closely bound to one’s sense of selfworth.” (Parekh 2008: 13) But since the de-colonization of the Arab world, as Muhammad Siddiq men‐ tions: “the quest for identity […] has unfolded against an increasingly more 211 Identity, Kinship, and Revolution in the Narratives of Naguib Mahfouz 2 Al-Jabery (among others) refers to this duality when he states that the West plays a double role in the Arabic mind: the West is the enemy and, at the same time, the exciting model to be imitated. troubled (and troubling) awareness of the cultural ’Other,’” (Siddiq 2007: xvii) which is the colonial imperialistic, but much appreciated, West. 2 (see Al-Jabery 2005: 27) This duality towards the West has resulted in both fluidity and context-sen‐ sitive aspects of identity. Ireneusz Pawel Karolewski’s notes that [f]luidity and context sensitivity of identity are part of the terminology frequently used as a result of the so-called postmodern or cultural turn in social sciences, which describes a shift in methodological focus from the explanatory power of social struc‐ tures to an analysis of discourse and cultural symbols. Recent research in this field highlights multiple or hybrid identities of individuals and it has become common to underline the process of making and claiming identities, in which identities are not attributes but rather resources that people use. (Karolewski 2010: 23) Fluidity and context sensitivity should be understood here as the compulsion to lose the solidarity and cohesion of identity. Losing one of the two aspects un‐ mercifully undermines the long history of selfhood, which was cultivated for decades as the main factor of safety in most Middle Easterners. Moreover, we cannot easily talk about one “pure Arabic-Muslim culture.” It is not pure, and it is not one culture. Even if we adopt the generalizing anthro‐ pological definition of culture as “the way of life of a people,” (Mathews 2000: 6) which is not sufficient, as Gordon Mathews proposes (Mathews 2000: 6), to describe the global cultural interrelations, the cultures of the Middle East differ to no small extent. Furthermore, solidarity and cohesion of identity do not mean that the cultures of Middle Eastern countries can exist in isolation from the rapidly changing world. On the contrary, the profound influence of global com‐ munication instruments as well as liberal and democratic conventions around the world were crucial during the last revolutions of the Arab Spring. According to Karolewski, the identity of a specific society or culture is not a stable group of distinguishing characteristics that individuals gain, but rather a fragmented, yet related, resource that individuals use. Therefore, the solidarity and absoluteness of any identity is - somehow - a weapon that could be used to exclude opponents from the scene in any political or social conflict. (Karolewski 2010: 23) In the first part of Mahfouz’s novella, Sheik Mahmoud, the head of the broth‐ erhood, represented the Islamic concept of identity as a pure untouchable con‐ struction of beliefs and ideas that creates kinship among its followers as a clan, 212 Ayman Bakr a kinship with a sturdy purity claim. At the center of this construction, there is another type of kin: blood kinship, which gathers the family of the grand Sheik Al-Akram. However, the main change was that the identity of the center itself, and thus the structure, was divided into two resources: science and religion. This duality might be a non-resolvable contradiction. Kinship in religious brotherhoods is constructed according to what Sahlins calls “mutuality of being.” By this expression Sahlins refers simply to: “people who are intrinsic to one another’s existence,” thus “mutual person(s),” “life itself,” “intersubjective belonging,” “transbodily being,” and the like. (Sahlins 2013: 2) In a socially constructed kinship, previous types of dependency need to be in‐ vented. However, religious brotherhoods do not welcome any creativity. On the contrary, one fundamental principle within the embedded constitution of such brotherhoods’ communities is precisely not to be inventive and open. Obey, repeat, and ignore doubts; this is the only way, they believe, to achieve a good life, and - more likely - a good death. What the characters of the new generation represent in Mahfouz’s novella was directed against this silent constitution of the brotherhood and maybe of the whole culture at the very moment when the dictatorship was governing. The youths think, ask, invent, and raise doubts. What happened, however, was not the destruction of the structure of faith or the tie of kinship that lies beneath. Instead, the blood kinship remained in place as the nuclear center, but with a powerful correcting element that restores the structure on which it is based. What Mahfouz’s novella tries to emphasize is that kinship is the most potent tie, a revolution is needed to reform, not to destroy, the structure in which kin‐ ship remains at the center as the novella unifies the father and the discovered son to continue the brotherhood’s road. (Mahfouz 1993: 132) But what kind of story is that which is described as one “without a beginning and without an end”? In other words: is there a repeated grand narrative in human history which has a massive arsenal of maneuvers to legitimize itself and pretends that it is not the one that has been told many times? Maybe it is the narrative of kinship itself: its creation, constancy, solidification, and the long, vigorous process of revival or, rarely, of annihilation. The story of any belief system is, somehow, a narrative of kinship in which all the members, especially if they are religious, believe that their teachings represent the truth, purity, and absolute stability. In this novella, as in most of his works, Naguib Mahfouz seems to suggest some radical changes to the social structure in order to introduce solutions to its problems. In this context, the cosmos of the Sheikh and its surrounding social environment will be reformed, but only after undergoing the painful operation 213 Identity, Kinship, and Revolution in the Narratives of Naguib Mahfouz of changing the center of the structure itself by dragging it into the play of the other elements. Now, the reader can imagine a social structure that consists of the brotherhood’s followers, where its center consists, apparently, of two op‐ posing elements: spiritual faith and secular science. Within social structures, this compromise offers a better and more peaceful way of life. Likewise, in Mahfouz’s famous “Cairo Trilogy” (Mahfouz 1955 / 1957), the revolutionary act of Kamal against the tyrant father was not to destroy either the autocratic structure of the Egyptian family of that time, or the iconic idol of the father, but rather to improve, or, one could say, stabilize both of them. At the third part of the Cairo Trilogy “Al-Sukkaryyah,” the central family loses its co‐ hesion, which symbolizes the dilemma of Egyptian society in the 1970s. In short, a peaceful combination of science and religion at the center of kinship could save the society. This combination might come through a violent reforming process, but would not constitute a ‘real revolution’ in the Western sense of the term. On the other hand, these two components of the new center represent an Arabic intellectual’s response to the major question of so-called Arab enlightenment, namely: how can we respond to the call of modernity without losing our identity? In “Kandeel Umm Hashim” (The Lamp of Umm Hashim, first published in 1944), the famous novelist Yahia Haky presents the following formula: in this masterpiece novel, the protagonist is Ismail, who represents the average Egyp‐ tian. Ismail lives in the district of the famous mosque of the granddaughter of Prophet Mohammed “Sayyeda Zainab”; her nickname is Umm Hashim. Fol‐ lowing popular culture, Ismail’s family uses the oil of the lamp, which is located above the tomb of the holy Umm Hashim, to cure his cousin Fatimah from an eye disease. When Ismail gets a chance to study in Germany, he decides to be‐ come an ophthalmologist to cure his cousin. When he comes back with his sec‐ ular science, a clash takes place between Ismail and his family and neighborhood’s religious beliefs. After trying it once, his family, including his ill cousin, refuses his secular science, and resorts to the oil of the mosque. Ismail spent months trying to understand what is going on and decides to combine the spirituality of the East with the secular science of the West to ach‐ ieve peace and to convince his people to accept the secular sciences. Ismail cre‐ ates a unique exclusive type of modernity, which follows the West without losing the cultural spiritual identity of the East. In A Story without a Beginning without an End, Mahfouz represented the same formula through reforming the position of the transcendental untouchable center of kinship’s structure without de‐ stroying it because the revolutionary act emerges from the kinship relation itself. 214 Ayman Bakr 3 There is a confusion between two works of Naguib Mahfouz; a novel titled The Begin‐ ning and the End and the novella that this paper analyzes “A story Without a Beginning, Without an End.” As there is no English translation of the novella, I used my own translation. In other words, Mahfouz is trying to radically reform the kinship structures, not to abolish them. (see Hakky 1994) 3 A Story without a Beginning Without an End: Revolution or Reform? According to Derrida, the center of a structure is contradictorily formed; it is both, inside and outside the structure at the same time. Inside, because the center is an element, though the main one of the structure, and outside because it is not included in the active interactions of the elements of this structure. The main premise dominating structural thought, according to Derrida, was the idea that the center controls the play of the elements without being part of it. The center allows the interactions among all the elements, except itself, because it is the untouchable being in the structure: The center also closes off the play which it opens up and makes possible. As center, it is the point at which the substitution of contents, elements, or terms is no longer possible. At the center, the permutation or the transformation of elements (which may of course be structures enclosed within a structure) is forbidden. At least this permu‐ tation has always remained interdicted (and I am using this word deliberately). Thus it has always been thought that the center, which is by definition unique, constituted that very thing within a structure, which while governing the structure, escapes structurality. This is why classical thought concerning structure could say that the center is, paradoxically, within the structure and outside it. (Derrida 1997: 279) It might thus be a good idea to think of the center, following Derrida, as a ‘func‐ tion’ not as a ‘being.’ One major difference is that a being is an existence with fixed self-governing features, while a function is a role within specific circum‐ stances, which is changeable and depends on other elements in the structure. In his novella A Story without a Beginning Without an End, 3 Mahfouz seems to eliminate this understanding of the controlling untouchable center. The center is no more untouchable. On the contrary, the vital act of change flared up from this very center. Consequently, the imagined stability of the whole structure will shake. In other words, no cultural or social structure - not even the center - enjoys absolute stability; it is rather a structural possibility among uncountable possible, different variations. In other words, Mahfouz seems to 215 Identity, Kinship, and Revolution in the Narratives of Naguib Mahfouz 4 The main example of this combination is the famous novel, Kandeel Umm Hashim (The Lamb of Umm Hashim), by Yahia Hakki that was first published in 1940 - briefly dis‐ cussed above. put himself in the shoes of Derrida, as he refuses the dogmatic structural concept of the center as an absolute untouchable being. In the course of the novella, both center and relations of this structure turn over to open a horizon of multiple scenarios. Marginalized characters, as well as marginal memorized events revived from history, become the dominating characters. These characters and events played two roles; first, they became referential elements uncovering the false stability and the imaginary purity of the structure, and second, these characters and events themselves converted into main characters and events. From this point of view, we may think of this novella as an attempt to raise doubts about the absolute stability of any cultural value, or any historical, social structure. The only truth is change, and the changing force, or the revolutionary act, comes from the center, which supposedly represents and guarantees abso‐ lute stability: there is no such a thing as an autonomous, closed, homogeneous meaning, value, or structure. Regarding Arabic cultures, this novella also presents an answer to one of the pressing questions of the first half of the twentieth century: how can we for‐ mulate a renaissance scheme that combines the scientific insights from the West with the spirituality of the East? Not far from most intellectuals of his time, Naguib Mahfouz seems to believe that this combination is possible, 4 which ap‐ pears in this novella A Story Without a Beginning Without an End. Mahfouz represents both Derrida’s concept of unstable structures, and his suggestion to modernize Arabic societies. The opening scene of the novella shows a festival of a Sufi group while the leader of the group is watching his small, stable, and well-organized cosmos. The followers, while harmoniously chanting Sufi songs, surround the tomb of the Grand Sheikh and his family’s house: In a primitive tune, the chanter yelled: ‘O Al Akram, my master, we are at your door.’ The followers repeated: ‘Allah… Allah… Allah.’ His eyes observed the scene from the halls of the window in the reception room; following the people of the Brotherhood while they chant and clap. Accompanying the tones of the flute and the beats of the tambourines, and under the flags, they chant. They crowded around the tomb, and in front of the big house, filling the space of the alley. In his stand behind the window, a heartfelt air puffs full of mixed Arabian jas‐ 216 Ayman Bakr mine, henna, and carnation’ scents. In his beautiful black suit, and with his round turban, he stayed at his place looking and listening carefully: O Al Akram, my master, we are at your door, Allah… Allah… Allah. (Mahfouz 1993: 105) The former scene presents a perfect structure consisting of the followers who are harmoniously surrounding the center containing the tomb, the house, and the man in black. We may think of it as a symbolic representation of another, wider structure: a social / cultural structure that includes tangled and carefully intertwined components. All of these components are loyal and related to a center. As absolute truth, this center is autonomous, located beyond the human consciousness and beyond human history. On the other hand, this opening scene tries to represent an ideal portrait of absolute homogeneity and purity, not only in terms of human action, and the presence and chanting of the believers, but also the sheltering nature, render the impression of a paradise. However, the purity and absoluteness of this struc‐ ture are, somehow, imperfect. A very marginal opponent appears inside this Sufi group. Doubt arises and gradually grows. This doubt starts in a phrase that describes the Sheikh when he was “looking and listening carefully.” (Mahfouz 1993: 105) According to the absolute divine certainty, stability and, homogeneity, which are believed to emanate from the structure, one would be inclined to believe that a fully safe routine should dominate the scene. However, if that were the case, why did the Sheikh look curious, as if he was looking for something unusual and disturbing? Even if he was trying to make sure that the performance of his cosmos is still harmonious, the very act of checking this denotes doubt. Gradually, the disturbing element, which could be understood as doubt itself and all its bearers, will appear and extend, splitting up into many independent factors, which will finally undo the centrality of the center and dissolve the coherence of the current structure. As a consequence, it opens up more struc‐ tural possibilities. The mythical divine structure is continued through one of the followers who starts giving a speech to the rest of them reminding of the miracles of the Sheikh. The same narrator gives the actual reader, who does not know what is going on until this moment, a hint about the brotherhood and the alley. The previous discourse presents the constituting reasons of the brotherhood, which was cre‐ ated in the form of a small religious monarchy. A sharp voice asks the crowd to be silent. When the place is silent, the same voice starts to talk: 217 Identity, Kinship, and Revolution in the Narratives of Naguib Mahfouz Lucky you the people of Egypt, lucky you Egypt, Al-Akram had chosen you as a homeland for him and his proliferation, lucky you when he came to you from the East. On his feet he came, taming the wild animals of the desert, going through the moun‐ tains, walking on water, bringing spring water out of the rocks, until he shines over the happy Cairo like a full moon. He went around in different, far spots until he decided to stay in this blessed spot, where his mosque and house are located. Lucky Egypt and lucky our alley, the alley of Al-Akram and the home of his sons, grandsons, and allies. Centuries ago, a light had shined at this place, and started to attract butterflies; those who were seeking guidance and forgiveness. Then he left the Mosque and the big house, which is the center of the soul, light, and rightness. A center that all the planets of Al-Akramyyah brotherhood are going around it in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Arab island, India, Persia, Tunisia, Algeria, Marrakesh, and Trebles. A house that is the beating heart of a whole spiritual world. (Mahfouz 1993: 105) The former paragraph presents the structure, which looks like a galaxy including the main spots of the ancient world, from where the three main religions have descended. The big house constitutes the dedicated center. The novella departs from portraying a structure of belief that is, like all reli‐ gious structures, seemingly coherent and stable. However, it is a clear structure on the outside, but is marked by vague thoughts on the inside. The main issue of the novella, then, is the structure of belief itself, including all that is attached to it: absolute truth, purity, and stability. Moreover, the narration did not point to any specific ideas of the Sheikh, or to what makes this brotherhood different from other Sophists, which pushes the analysis towards the structure of belief itself. Contrary to what this structure announces about itself, it is not absolutely stable, but corrodible and transmittable, which the novella gradually clarifies; when Young Mahmoud, the central element of the structure, changed his posi‐ tion from a student of science into the Sheikh of the brotherhood and when he, at the end of the novella, changes his attitude once again to be more open to the new generation’s demands. Accordingly, the structure temporarily exists and all of its elements, including the center, are changeable and included within the play. However, due to this deception of absolute coherence and stability, an appa‐ rent paradox emerges in the mentality of the believers: all structures of the world are subject to change, but this does not seem to apply to our structure of faith. In other words, as believers, we know that history is dynamic, which means that all its elements are changing. But, on the other hand, our faith is unchangeable, because our structure of faith is the only absolute truth and thus stands above all history. Therefore, history should follow our structure of worship; or other‐ 218 Ayman Bakr wise, since there will be something wrong in history itself, it should be fixed according to the only almighty structure: ours. After the opening scene, opposing elements emerge. The full presence of the brotherhood is not as pure as it appears. A different tune rises through the dia‐ logue between Mahmoud, the inheritor of the brotherhood’s guidance, and his assistant Ammar: - Whoever looks at our procession, will never doubt our stability. Said, Sheikh Mahmoud - Everything still good Enthusiastically said, Sheikh Ammar Mahmoud shook his head sadly and said: - What happened to our alley? - Nothing, a summer cloud, a frivolous play of kids. - You do not believe what you are saying Sheikh Ammar, did it happen before that a tongue has slandered the brotherhood? - A strange generation rides the wagon of Satan. - They make fun of the Brotherhood, of the followers, and of me personally! And very rudely they say jokes at the coffee shops of the alley. - It is the epidemic of this age, what happened to this generation? How did their holies become despicable? But it is no more than kids’ frivolous play. (Mahfouz 1993: 106) This dialogue encapsulates the major crisis of the novella, but it gives no hints regarding future turns of events. All scenarios are possible. At this point, the crisis is no longer hidden. Through the abovementioned dialogue, readers can quickly determine the two sides of the struggle: a stable, widely legitimate ex‐ istential structure, which takes the status of an unthinkable truism, and a tem‐ porary situation challenging the natural stability of this structure. Symbolically, the relation between the two sides of the previous struggle used to be expressed in terms of some opposite binaries: health versus illness, clear versus cloudy weather, maturity versus frivolous play, good versus evil, and respect versus rude sarcasm. There is a distinction between two camps, but it raises concern because it is not as clear as it should be. Like in the opening scene, there is always a disturbing factor. This disturbing factor emerges from the heart of the sup‐ posedly homogeneous structure: the evil frivolous youth are the sons of the alley. Again, to what extent is this aggravating factor actually a part of the structure it disturbs? Although there is a distinction between the two sides of the struggle, the borders are blurred from the very beginning. Those who are described as evil are the sons of the alley, as the brotherhood is considered to be “their holies.” 219 Identity, Kinship, and Revolution in the Narratives of Naguib Mahfouz (Mahfouz 1993: 106) Even the characterization of these evils seems contradictory because they are described in the same sentence as the “new generation.” More‐ over, Sheikh Ammar confirms the liquidity of the borders between the two sides of the struggle when he assures that followers of the brotherhood are still patient and friendly with these evil kids because they (the followers): “did not forget that the alley is one family.” (Mahfouz 1993: 106) Except for the general kinship between the alley inhabitants, no one knows any details about these aggravating youths. Later, however, kinship will appear as the primary connection between the two struggling sides and the major re‐ forming factor. Fronting the high wave of satiric criticism that is coming from the new gen‐ eration’s side, Sheikh Mahmoud has taken the first step to protect both the sta‐ bility and purity of his world. He invited a delegate of these youths in order to show them the right way. In other words, he is trying to swallow them into his structure: - When will they arrive? - They are, almost, on their way - Is there a leader, or a motivator among them? - There is no organization or leadership, but there is a heavily rude guy called Ali Owais. Narrowing his eyes while thinking the Sheikh said: - Ali Owais, I know this name… or part of it at least! ! - He is the son of deceased Owais; the wagon’s driver. Suddenly, the Sheikh’s back became straight and he asked: - The teacher’s brother? - Yes, he is the brother of Zainab Owais, the teacher. (Mahfouz 1993: 106) All the seeds are spread from the very beginning. Nonetheless, Sheikh Mahmoud surprisingly repeats Zainab Owais’s name, which gives the impression that there is some embedded untold narrative inside the main story. The woman’s name triggers memories in Mahmoud. One of those dialogues he recalls is be‐ tween the young Mahmoud and his father. A different narrative level suddenly appears in a separate paragraph. Readers will find two distinct narrative voices, which may cause some vagueness. After a few sentences, readers will find out that these voices are young Mahmoud and his father. (see Mahfouz 1993: 107) This sudden dialogue uncovers that young Mahmoud himself, against the will of his father, was a student at the faculty of science. After he hears the name of the teacher, Mahmoud remembers the following dialogue with his father: - I have brought you all the needed teachers, but you want to join secular schools. 220 Ayman Bakr - Nothing is wrong with that father. - All sciences are coming from Allah. - Thanks for Allah. - But everything hangs on the Jihad, and the way depends on it. - I hear and obey father. - To be the inheritor as you should be. - Yes, father. - The worldly sciences have an end, but the Jihad of the way has no end. (Mahfouz 1993: 107) Mahmoud, then, is not purely the Sheikh of a spiritual Sufi group because he holds in himself the same seeds of the worldly sciences that the new generation holds. The previous dialogue shows that the father was worried about his son’s education. The knowledge of secular schools is limited and, by definition, the opposite to the illuminist infinite knowledge of the brotherhood. The con‐ sciousness of Mahmoud is not pure, however, for a seed of secular experimental knowledge has been planted in his mind. Now, Mahmoud is the leading Sheikh of the brotherhood, and the same seed becomes the threatening ghost. He com‐ ments: What a memory, we knew once some charming names: Archimedes and Newton, and strange facts like molecule and movement. I did not imagine then that these things will chase us harshly like time chases us. (Mahfouz 1993: 107) Now, adult Sheikh Mahmoud is waiting for the new generation’s delegation. The meeting started between Mahmoud and the youths with a significant ges‐ ture: the Sheikh raised his hand, waiting for the young men to kiss it, but the boys shake the hand without kisses. Whereas Mahmoud was discovering, per‐ haps also stabilizing, the boundaries of his power by raising his hand to be kissed, the youths, by not kissing the Sheikh’s hand, announced their position as equiv‐ alent opponents. The members of the delegation are described as follows: They are all university students, especially faculty of Arts, one is a student at the faculty of engineering, and another is a student at the faculty of sciences; that is Ali Owais. (Mahfouz 1993: 107) Within the student’s delegation, there is a particular focus on Ali Owais who studies at the faculty of science which the Sheikh from graduated. At this point, another ambiguous connection between the Sheikh and Ali Owais occurs as the Sheikh looks at Ali and has some vague feelings: 221 Identity, Kinship, and Revolution in the Narratives of Naguib Mahfouz Like an ancient melody that is played after oblivion, he observed familiar features. A look moved his heart with astonishing power. He interpreted it as anger, so he sought refuge from Allah in his heart. But the look was closer to confusion and anxiety. (Mahfouz 1993: 107) This moving heart of Sheikh Mahmoud represents a deep counterforce in his consciousness, which is the secular scientific part of his mind. The current ac‐ tualization of this part in the present is Ali Owais himself, who is powerfully repeating the ideas of young Mahmoud: - Don’t you know that if not for the Akram and the brotherhood he established “Al-Akramyyah,” your alley would not have been mentioned, and its inhabitants would not have had any hope or respect? The Sheikh asked enthusiastically. - My lord, the world is changing without stop or mercy. Steadily said Ali Owais. - But the facts are eternal. - Change is the only eternal thing my lord. - Change? ! ! - Every day, every hour, every moment. I can see you dangling in a delusive surface. - Excuse me Sir, the delusive surface is solidification. (Mahfouz 1993: 108) The discussion leads to nowhere, as both sides insist on their particular point of view. The structure could thus be seen as defining its purity and absoluteness. Yet, this paper suggests that Mahfouz’s narratives, as the structure appears in a number of his works including this novella, are trying to uncover the illusion of a pure absolute structure, be it social, cultural, or religious. All structures are historical, changeable, and self-contradictory. But, once more, how genuine can the contradictory elements in the structure itself be? Starting from this point, the narrative creates more ties between the charac‐ ters believing in science and the changeability of everything, and Sheikh Mahmoud, who uses his power to eliminate the new generation, or, one could say progressive voices of the future. Consequently, Ali Owais and some of his friends get arrested. The distinction between the two groups gradually vanishes when Zainab Owais appears. She is Ali’s sister. When she goes to the Sheikh asking him to release her brother, the conversation gives the struggle a new dimension. Z - I am not asking for your intervention; I am requesting you to correct your mis‐ take… 222 Ayman Bakr 5 In the original text, the dialogue goes without names, which might be hard to follow for the non-Arabic reader. I added letters in the long dialogues to distinguish different voices. Z= Zainab, M= Mahmoud. M - Take this illusion out of your head. Z - It is not an illusion. You are the biggest illusion M- May Allah forgive you. Z - Allah forgives weak women, vulnerable, deceptive, and defenseless people, but not the evil and double face ones. M - - Believe me… Z - I cannot believe you. M - I have nothing to do with what happened to your brother. Z - You have reported him, or maybe one of your assistants following your orders. He shook his head with a tolerance gesture and said: M - He did not need anyone to report him; their voices were loud enough, their laughs were shouting with destructive thoughts everywhere. Z - What they said is not a crime, but the situation was overturned after they have visited you . […] M - They do not believe in Allah; they do not believe in anything! Z - Do you believe in Allah? M - Oh neighbor, fear Allah! Z - What kind of faith do you have in your heart? M - Do not judge a man you did not see for a long time. (Mahfouz 1993: 111-112) 5 We may ask: why does this woman dare to talk to the Sheikh that way? More‐ over, what does “Do not judge a man you did not see for a long time” mean? The previous dialogue ends with a different voice coming from the past saying: “in this holy house and this blessed room? May Allah damn you! ,” (Mahfouz 1993: 111-12) the last sentence refers to an embedded narrative about a sexual rela‐ tionship between the young Mahmoud and Zainab. By removing the holy aura from the Sheikh and the house, where Mahmoud committed his sin, the narrative gradually erases the imaginary borders between the faith structure, which is surrounded by the same holy aura, and other secular structures. In the third chapter, Ali Owais and his colleagues distribute a publication entitled “What is known about Al-Akramiyyah.” (Mahfouz 1993: 114) The pub‐ lication tells stories about the immoral behaviors of the holy family, which hap‐ pened at the holy house of Al Akram. When Sheikh Mahmoud reads the publication, his anger flares. Suddenly, the masks of tolerance, kindness, and love start to collapse, causing the complete 223 Identity, Kinship, and Revolution in the Narratives of Naguib Mahfouz liquidation of the borders between the opposed binaries of meanings, which faith structures usually separate. Love / hate, tolerance / grudge, justice / injus‐ tice, and sin / purity are all binaries, but not opposite, as each side of it creates and defines the other. This time the strike is directed to the center of the structure and is coming from another structure, which introduces itself as the valid alternative of the old one. But the new structure is, ironically, part of the old one. The clash be‐ tween the two teams came to a unique climax, where each side is fighting for its very existence. After reading the publication, Mahmoud shouts: - Damn… hell… the foolish forgot that the sharp metal tools are made to crash the empty sculls, which contains nothing but heresy… He continued reading and then said with an anguished voice: - The earth should stop spinning, or spin on the opposite direction… craziness is the regular slang, the normal temperature is that of death, history was assassinated, musk is intense poison, and the pure shrines are museums for mummified bugs. You are not you and I am not me and do not be astonished when the animals crawl over our bodies to teach us the proper behavior in this doomed life. (Mahfouz 1993: 114-15) Amazingly, this paragraph shows the psychological, as well as mental crescendo, which reaches unseen and uncontrolled peaks. It seems that the Sheikh is hal‐ lucinating under the effect of a fever. Interestingly, this marks striking similar‐ ities to the holders of absolute faith structures, whether religious or not, when someone is profoundly threatening their main ideas. Mahmoud is struggling to keep his faith pure and to mute the shouting voices in his head. (Mahfouz 1993: 115-16) Unlike a threatened believer normally does, however, he decides to go back to history to check. He asks Sheikh Sanadeki, the only survivor who accompanied Mahmoud’s grandfather (the founder of the brotherhood) for help. During the first shockwave, Sheikh Sanadiki calmly assures that all the so-called rumors, which the new generation raises against the founder of the brotherhood and his family, are not lies: - I have no answer to what they wrote. - Do you mean they speak the truth? ! ! - Yes my lord… you need a new mind… they did not invent what they say, they just investigated historical references. Sheikh Sanadiki said. (Mahfouz 1993: 117) 224 Ayman Bakr The most shocking fact Sheikh Sanadiki shared is that “the big house, which Al-Akram has built is only a shrine among hundreds of shrines that belong to the brotherhood. It is, in fact, the last one.” (Mahfouz 1993: 105) As the representative person of the brotherhood, Mahmoud first denies what Sheikh Sanadiki said about the stable center of the brotherhood: Insane what he is saying; who can believe that our house is only a branch of countless branches of the brotherhood’s houses, and not the origin from which the light has spread? … No, my grandfather is the founder of the brotherhood, and his house is the origin and the center. (Mahfouz 1993: 117) The second stroke to the center, which gradually slips down from its peak, is related to the behavior of the Al-Akram family. After his meeting with Sheikh Sanadiki, Mahmoud becomes certain that his aunt had an illegal relationship with a British soldier during the British occupation of Egypt and that she escaped with him to live in England. The world, then, is not as stable as he thinks, and positions could be changing even to the enemy’s side. Moreover, his sister was seducing the male servants - the same thing Mahmoud himself used to do with the maids. (see Mahfouz 1993: 121) Mahmoud falls, like other humans, into sin. Consequently, the center which he represents is not absolute, pure, or transcendental. On the contrary, we may claim that the imaginary uncontaminated components of the center are inex‐ tricably intertwined with their opposites. Through the second encounter between Zainab Owais and Mahmoud, the novella reaches its peak. As the reader discovers simultaneously with Mahmoud himself, Ali Owais, the leader of the new generation, is the result of the rela‐ tionship between Mahmoud and Zainab. After she found out that she was preg‐ nant, Zainab had to leave the alley during her pregnancy. When she came back carrying Ali, she claimed that he was her brother to avoid shame, and the violent reaction of Mahmoud, because Mahmoud might try to avoid the social scandal, by eliminating Zainab herself. (see Mahfouz 1993: 125-26) This means, Ali Owais, who represents the disturbing revolutionary element, is not external anymore. This element is a genuine part of the imaginary center of the structure. In other words, the opposite is a constitutional part of its op‐ posite. The question that remains is, however, what kind of cultural structures Mahfouz suggests, and in what sense? The novella ends with a scene of Mahmoud collapsing in a dilemma: should he announce the complete truth to people, which would cost him to lose both his power and money, or should he escape with his newly discovered family to enjoy their lives away from the alley. (Mahfouz 1993: 132-33) Under the pressure 225 Identity, Kinship, and Revolution in the Narratives of Naguib Mahfouz of kinship power, and even with the possibility of losing the privileged position as the center of the social structure, Ali decides to face the problem and announce the complete truth to the people of the alley. (see Mahfouz 1993: 133) He opts for being involved in the game and for taking the lead. In other words, the novella demonstrates how the present and the past could create a harmonious structure under the lead of the present. Mahfouz’s suggestion of an Arabic modernity is now clear. A combination of Western science and eastern spirituality is possible where science is taking leadership. On the other hand, kinship should remain, after a radical peaceful reform, as a constructive power, maybe a central one, in the process of the new age formation. Works Cited Al-Jabery, Mohammed Aabed (2005). The Crises of Contemporary Arabic Thinking. Beirut: Center of Arabic Unity Studies. Beard, Michael and Adnan Haydar, eds. (1993). Naguib Mahfouz: From Regional Fame to Global Recognition. New York: Syracuse University Press. Bishara, Azmi (2010). On the Arab Question: Introduction to Arab Democratic Manifesto. Beirut: Center of Arabic Unity Studies. Colomb, Marcel (2012). 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Global Culture / Individual Identity: Searching for Home in the Cultural Supermarket. London and New York: Routledge. Parekh, Bhikhu (2008). A New Politics of Identity: Political Principles for an Interdependent World. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 226 Ayman Bakr Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred Reginald (1952). Structure and Function in Primitive Society: Es‐ says and Addresses. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press. Sahlins, Marshal (2013). What Kinship Is And Is Not. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Siddiq, Muhammad (2007). Arab Culture and the Novel: Genre, Identity, and Agency in Egyptian Fiction. London and New York: Routledge. 227 Identity, Kinship, and Revolution in the Narratives of Naguib Mahfouz 1 I would like to extend my gratitude to Jonatan Jalle Steller and Joelle Tybon for brainstorming some aspects of this chapter with me, and for their advice and feedback. Against all Odds: Kinship and Collective Action in The Expanse  1 Maria Fleischhack Keywords: science fiction, The Expanse, kinship, collective action, posthu‐ manism 1 Introduction As one of the most popular literary genres, science fiction lends itself to the exploration of the relationship between humans and the world(s) they inhabit, often in the face of new discoveries which necessitate a recalibration of our understanding of what it means to be human, and what lies outside of our limited understanding of the workings of the world, both on planet Earth and beyond. One of the genre’s strengths is the consideration of possible solutions to current issues, such as eco-collapse, mass-extinction, threats of conflict, invasion, or war. As we are growing ever more conscious of the climate crisis, the sixth mass-extinction (see Pimm et al. 2014), and the often unforeseeable conse‐ quences of technological advancements, amongst many others, it is only natural that current anxieties are reflected upon in science fiction. One pattern that emerges in the genre is the formation of unlikely alliances to tackle these issues through collective action. The critically acclaimed space opera The Expanse (2011-) serves as an example of contemporary science fiction which actively explores and offers answers to questions of current anxieties regarding the present and future of humankind, the environment, and possible results of scientific advancement. The series ad‐ dresses several of such anxieties, including system collapses, chemical warfare, eco-terrorism, and various alien threats which challenge the protagonists’ world 2 I have borrowed this formulation from the CfP for the Conference “Strata of Kinship and Collective Action in Literature and Culture” in November 2018 at the Center for Gender and Diversity Research of the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, organized by Dr. Gero Bauer, Dr. Nicole Hirschfelder and Katharina Luther. The dynamics of the group which becomes kin described in this chapter are very much based in collective trauma. Their connection is therefore based in experiencing severely disturbing and life-altering events together and their conscious connection is very often supported by a subconscious, emotional connection. 3 The main protagonists form a space ship crew, in which their training, skills and pref‐ erences define their roles. Nevertheless, questions of leadership and decision making are constantly negotiated and never fixed, allowing them to adapt to changed circum‐ stances much faster than any rigidly organized political or military entity. 4 In the world presented to us, women and men are equal before the law, there is no racism connected to an ethnic background or skin color, LGBTQA+ individuals are not considered to be divergent, and, thanks to genetic engineering and gene splicing, there is no biological necessity for a man and a woman to create a child, as a child can have two biological mothers or several genetic parents. Nevertheless, children are still carried to term by women. Furthermore, while several of the narrators are queer, trans* char‐ acters are virtually absent from the narrative. 5 The major conflict plays out between Earth, Mars, and the asteroid belt. 6 It was initially adapted for television by Syfy and first broadcast in 2015, but cancelled in 2018, despite its great critical acclaim. In late 2018, Amazon bought the rights, con‐ tinuing the production with the same cast as an Amazon Original series. view. In this chapter, I want to analyze how the series’ protagonists learn to become kin - not only with each other, as humans from extremely diverse backgrounds and worldviews, but also with non-humans. Within the common reference frame of their space ship, the Rocinante, the protagonists learn how to live well with each other and grow into a family (see Caliban’s War: 262; see Abaddon’s Gate: 107), which, in turn, enables them to act as a collective, bundling their strength and acquiring agency where they had none before. Using both Donna Haraway’s and Jason W. Moore’s theories on kinship and interconnect‐ edness as underlying approaches, this chapter focuses on examples of the real‐ ization and creation of kinship as an “affective practice of belonging” 2 in The Expanse, highlighting how the coming together 3 of diverse characters facilitates collective action. Written by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, under the pseudonym James S. A. Corey, The Expanse presents a futuristic neo-colonial world order, which is dominated by a post-intersectional 4 , tri-polar 5 , geopolitical conflict. Loosely based on The Stars My Destination (1957) by Alfred Bester (see Franck 2012) and originally written as a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (see Orbit Books 2011), the series consists of eight novels (with a final installment an‐ nounced for 2020), two short stories, and four novellas. 6 The Expanse superim‐ poses contemporary ecological, political, scientific, and cultural issues onto a 230 Maria Fleischhack 7 Moore proposes a dismantling of the concept of humans as outside of or against nature, and in turn proposes to focus on “human engagement with the rest of nature,” (Moore 2015: 13) and the understanding that humans are also always already part of nature, which he refers to as the “web of life.” (Moore 2015: 17) At least at its basis, this idea is congruent with Haraway’s concept of kinship. 8 Beings in the sense of critters (cf. Haraway 2016: 1-3) as well as technologically ad‐ vanced life forms and beings outside of our definition of flora and fauna or any known technology. 9 Haraway does not consider herself a posthumanist, but a compostist (see Haraway 2016: 101-02). Nevertheless, she also extensively considers the significance of technologically advanced human beings, including cyborgs and trans-humans. (see Haraway 1991: 154; see Haraway 2016: 2, 102, 150) world that resembles ours in a possible future, but which is not mimetic per se. As one of the most experimental genres, science fiction offers a metaphorical worktop on which humanity-in-nature (see Moore 2016: 9) 7 can be reinvented, science can go beyond our current abilities, and new solutions to pressing prob‐ lems can be explored in theory. Accordingly, The Expanse reflects on both cur‐ rent anxieties and possible solutions for a future in which the protagonists rec‐ ognize the importance of their interconnectedness and kinship with all kinds of beings 8 , and how, by overcoming their prejudices towards each other, they grow into an unlikely family and into a new age beyond the Anthropocene. 2 Terminology In order to discuss the occurrence of kinship and the enabling of collective action in The Expanse, I will refer to Donna Haraway’s concepts of the “Chthulucene,” “making kin,” “response-ability,” and “sympoiesis” (see Haraway 2016) as well as her thoughts on trans-humans 9 , as already laid out in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (1991) and taken up again in Modest_ Witness@Second_Millennium. FemaleMan_Meets_Onco Mouse: Feminism and Technoscience (2018). Furthermore, I will refer to Jason W. Moore’s concepts of the “web of life” (Moore 2015: 14) and “oikeios” (Moore 2015: 35) as further underlying theoretical concepts. Both Haraway and Moore are interested in the ability and necessity of us humans to recognize and actively pursue connections between humans, other critters, and nature. Donna Haraway’s concept of the Chthulucene, the all-encompassing “diverse earthwide tentacular powers and forces” outlined in Staying with the Trouble (Haraway 2016: 101), draws attention to the fact that “no species […] acts alone” (Haraway 2016: 100), and that “everything is connected to something.” (Haraway 2016: 31) These connections are often surprising and seemingly unlikely, yet the 231 Against all Odds: Kinship and Collective Action in The Expanse  10 While Haraway introduces a wealth of concepts and terminology but rarely settles on specific definitions or solutions to the problems she proposes, I will borrow her termi‐ nology and include explanations to what I consider them to mean in each circumstance. 11 “The ‘web of life’ is nature as a whole: nature with an emphatically lowercase n. This is nature as us, as inside us, as around us. It is nature as a flow of flows.” (Moore 2015: 14) recognition of these connections and their possibilities enables us to “stay with the trouble” in order to “live and die well” (Haraway 2016: 7, 101) and, hopefully, “cultivate with each other in every way imaginable epochs to come that can replenish refuge [for] diverse species assemblages” (Haraway 2016: 100), an ability which has been lost in the Anthropocene. Haraway argues for the rec‐ ognition and conscious creation of kinship, not just between humans, but also between humans and nonhumans, in an effort to create diverse collectives to shape a future in the face of recurring major system collapses (see Haraway 2016: 100) and to cultivate “multispecies justice” (Haraway 2016: 3), allowing for a “partial and robust biological-cultural-political-technological recuperation and recomposition.” (Haraway 2016: 101) She further uses the term “sympoiesis” (Haraway 2016: 5), or “making with,” to describe the untenability of “bounded individualism” (Haraway 2016: 5) in the current age, arguing that the tentacular connection to others cannot be denied and has to be made conscious. 10 Jason W. Moore’s Capitalism in the Web of Life (2015) lays out a concept sim‐ ilar to Haraway’s kinship: what Haraway calls the Chthulucene, he refers to as the “web of life,” proposing that “humans make environments and environments make humans - and human organization.” (Moore 2015: 3) In terms of moving beyond the Anthropocene, he suggests that “[a]n alternative begins neither with ‘humans’ nor with ‘nature’ but with the relations that co-produce manifold con‐ figurations of humanity-in-nature, organisms and environments, life and land, water and air.” (Moore 2015: 3) In order to describe the interconnectedness of beings in the world, Haraway’s Chthulucene, he introduces the term “oikeios,” which he defines as a “way of naming the creative, historical, and dialectical relation between, and also always within, human and extra-human natures.” (Moore 2015: 35) He further describes it as “a multi-layered dialectic, comprising flora and fauna, but also our planet’s manifold geological and biospheric con‐ figurations, cycles, and movements.” (Moore 2015: 36) Moore proposes agency to be “a relational property of specific bundles of human and extra-human na‐ ture,” (Moore 2015: 37) explaining that human agency is never just purely human, but always interconnected with nature. 11 Nature’s agency lies in its in‐ fluence of events and developments, not intentional and not necessarily con‐ structive, but palpable and influential. (see Moore 2015: 37) Therefore, humans 232 Maria Fleischhack 12 I interpret Haraway’s term “response-ability” (Haraway 2016: 2) to refer to agency fa‐ cilitated by kinship. act within complex “webs within webs of relation: ‘worlds within worlds’.” (Moore 2015: 7-8) Both theories promote a recognition of these interdependencies and the con‐ nections of humans with other beings in order to create a fairer, better world in the here and now, and to work against yet another system collapse. This rec‐ ognition forces us to “stay with the trouble” (Haraway 2016: 4) and “requires learning to be truly present, […] as mortal critters entwined in myriad unfinished configurations of places, times, matters, meanings.” (Haraway 2016: 1) At the same time, it lays out a path for collective action, which requires a conscious recognition of kinship between all members of the collective, whether human or non-human. 3 The Expanse In her work, Haraway frequently refers to science fiction as a literary mode well suited for the exploration of such processes, as the genre lends itself to experi‐ mental writing, expanding possible concepts of kinship beyond notions of fam‐ ilial relationships between humans. (see Haraway 2016: 230) In her words, “ SF is storytelling and fact telling; it is the patterning of possible worlds and possible times, material-semiotic worlds, gone, here, and yet to come.” (2016: 31) While she addresses kinship extending beyond human-human relationships, especially with regard to human-animal kinship, she further proposes that kinship exists with other elements of the natural world, as well as machines, reaching into all aspects of life and realizing the tentacular interconnection she ascribes to the Chthulucene. For example, a narrative featuring a “cyborg world might be about lived social and bodily realities in which people are not afraid of their joint kinship with animals and machines, not afraid of permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints.” (Haraway 1991: 154; see Haraway 2016: 2, 150) The recognition and creation of kinship with other critters as well as beings beyond our definition of ‘being alive’ facilitates collective action to re‐ sponse-ably 12 and selflessly work towards a more inclusive world, and it drives the action of the science fiction series The Expanse. The series’ first installment, Leviathan Wakes (2011), takes place in the future - likely in the 24 th century (see Fandyllic 2017) - after several ecological and humanitarian crises similar to the ones that have recently been so present in our news cycle. The initial conflict concerns Earth as the epitome of a neo-liberal, Western ruling class that has 233 Against all Odds: Kinship and Collective Action in The Expanse  13 The main characters of the series are: Naomi Nagata, an excellent engineer and hacker from Ceres Station in the Belt, who was a member of the rebellious OPA (Outer Planets Alliance) with links to a terrorist cell in her youth; Amos Burton (originally Timothy, but taking on the name Amos Burton from a criminal whom he killed), a gifted mechanic from Baltimore on Earth, who suffers from childhood trauma and lacks emotional in‐ telligence and empathy, and who is an excellent close combat fighter and close ally of Naomi Nagata; Alex Kamal, a former mediocre Navy pilot for Mars; and James Holden, the son of eight parents who grew up on a farm in Montana, and who was dishonorably discharged from the United Nations Navy. Josephus Miller, a disloyal police officer from the Belt working for a security company from Earth is a fifth essential character. 14 The initial collective trauma that brings the crew of the Rocinante together lies in losing the majority of their colleagues and friends in an attack. Throughout the novels, several characters who become part of the crew and the collective next to the four main pro‐ tagonists die in the presence of the other crewmembers. Mourning their loss and sac‐ rifice is a major driving force for them becoming even more protective of each other. used up nearly all available resources. The planet is inhabited by 30 billion people, almost devoid of any remaining natural resources, with walled up coast‐ lines to keep the rising sea levels from flooding the continents. Mars, the second power, is a representation of a middle class that is caught in military aggression against its parent state. Both planets heavily rely on resources provided by workers in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter (henceforth referred to as the Belt), where inhumane living conditions have led to open rebellion. These tensions are ever-present and permeate almost every part of the system. The series’ protagonists 13 come from all three parts of the solar system, set further apart by their social and political backgrounds, which causes initial dis‐ agreements on the most fundamental questions of ethics and conduct. Thrown together by an act of eco-terrorism which leaves them as the sole survivors of a space ship crew, they originally work together only in order to ensure their own survival. The first and continuously important element that brings them together is their collective trauma. While they initially struggle with the hier‐ archy in the group, each member occupies a position that is uniquely suited to them, allowing them to work extremely well together as a team. Their individual talents and expertise merge into an effective skillset, which enables the small crew to man a ship which would usually be staffed by a dozen or more crew and to stay hidden from the politicians’ radars. (see Leviathan Wakes: 157, 162, 178- 79) Over time, their collaborative efforts become affectionate, and they begin to overcome the initial traumatic experience that brought them together, first be‐ coming friends and then growing into a tightly-knit family. 14 As they overcome their prejudices towards each other and combine their strengths, they become a fourth power with the ability to hinder or assist either of the three governments in the solar system, depending on their collective moral principles. 234 Maria Fleischhack 15 The protomolecule is a highly advanced technology which displays certain qualities of a lifeform. It can be read as artificial intelligence, which is able to physically adapt to its surroundings, merge with animal or floral DNA and take on any shape or form. 16 In science fiction, the term Sol system is generally used to refer to Earth’s solar system in order to differentiate it from other solar systems. 17 While planets outside of Earth’s solar system are discovered and colonized, most other life forms found on those planets are animals and plants. Where possible, human settlers adapt to those new florae and faunae. Yet, it is not only the group’s ability to compromise and live response-ably with each other that allows for collective action against much more powerful forces. These actions are always also political, both in the sense of how they position themselves within the political conflict, and also in the sense that they defy stereotypes and the socially ingrained distrust in each other. (see Cibola Burn 215-16) It is their defiance of all expectations that gives them more sig‐ nificance than a simple taskforce or team would carry. After they find themselves confronted with an alien lifeform 15 referred to as the protomolecule, which they initially seek to destroy, they begin to understand that it is already deeply and inseparably integrated into their lives specifically, and life as they know it in general. Only by accepting the reality of the situation, James Holden, the main protagonist of the series, is able to communicate with an apparently conscious part of the protomolecule, which enables him to save the Sol 16 system from destruction, and open a gate which connects it with hun‐ dreds of other solar systems. (see Abaddon’s Gate 266-8; cf. Cibola Burn 1) At the risk of losing their lives, Holden and his crew “make trouble” in Haraway’s sense (Haraway 2016: 1), and they stay with it. They “stir up potent response to devastating events, […] settle troubled waters and rebuild quiet places.” (Har‐ away 2016: 1) The crew does not envision a specific future, and many of their actions have unforeseeable consequences, reverberating through the universe; but they live in the moment and try to make the present as bearable as possible for as many people 17 as possible under the given circumstances. It appears that their decision to base action on current events and to react instead of actively seeking out work or political involvement; they are able to focus on their im‐ mediate environment and their respective needs in each moment instead of clashing over any notions of how they envision the future. This approach allows them to be flexible, negotiate, and renegotiate their actions and to grow with each other. (see Caliban’s War: 430) Throughout the series, ecosystems collapse, and human, animal, and plant life on the settled planets and stations becomes repeatedly endangered. It is within this ever changing world on the brink of destruction that Holden and his crew choose to “live and [if necessary] die well” (Haraway 2016: 150) with each other, learning to become more response-able 235 Against all Odds: Kinship and Collective Action in The Expanse  18 Haraway refers to Dempster’s definition of sympoiesis as “collectively-producing sys‐ tems that do not have self-defined spatial or temporal boundaries. Information and control are distributed among components. The systems are evolutionary and have the potential for surprising change.” (Dempster in Haraway 2016: 33) and to become conscious of the interconnectedness between themselves and other beings, gaining agency, and facilitating collective action. 4 Kinship in The Expanse Despite a multitude of characters and narrative perspectives presented in The Expanse, the main emphasis lies on the character development of James Holden. The focus, however, lies not on his individual actions and decisions, but always on the circumstances in which he exists, acts, and makes kin. Starting out as a man whose supposed moral superiority alienates him from others, he quickly and painfully learns that actions which he believes to be right and necessary put other people in harm’s way. (see Leviathan Wakes: 59, 75; see Caliban’s War: 170, 426) One major plot line of the series concerns his character’s learning curve as he realizes that his individualism is unsustainable in the face of the problems he and his peers are confronted with. What is more, he learns that it is not only his fellow crewmembers and their expertise, which ensure their wellbeing and sur‐ vival, but that his connections to machines (such as the Rocinante as their means of transport, battleship, hiding place, and home) or alien technology with life-like characteristics allow him to achieve what he never could on his own. Borrowing Haraway’s term, The Expanse explores how James Holden’s ap‐ proach to life changes from well-intended individualism to sympoiesis 18 . (see Leviathan Wakes: 558; see Caliban’s War: 578; Abaddon’s Gate: 498-99) This development from a lone decision-maker to a member of a closely-knit collective becomes obvious in the series’ first two installments. In the beginning, Holden triggers a political chain reaction by broadcasting a system-wide mes‐ sage accusing Mars of a terrorist attack on a ship from Earth, not considering that he might not know the whole truth. (see Leviathan Wakes: 59, 80-81) His message leads to rebellion and belligerence from the different powers in the solar system, almost causing a nuclear war. A powerful politician from Earth, Chrisjen Avasarala, looks into Holden’s history and finds that he is a “man without secrets. The holy fool who’d dragged the solar system into war and seemed utterly blind to the damage he caused. An idealist. The most dangerous kind of man there [is]. And a good man too.” (Caliban’s War: 493) She recognizes how Holden’s ethical foundation represents both a major risk to the brittle peace she worked hard to uphold, as well as a chance to overcome the conflicts in the 236 Maria Fleischhack 19 Holden, as well as other crewmembers, do occasionally make decisions over the heads of the others, but the fallout never leads to a destruction of the collective. Instead, they always come back together and try to understand the motivation behind these actions, helping them to grow stronger as a group. 20 The bodies of Belters have adapted to life in zero or very little gravity and elongated, while their heads are generally larger and thinner than those who grew up in gravity. Naomi Nagata is therefore taller than the other crewmembers. solar system outside of the political arena. Holden’s idealism and his urge to share as much information with as many people as possible, always hoping that, collectively and individually, they will make the right choices, repeatedly coun‐ teracts political decisions made by the powers that be, forcing them to become less reactionary and occasionally change their minds. Holden himself learns from the initial catastrophe which he triggered in his naiveté, and henceforth involves the crew of the Rocinante in his decision making. 19 They form a grass‐ roots democratic group in which a majority vote decides their collective action. (see Caliban’s War: 430; see Babylon’s Ashes: 522) A further important aspect connected to character growth in relation to the formation of a collective is their realization that strength lies in diversity. Har‐ away speaks of making “kin in line of inventive connection as a practice of learning to live and die well with each other” (Haraway 2016: 1) and to collab‐ orate with each other in unexpected ways. (see Haraway 2016: 4) While the members of the crew of the Rocinante are all humans, they are decidedly different from each other. Not only their origin differs - representing members of the three different powers with varying degrees of patriotism - but their sociocul‐ tural background, their sexual orientation, their physiognomy 20 , their morals, their skills, and general characteristics are also very distinct. Despite having been socialized to be suspicious of each other, the four crewmembers quickly learn that they gain power to act as a collective not in spite of their differences, but because of them. On a very practical level, their different skill sets allow them to man a space ship with a skeleton crew of four instead of the full crew. (see Cibola Burn: 193; see Babylon’s Ashes: 277) More importantly, however, their differences allow them to analyze and solve problems not from one position, but to approach each issue from a variety of standpoints. Because of this conscious practice of listening to each other’s opinions and doubts, as well as their emo‐ tional responses, their decision making processes involve the consideration of the often overlooked or disenfranchised, allowing them to consider what is best for all members of the group, and not just one individual. They effectively prac‐ tice sympoiesis. 237 Against all Odds: Kinship and Collective Action in The Expanse  The group’s diversity represents a sample of the wider system in a meta‐ phorical petri dish in which power is constantly negotiated. The crew of the Rocinante overcomes differences in a microcosm that suggests possible ways forward for the macrocosm of the planetary system(s). By extension, this allows the group members to develop a deeper understanding of all the parties involved in the conflicts of the series, as well as of the system(s) they exist in. Furthermore, as they refuse to take sides in the struggles, they cannot wholly represent any of the three major powers and are always able to act independently of oppressive political agendas. They can react to the threat of civil war, terrorism, interplan‐ etary conflict, and alien technology, which endanger not only the solar system as a whole, but each individual resident. It is in this environment that The Expanse explores the possibilities, but also the limits of a democratic, affective unit based on tolerance and acceptance of the differences between the members of the group, even if these differences are severe and seem initially insurmount‐ able. In turn, these differences help in decision making processes and allow for a more inclusive approach to peacekeeping and rescue missions (see the plots of Abaddon’s Gate, Cibola Burns, and Tiamat’s Wrath), which are not necessarily altruistic, but always in the interest of all crew members. Their collective action is marked by its political implications as subversive to the existing system which resonates constantly within the collective, but also within their environment, causing constant adaptation and change. This initially external motivation grad‐ ually becomes intrinsic, and the crew of the Rocinante begins to actively refer to each other as a family, clearly distinguishing themselves from outside groups and individuals. In Nemesis Game, Alex Kamal philosophizes on the nature of family, fully aware that his little family does not at all fit any common category of blood-related family, but that he lacks any other definition for the emotional connection to the other three crewmembers: A mother could love her daughter more than life itself the way the stories told, or she could hate the girl’s guts. Or both. A sister and brother could get along or fight each other or pass by in a kind of uncomfortable indifference. And if real relation‐ ship-by-blood shared descent could mean any of those things, maybe family was al‐ ways a metaphor. (Nemesis Game: 163) Within the context of the series, the crew’s affective connection can be described as kinship. It is not as far reaching as Haraway’s notion of it, but they do make “oddkin”: against social or political conventions, they become response-able for and with each other. (see Haraway 2016: 2) The recognition of their mutual affection and respect for each other and the notion that they, as individuals, can feel safer and achieve more than they could on their own while absolutely 238 Maria Fleischhack trusting the other members of their family enables collective action. This trust is frequently tested due to misunderstandings, individual actions, and events outside of their control - yet always re-established by consciously and willingly choosing to forgive and to strive for community. In many ways, their together‐ ness is negotiated on a rational level while their love for each other is unshakable once it is established. One further element that Haraway links to kinship is the recognition of mor‐ tality and the mourning of losses, as it puts emphasis on what is important. (see Haraway 2016: 38, 101) This ability to mourn and to be conscious of possible loss is a further element which is also reflected on in the series. The members of the crew are intensely aware of their own mortality, stressing the importance to live well, and, if necessary, to die well together: “[t]he fragility of their little family struck him full force. The paths that had pulled them all together had been so diverse, as improbable and unlikely as those kinds of things ever were. And the universe could easily take them apart.” (Abaddon’s Gate: 107) At one point, Naomi Nagata risks her life to ensure that the rest of her crew lives: “[t]his was throwing herself in front of a bullet so that it wouldn’t hit her friends. Her family. The family she’d chosen. The one built from people who had risked their lives for her.” (Nemesis Games: 476-77) Every volume of the series features pas‐ sages in which the characters reflect on the deep connection they have with the other crewmembers. Their protective instinct towards each other in an attempt to preserve their relationship informs their decision-making processes and thereby dictates their collective action. In a climate in which death of humans or entire ecosystems becomes part of the protagonists’ everyday life and they are in constant danger of dying, their relationships with each other and within their environment become anchored in the present. Apart from their conscious existence in the present, the conscious overstep‐ ping of social and political rules and regulations, it is the unexpected growth into a family that enables the crew to act collectively. Their agency for collective action is ultimately based in the synergy of their individual skills which, when used together, strengthens and enables the whole group as well as the material conditions in which they act. Borrowing Moore’s terminology, the Rocinante forms the basis for “oikeios, […] the creative, generative, and multi-layered re‐ lation of species and environment.” (Moore 2015: 15) Moore uses the term to explore the accumulation of capital within the web of life, yet it also lends itself to an exploration of kinship that includes the process of growing consciousness of beings within and with their environment. While some technology in the series could be interpreted to actually have agency, like the protomolecule, one machine is essential as a frame of reference in which kinship becomes possible: 239 Against all Odds: Kinship and Collective Action in The Expanse  21 In Cibola Burn, Alex Kamal refers to the ship as a member of the crew when there are just two people on the Rocinante, making obvious her significance for him as an essential part of his chosen family: “There’s three of us. […] Don’t forget. We’ve got the Roci.” (397) the Rocinante is a salvaged Martian battleship which is simultaneously a safe haven, hiding place, workplace, and community space, and eventually becomes ‘home’ for all members of the crew. “The Roci was home, and no matter how hard his rational mind argued that they were still in terrible danger, home was safe.” (Caliban’s War: 235) Its significance for them is largely based on the ex‐ periences they share on the ship, and their relationship with each other becomes closely linked to their relationship to the Rocinante. While the ship does not act on its own and has no agency per se, the crewmembers quickly begin to refer to it as their home and as an extension of themselves 21 - their one fixed point of common reference in the universe to which they become intensely connected and which defines them, also, as a collective. He was aware of a deep and oceanic cavern of want in his belly. Something that was like hunger or thirst, exhaustion or lust, but that wouldn’t be satisfied. […] And then the word for it came. He was homesick, and the Rocinante, wonderful as she was, wasn’t home unless Alex and Amos and Naomi were in her. He wondered how long the feeling would last if they never came back. How long he’d wait for them, even once he knew they wouldn’t return. (Nemesis Games: 300) As the material and emotional basis for kinship, the Rocinante acts as a catalyst for the exploration of different possibilities of experiencing and building kinship within this chosen / grown family. It is an essential element in the “web of life” (Moore 2015: 3) of the characters. A further component of the crew’s coming together as a family is connected to preparing and sharing food in the ship’s kitchen. Naomi blended together fake eggs and fake cheese. Amos cooked tomato paste […]. Alex, who had the duty watch, had forwarded ship ops down to a panel in the galley and sat at a table next to it, spreading the fake cheese paste and red sauce onto flat noodles […]. Holden had oven duty and had spent the lasagne prep time baking frozen lumps of dough into bread. (Leviathan Wakes: 367) Food becomes such an integral part of ‘family’ life on the Rocinante in terms of negotiating opinions, coming back together after conflict, and considering ac‐ tions to take, that Alex Kamal begins to equate conversations with the crew‐ members and food with family, even when outside the ship: “Can’t talk without food. It’s not family unless there’s a meal.” (Tiamat’s Wrath: 28) Having meals 240 Maria Fleischhack together and nurturing each other even in the face of conflict is one of the most important aspects of the connection that is made on the ship. It reflects a con‐ sciousness of the need of togetherness that goes beyond practicality or mere survival instincts. The affective bond between the crewmembers, and their be‐ havior towards each other and their ship can therefore also be described as kinship. 5 Transand Posthumanism in The Expanse The Expanse explores the gradual breakdown of definitions of ‘life’ and ‘human’ in the humanist sense towards something new and less definitive. In this context, it is intriguing to consider Haraway’s approach to kinship as a tentacular ‘reaching out towards other beings’ and a reformation of our age while simul‐ taneously taking her work on cyborgs and trans-ness (see Haraway 1991; see Haraway 2016) into account. For Haraway, the scientific developments from the early 1970s onwards have led to a trans-ness in humans, widening the definition of what a human being is, and linking humans more closely to other organisms and machines: [t]ransported, terran chemical and biological kinship gets realigned to include the extraterrestrial and the alien. Like the transuranic elements, transgenic creatures, which carry genes from “unrelated” organisms, simultaneously fit into [well-estab‐ lished] taxonomic and evolutionary discourses and also blast widely understood senses of natural limit. (Haraway and Goodeve 2018: 56) Despite these considerations, Haraway does not identify as a posthumanist, but as a compostist. (see Haraway 2016: 101) Because Moore also does not touch on posthumanism as such, I want to briefly introduce working definitions for the terms ‘cyborg,’ ‘transhuman,’ and ‘posthuman’ in order to address non-human kinship in The Expanse. Nikki Olson has compiled a brief historical overview of the definitions of cyborgs, transhumans, and posthumans, following the devel‐ opment and changes of meaning for each term. In the most basic terms, cyborgs have been understood to be humans (or animals) aided by machines, often en‐ hancing their abilities. (see Olson 2013) In The Expanse, examples would include humans wearing space suits which constantly control their wearer’s bodily functions and administer medicine or cover wounds in an emergency, allowing their wearers to move in hostile environments without having to consider their physical condition, or the spaceship seats which automatically administer a drug into the bloodstream of the crew when they fly in extreme gravity for an ex‐ tended period of time, ensuring their survival. However, the ability to act is still 241 Against all Odds: Kinship and Collective Action in The Expanse  22 The website Transhumanist FAQ, from which Olson took Bostrom’s quote, features a more elaborate definition: “[p]osthumans could be completely synthetic artificial in‐ telligences, or they could be enhanced uploads [see “What is uploading? ”], or they could be the result of making many smaller but cumulatively profound augmentations to a biological human. The latter alternative would probably require either the redesign of the human organism using advanced nanotechnology or its radical enhancement using some combination of technologies such as genetic engineering, psychopharmacology, anti-aging therapies, neural interfaces, advanced information management tools, memory enhancing drugs, wearable computers, and cognitive techniques.” (Humanity + “What is a Posthuman? ”) 23 I use artifact and technology for lack of better terms. Its properties evade any clear definition. in the range of human possibility, and only strengthened or enhanced further. Max More sees a difference between cyborgs and transhumans in the extent of the alteration of the human. A cyborg, for him, is a clearly recognizable human who is aided by a machine which simply supports life, or which enhances human performance. Transhumanism, however, is defined by implanted “devices [or] reengineering of the body or brain that will allow us to have perception and cognitive and emotional ranges beyond that of any human being.” (More in Olson 2013) As a final step, Nick Bostrom defines a posthuman as “a being whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer unambiguously human by our current standards.” 22 (Bostrom in Olson 2013) While the technological advances in The Expanse include both the artificial enhancement of human abilities as well as, to some extent, transhumanism, a driving force in the plot is the alien artifact or technology 23 commonly referred to as the protomolecule. Its properties, among many others, include its ability to merge with, change, and adapt to living organisms. It is able to seek out a host, completely overhaul its genetic makeup, and take on new forms which can resemble living beings, but also a wealth of materials which cannot clearly be defined as being alive, but also not as a mere material. It thrives off nuclear energy and is both one compact entity and many parts of itself. Its similarity to adaptive processes known from nature are not lost on the crewmembers of the Rocinante: ‘Apparently when a caterpillar makes a cocoon, the next thing it does is melt. Com‐ pletely liquefies. And then all the little bits of what used to be caterpillar come back together as a moth or a butterfly or something. Finds a different way to assemble all the same pieces and make it something else.’ ‘Sounds like the protomolecule.’ (Baby‐ lon’s Ashes: 201) The guiding questions asked about the protomolecule by politicians, scientists, and businessmen concern the extent to which it is intentionally destructive, whether it can be abused or used by science, and in how far it might represent a chance 242 Maria Fleischhack 24 Or, as hinted at in the quote above, liquefies and reconstructs into something new. 25 I use the term infected here, as the protomolecule appears to enter the human organism like a virus, causing sickness and vomiting before it begins to dissolve its host from the inside, and consequently reshapes it according to its intended purpose. 26 Under the control of the protomolecule, the asteroid moves in space without any ad‐ herence to the gravitational pull of its surrounding celestial bodies. As it possesses no drive, and therefore no thrust, it should not be able to move freely in space, changing directions apparently at will. for humanity and nature to adapt to the increasingly hostile environment of the solar system (and other systems). Because it physically destroys 24 whoever and whatever it comes into contact with, Holden and his crew seek out the artifact and attempt to annihilate it, initially seeing in it only the threat it poses to humankind and not the multitude of possibilities that its adaptability presents. That it does not only destroy human life, but also retains some of the characteristics of the individuals it incorporates into its own physical makeup becomes clear when an entire asteroid station is intentionally infected 25 with the protomolecule in the name of science. Despite the total destruction of the physical form of the inhabitants of the station, their voices can be picked up via radio signals. Understanding that incorporeal rem‐ nants of the humans on the station remain part of the newly formed entity, Josephus Miller decides to appeal to this rational remnant and talk the station out of crashing into Earth, as he believes a sudden and inexplicable trajectory of the infected station towards Earth, which breaks the common laws of physics 26 , can only be explained by the strong wish of one of the infected indi‐ viduals to return back to Earth. However, in his current form, he is unable to communicate with the station. Just like the infected individuals, he needs to become posthuman in order to successfully enter this particular web of relations and plead with the strong-minded remnant of humanity that controls the sta‐ tion’s movements. He allows himself to become infected - becoming kin with the protomolecule’s assemblage - and succeeds in redirecting the station into the highly poisonous atmosphere of Venus, hoping to destroy the imminent threat to humanity. Nevertheless, the protomolecule begins to evolve, assimi‐ lating parts of Venus into its structure and leeching energy from it before it transforms into a kraken-like construction which detaches itself from the planet and settles in a vacuum close to Uranus. Spoke-like strands of iridescence arced with vast lightning storms, coming together like the arms of an octopus but connected to a rigid central node. […] A long plume of displaced Venusian atmosphere caught the sun and glowed like snowflakes and 243 Against all Odds: Kinship and Collective Action in The Expanse  27 Kinship could here be described as symbiosis. slivers of ice […]. It folded its arms—its tentacles—together, accelerating without any visible drive plume. It swam in the void. (Caliban’s War: 591) The technology settles in its final form, a ring-gate, opening access to an arti‐ ficially created, starless space which, in turn, leads to 1,373 further gates, and with them the same number of inhabitable planetary systems. (see Abaddon’s Gate: 519) Without Miller’s readiness to step out of his comfort zone and become kin with the protomolecule by sacrificing his humanity, this significant exten‐ sion of access to other planetary systems would not have been possible. Yet Miller is not destroyed in the restructuring of the protomolecule. He, too, evolves and becomes posthuman; an advanced liminal being, caught between the familiar, conscious mind of a human and the alien, unconscious protomo‐ lecule technology that is referred to as “the investigator.” (cf. Cibola Burn 37 ff.) Just as the human Miller sought to adapt in order to be able to communicate with the protomolecule, his posthuman form seeks to communicate with other lifeforms or technologies with the goal of warning them of a destructive force that annihilated the lifeform that originally created the protomolecule: - it reaches out it reaches out if reaches out it reaches out - One hundred and thirteen times a second, nothing answers and it reaches out. It feels no frustration, though parts of it do. It is not designed to incorporate consciousness or will, but to use whatever it finds. The minds within it are encysted, walled off. They are used when they are of use, as is everything and it reaches out. (Cibola Burn: 117) The protomolecule, as it is described in this instance, has incorporated the minds of those it dissolved into its own form. I would like to suggest that this is clearly the development of something posthuman; it is ‘making kin’ taken literally in a physical sense. 27 In this instance, kinship is a precondition for collective ac‐ tion - as the investigator needs to take on this form of Miller to communicate with a different kind of being. The investigator eventually succeeds in finding Jim Holden, whom it ap‐ proaches in the form of a recurring hallucination in the shape of Miller, remem‐ bering only remnants of his past while clearly attempting to communicate the technology’s needs into which his consciousness has been integrated. (see Abaddon’s Gate: 233; see Cibola Burn: 452-54) Because Holden had been in very close contact with the protomolecule and shared traumatic experiences with Miller (see Leviathan Wakes: 293-310), a connection is more easily established. Miller’s familiar shape and demeanor encourage Holden to overcome his terror of the protomolecule and form an alliance with him. This alliance can also be 244 Maria Fleischhack 28 Only that it is not human-made, but created by an unknown extinct alien race. interpreted as kinship - a mutual understanding of the connection between human and posthuman beings which enables them to act while simultaneously allowing for a deeper understanding of their role within the larger picture of their existence. The recognition and realization of connections outside of the known and accepted social, political, or even technical norms allows for new approaches to becoming kin with beings outside our traditional understanding of ‘beings’ within the web of our existence. Miller, whose lack of a physical form and clear goal keep him from acting can now direct Holden, and Holden, whose understanding of the workings of the universe are limited, gains much greater insight into the makeup and history of the universe and the place that life has in it. In the context of proposed kinship between humans and non-humans, Haraway argues that it is important not to see technical projects as the enemy. “They can do many important things for staying with the trouble and for making generative oddkin.” (Haraway 2016: 3) While Holden is both catalyst and tool for collective action with the protomo‐ lecule, the investigator increasingly regains some of Miller’s personality and memories to the extent that Miller’s mind begins to override the protomolecule’s algorithms - a sign that the posthuman creature adapts to Holden’s humanity and, for a limited time, becomes trans-human. This decisive change is also re‐ flected in the narrative description, changing the personal pronoun of the in‐ vestigator from “it” to “him”: [t]he investigator exceeds its boundary conditions. It tries to kill the investigator. It fails. It feels no distress at the failure […]. The investigator […] feels pleasure and regret because they are part of the template. […] It remembers taking a woman’s hand in its own. The investigator reaches out, reaches down. […] The investigator pushes his hat back, wishes he had a beer. He likes this woman. […] There is a struggle at the end. (Cibola Burn: 549-550) The investigator’s character perfectly showcases the opportunity science fiction offers to expanding our understanding of what it means to be human and to rethink concepts of kinship and collective action. In Moore’s words, the inves‐ tigator’s actions present “a relational property of specific bundles of human and extra-human nature,” subscribing agency to him / it. (Moore 2015: 37) In Posthumanism: A Guide for the Perplexed (2017), Peter Mahon considers that cognizant digital technologies, to which the protomolecule could be considered to belong 28 , “have their own distributed cognition, which also necessarily ex‐ tends ‘into’ us as we use it, and must necessarily change how we conceive of 245 Against all Odds: Kinship and Collective Action in The Expanse  29 Tiamat’s Wrath is the latest novel at the time this chapter was written. It is certain that this development of a new species will be expanded upon in the final installment of the series. ‘human’ knowledge, agency competency etc.” (Mahon: 137-38) It is one of the most important moments of learning for Holden to realize that Miller is not simply a hallucination, but something quite real, even if he cannot be defined in any material terms, and that his instructions actually lead Holden to save the universe by dismantling a hostile technology built by the race that eradicated the creators of the protomolecule. While this development might not quite overlap with Haraway’s understanding of making kin, I would argue that the investigator’s search for a connection is as much a metaphor for seeking out collaboration and conducting sympoiesis as her Chthulucene is. The protomolecule can be read as “symchthonic” as it “compose[s] and de‐ compose[s]” (Haraway 2015: 102); it can take on any shape and merge or redefine its substance with any material, whether biochemical or artificially created. To some extent, this fusion can be controlled, which many different scientists in the series are attempting. In the 8 th installment 29 , Tiamat's Wrath, scientists working for a dictator begin to merge the protomolecule with human and non-human matter and technology, such as spaceships and weapons, plants, animals, and humans, trying to gain knowledge and control over the behavior of the protomolecule. Striving to become an absolute ruler over all planetary systems, the dictator injects himself with the protomolecule, attempting to be‐ come immortal. At the same time, indestructible self-repairing weapons and space ships are created by merging metals with the substance, rendering all conventional weapons useless. It is only by destroying the fusion reactors, whose energy feeds the protomolecule, that the ships become vulnerable. It is in the strain of this series of experiments that the corpses of human children are injected with the protomolecule and ‘come back to life,’ hosting their own con‐ sciousness and unique memories while their bodies are a product of the proto‐ molecule’s ability to take on human shapes. How this is achieved is not yet explained in detail in the novel, but it appears quite clear that a new posthuman species has been created whose consciousness is not controlled by the tech‐ nology, but by the former human. In a way, this harks back to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but Victor Frankenstein and his creature, though certainly oddkin, never quite manage to live with one another. Whether the creator and the cre‐ ated in The Expanse will learn to live with each other remains to be seen. It becomes clear, however, that these posthumans are capable of kinship with other beings. Amos Burton is killed in Tiamat’s Wrath, but self-regulating robots, which have been built with the help of the protomolecule, find his corpse and 246 Maria Fleischhack ‘repair’ him. The narrative heavily hints at the fact that his genetic makeup is totally altered under the influence of the protomolecule; nevertheless, his phys‐ ical appearance is reinstated, and his memory as well as his personality traits remain intact. While the crew members notice a difference in him, they imme‐ diately welcome him back into their family. “His skin was somehow pale and dark at the same time, like a thin coat of white paint over black. His eyes were darkness, and there was something strange about the way he moved.” (Tiamat’s Wrath: 507) In this way, the group’s kinship is extended to include a posthuman. “‘You’re different.’ ‘Yup,’ he said, smiling amiably. It was such an unmistakably Amos-like thing to say. Such a familiar way to say it.” (Tiamat’s Wrath: 508) Yet, when Naomi embraces him, it feels “like hugging a metal strut.” (Tiamat’s Wrath: 508) He has changed in a way that completely separates him from his former self, yet the protomolecule has adapted to him in a way that his essence remains intact. Whether he will evolve in any way or change beyond recogni‐ tion, and whether his new state of being will further the crew’s ability to act collectively - possibly now with the agency of the protomolecule as a far reaching network - will likely be answered in the final installment of the series. 6 Conclusion The Expanse explores how the crew of the Rocinante becomes kin, first amongst themselves as a group that grows into a family, and later with other beings and states of existence, including the change of one of their crewmembers into a posthuman. While not all of Haraway’s concepts connected to kinship can be applied to the novel series, her terminology helps to understand the underlying processes connected to reaching out towards others and forming unexpected alliances which facilitate collective action. Moore’s consideration of the “relation between, and also always within, human and extra-human natures,” (Moore 2015: 46) also helps to analyze the foundation of collective action taken by the crew and their kin. The Expanse draws attention to the unintended consequences individual actions can have, which often go unnoticed by the originator, but which ultimately reverberate within their ‘web of life.’ At the same time, the series explores the relational connections between humans and other beings and their evolving understanding of the strength that lies in forming alliances with unlikely and unexpected beings, including alien technology, but also posthu‐ mans. When reading kinship as an affective practice of belonging, then the crew’s progress reflects exactly that. Their choices and experiences affect their immediate environment and their relationship with each other, which, in turn, strengthens their bond. Because their decision-making processes are negotiated 247 Against all Odds: Kinship and Collective Action in The Expanse  and reflected on repeatedly, they create an environment in which they become kin, living and dying well with each other, while inviting kinship with other humans and non-humans as well. Furthermore, they become emotionally con‐ nected to the Rocinante, which forms a pivotal point and basis for kinship. In a similar way, Holden and the investigator become kin by moving towards each other and facilitating agency while forming an emotional bond. While Haraway opens up a multitude of questions and considerations, she makes no claim to solutions or answers to her questions. Science fiction as a genre, and The Expanse as representative thereof, however, provide a way of playing with potential an‐ swers, running through possible scenarios, and exploring in how far current issues might be tackled under altered circumstances. In the series, kinship serves as an undercurrent or frame of possibilities that facilitates collective action and affords agency to those who recognize and actively pursue connections beyond their own immediate periphery. Works Cited Corey, James S. A. (2011). Leviathan Wakes. London: Orbit. Corey, James S. A. (2012). Caliban’s War. London: Orbit. Corey, James S. A. (2013). Abaddon’s Gate. London: Orbit. Corey, James S. A. (2014). Cibola Burn. London: Orbit. Corey, James S. A. (2015). Nemesis Games. London: Orbit. Corey, James S. A. (2016). Babylon’s Ashes. London: Orbit. Corey, James S. A. (2019). Tiamat’s Wrath. London: Orbit. Fandyllic (2017). ‘So Ty […] said 2350 is a good ballpark.’ The Expanse Wiki. 7 April. http s: / / expanse.fandom.com/ f/ p/ 2179357531439681089#9 (accessed 29 July 2019). Franck, Ty (2012). ‘Paying Tribute: The Stars My Destination.’ Lizard Brain. 30 January. www.danielabraham.com/ 2012/ 01/ 30/ paying-tribute-the-stars-my-destination/ (ac‐ cessed 29 July 2019). Haraway, Donna (1991). Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge. Haraway, Donna (2015). ‘Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin.’ Environmental Humanities, 6.1, 159-65. Haraway, Donna (2016). Staying With the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Haraway, Donna and Thyrza Goodeve (2018). Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium. Fe‐ maleMan_Meets_OncoMouse: Feminism and Technoscience. London and New York: Routledge. 248 Maria Fleischhack Humanity + (2018). ‘What is a Posthuman? ’ Transhumanist FAQ. https: / / humanityplus. org/ philosophy/ transhumanist-faq (accessed 27 November 2019). Latour, Bruno (2004). Politics of Nature: How to Bring Sciences into Democracy, transl. Catherine Porter. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Mahon, Peter (2017). Posthumanism: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Moore, Jason W. (2015). Capitalism in the Web of Life. London and New York: Verso. Olson, Nikki (2013). ‘Do You Want to be a Cyborg? ’ Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. 5 January. https: / / ieet.org/ index.php/ IEET2/ more/ olson20130105 (ac‐ cessed 27 November 2019). Orbit Books, 2011, ‘Leviathan Wakes: Part One (Interview).’ Youtube, 10: 58. 23 January. www.youtube.com/ watch? v=Yu0xJpCy95o. Pimm, Stuart et al. (2014). ‘The Biodiversity of Species and their Rates of Extinction, Distribution, and Protection.’ Science, 344, 6187. doi: 10.1126 / science.1 246 752. 249 Against all Odds: Kinship and Collective Action in The Expanse  Resistance is Fertile: The Popularization of Kinship and the Impossibility of Reaching Utopia in Mad Max: Fury Road Jonatan Jalle Steller Keywords: kinship, blockbuster film, redistribution, wasteland, fertility 1 Introduction In Staying with the Trouble, Donna Haraway calls for “logical relations” (2016: 103) between different people to supplant the predominantly genealogical no‐ tions of kinship which, as Haraway argues, persist in the present day. According to this line of argument, common conceptions of kinship - be they ‘the family,’ ‘the nation,’ or even ‘ethnicity’ - are based on the logic of reproduction and thus rely on the literal or metaphorical existence of a common ancestor. Against this backdrop, Haraway develops her own vision of kinship as relations among what she calls ‘oddkin’: allies across divides such as gender, class, and even species which should be thought of as complex assemblages inhabiting the same envi‐ ronments rather than merely as groups establishing their identity through real or imagined blood relations. (see Haraway 2016: 4, 102-03) This call for making new kinds of kin gains its impetus from the experience of environmental de‐ struction. Haraway observes that the present day amounts to “earth’s sixth great extinction event […] in the midst of engulfing wars, extractions, and immiser‐ ations of billions of people and other critters for something called ‘profit’ or ‘power’.” (2016: 4) Her book’s titular practice of ‘staying with the trouble’ con‐ nects the demand for imaginative kin connections with the purpose of making the present worthwhile: it refers to continuously engaging with the world we inhabit in order to change what we deem wrong, but also to creating and re-cre‐ ating spaces in which assemblages of various species flourish without draining their environment. (see Haraway 2016: 101; 103) While Haraway’s notion of kinship embedded in calls for collective action has sparked significant academic interest, this chapter is centrally concerned with the question of how this kind of kinship is already being imagined in mainstream fiction. The fourth installment of the Mad Max series, Fury Road (2015), makes for an instructive case study here because its central themes and motifs appear to derive from the same imaginary as Haraway’s writing: the film is set in a barren, post-apocalyptic wasteland and thus warns of the extinction of species, including humankind; the sole society depicted in the film is obsessed with providing its leader, the antagonist, with healthy children at the cost of treating almost all women as his commodity, which ironically reverses Harda‐ way’s demand to “Make Kin Not Babies! ” (2016: 102); in its protagonists, the film portrays a political alliance of unrelated individuals brought together by their lack of political power; this small collective counteracts a powerand profit-hungry patriarch, who hoards resources instead of providing his impov‐ erished people with a desirable home; and Fury Road ultimately envisions kin‐ ship to lead to a new regime of redistribution akin to the calm and flourishing spaces Haraway envisions. Despite this overlap in central ideas, the film also differs from Haraway in limiting its concept of kinship to humankind and avoiding messages against continued overpopulation. This could be explained by means of political economy: the film inscribes itself into the blockbuster genre and thus needs to appeal to various audiences, including more traditionally family-oriented viewers. Blockbusters feature a degree of ambiguity to let au‐ diences project different convictions onto the product, and Fury Road specifi‐ cally remains compatible to family values, individualism, and the logic of re‐ production which Haraway’s work can be seen to counteract. As this paper argues, Fury Road glorifies fertility, with a climax organized around a metaphorical act of re-fertilizing the barren wasteland, and thus clashes with a notion of non-biological kinship as envisioned by Haraway and others. The wasteland trope is common in the postmodern action blockbuster, and Fury Road employs it not to offer a road to utopia but to make a point about how utopian spaces need to be continuously fostered and cared for. The film denies its protagonists the promised land they initially set out to reach and thus captures a sense of frustration and loss experienced by those audience members who were raised on the hope that Western societies would shift to sustainable resource management and would further embrace representative democracy as a means to prevent armed conflicts. At the time of writing this chapter in 2019, this sense of loss is most acutely being voiced in the Fridays for Future protests across Europe, but at the time of the film’s release during US President Trump’s election campaign, the growing frustration over ‘alt-right’ rhetoric and 252 Jonatan Jalle Steller the accompanying denial of man-made climate change had already formed fer‐ tile ground for the product to resonate with: while many critics, at the time, commented on the fact that the film’s diegetic world is defined by its lack of water, bullets and petrol, some already read these as allusions to environmental wastefulness, continued engagement in armed conflicts, and political self-ab‐ sorption. (see O’Sullivan 2015: n.pag.) As a popular vision of collective action, Fury Road sharpens a sense of what discrepancies exist between the academic demand to theorize new and less harmful notions of kinship, and its articulation in popular entertainment as an indicator for a wider public sphere. The filmic version of making kin without reproduction suggests that the concept’s popular realization boils down to al‐ legiance and solidarity across identity markers in order to learn how to avoid ecological and political crises. Imagining oneself as part of an assemblage of various species, however, would constitute another step outside of what amounts to a mainstream consensus. To make the above points, this chapter covers four aspects: the first section outlines academic positions on the film and inquires into its supposed ‘postfeminist’ narrative; the second offers an alter‐ native cultural-materialist view, which takes character constellation and plot as central devices to depict collective action; the third rephrases the common as‐ sessment of ‘postfeminism’ as thinking beyond gender differences; and the fourth section details fertilization as the film’s central analogy to productively engage with utopian thought. 2 Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) The American-Australian co-production was released thirty years after the pre‐ vious and, until then, last installment of the series, and did surprisingly well at the box office, in addition to being awarded ten Academy Awards. After ap‐ proximately fifteen years in development, the resulting narrative centers on a female protagonist, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), rather than the titular Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy). The plot begins at the Citadel, three inhabited monoliths in a vast desert with their own water supply, which are ruled by Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Furiosa, the only female operative in Im‐ mortan’s military hierarchy, is tasked with running a truck called the War Rig to the Citadels partners: the Bullet Farm and Gas Town. Furiosa, however, takes an unsanctioned detour to help Immortan’s five wives escape to the mysterious Green Place of Many Mothers, her former home. Throughout the journey, the truck is pursued by Immortan’s allies, among them a soldier caste called War Boys. One of them, Nux (Nicholas Hoult), defects along with Max, who initially 253 Resistance is Fertile 1 Alternative terms appropriate for a framing of Fury Road’s narrative are transgressive utopian dystopia, coined by Dunja M. Mohr, and ambiguous utopia, coined by Ursula K. Le Guin. (see Voigts 2015: 4-5) 2 This reading goes against vastly different academic perspectives on the film, such as an Economics paper which takes the Citadel as a fictional case study on command econo‐ mies (see Mateer and Vachris 2017: 76-77) or a Disability Studies view which highlights the Citadel’s provision of inclusive spaces for people with disabilities. (see Fletcher and Primack 2017: 344-45) 3 The portrayal of feminist, ecological, and anti-totalitarian thinking as overlapping strands of a common anti-hegemonic project has been contested. (see Sargisson 1996: 54-55) served as Nux’ human blood bag. Instead of the promised Green Place, however, the group of refugees only finds its barren remnants along with its last remaining tribe of women, called the Vuvalini. The five wives, Furiosa, the Vuvalini, Nux and Max deliberate and ultimately decide to return to the Citadel and take out Immortan Joe along the way. The climactic ending depicts their success, as a handful of women ascend into the central monolith of the Citadel. Fury Road falls into the genre of critical dystopia as coined by Lyman Tower Sargent (see 1994: 9) and convincingly defined by Tom Moylan as texts which “interrogate both society and their generic predecessors” (2000: 188) with an open or utopian outlook. 1 The film offers its audience the hope to escape the conditions which led to the creation of the wasteland by progressing from an initial, male-governed dystopia to the introduction of memories of a lost, women-centric society to the looming establishment of a unifying utopia. The film’s dystopian society exaggerates tendencies which could be argued to reflect ongoing developments in Western liberal democracies which, in fact, contradict their ideals of social and economic freedom: 2 as evident from Immortan Joe’s opening speech (0: 07: 39-09: 34), his rule is based on a cult of his personality rather than on a fully developed and independent institution; he wants to ex‐ ercise an authoritarian rule over a deeply stratified society; he exercises control over resources and female reproductive labor; he fuels hypermasculine behavior and performance and thereby creates a toxic atmosphere for subordinate mas‐ culinities; and he stabilizes his rule through a quasi-religious belief system to deflect scrutiny from himself. The depiction of the Citadel as a neo-feudal so‐ ciety serves as a projection space for various anti-hegemonic sentiments which audiences may bring to the cinema. Consequently, the film’s utopian alternative conflates feminist, ecological, and anti-totalitarian thinking and thus conforms with the expectation, voiced in Moylan’s seminal study on critical utopias, that these “anti-hegemonic forces […] [envision an] emancipated and radically open future.” (2014: 28) 3 Against the sense of losing common ideals such as liberalism, 254 Jonatan Jalle Steller 4 The papers listed here end up looking at gender representation using different gateway theories. Belinda Du Plooy, for example, takes the feminine heroic journey as her point of departure, and Adriana Carrijo and Marilena Jamur as well as Bogusz Malec look at the influence of utopian thought on the film’s narrative. pacifism and environmentalism, Fury Road positions a collective of individuals who, to use Haraway’s oft-used phrase, stay with the trouble “to nurture well-being on a damaged planet.” (2016: 76) Fury Road received a lot of critical attention which has repeatedly emphasized how the film supposedly represents a ‘postfeminist’ fantasy of won battles, and how it reinforces a universal, liberal agenda. This is most clearly expressed in a paper titled “Neoliberalism Goes Pop,” which reduces Furiosa along with the five wives to privileged women who adhere to male standards (see Martínez-Jiménez et al. 2018: 406) and ultimately reinforce “the relations of dominance and sub‐ mission inherent to capitalism” (Martínez-Jiménez et al. 2018: 415) in their return to the Citadel. This line of argument, however, is based on the conviction that opposition to all hegemonic power needs to come in the form of a complete change in system, in turn making the analysis oblivious to any change that does not adhere to this high standard. In addition, Martínez Jiménez’ paper disregards character development, even though this is one of the central stylistic devices in Anglo-American cinema. (see Thompson 1999: 9) The domains of Cultural and Gender Studies have produced a large number of similar analyses contem‐ plating whether or not the film could be called feminist. (see Bampatzimopoulos 2015: 206-07; see Carrijo and Jamur 2015: 217-19; see Du Plooy 2019: 429; see Fuist 2016: 97; see Gallagher 2015: 55; see Klangwisan 2016: 83; see Malec 2016: 145-46; see Rowson 2017: 63; see Yates 2017: 353-54) 4 Arguments in favor boil down to the on-screen role of women catalyzing an ongoing trend towards fe‐ male action heroes. Rejections of this label, on the other hand, hinge on how the wives of patriarch Immortan Joe adhere to Western beauty standards, and how the film stereotypically connects these women to nature. Most of this criticism is invested in prescriptive ideas of how gender should be represented in popular fiction to provide audiences with a sense of diversity in identity markers. For the present study, however, it is important to acknowl‐ edge the film’s function as a product which needs to fulfil desires and unite its audience in support of evolving protagonists. In other words, the film alludes to the audience as kin under common forms of oppression in the interest of maintaining a broad fan base for the franchise. In this line of thinking, the five wives look the way they do and are interested in connecting to nature because they represent young women raised in a patriarchal society who only begin to engage with previous generations of feminist thought via Furiosa and the 255 Resistance is Fertile 5 The franchise has a history of depicting ‘strong female characters,’ such as Warrior Woman or Aunty Entity. The narrative around Furiosa, however, took shape only after initial script ideas turned out to awkwardly portray Max as a savior. As several news outlets reported, playwright Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues 1996) was brought on to advise the production team on the portrayal of trafficked women. (see Gallagher 2015: 51) Vuvalini. 5 The film’s feat is thus to take a male-centric franchise and present its existing audience with a story of female empowerment instead. 3 Collectivities Beyond Difference Feminism Two of the central devices Fury Road uses to tell a meaningful story while also being a thrilling action film are character constellation and development. Throughout the narrative, two main character clusters emerge: a patriarchal one around Immortan Joe and a matriarchal one including Furiosa, the wives, and the Vuvalini. (see McLean 2017: 373) While the former is hierarchical and re‐ mains largely static in its beliefs and personnel, the latter is decidedly horizontal and changes over time in both world view and configuration. Immortan Joe’s rule is set up as a trickle-down hierarchy in which loyalty from below is rewarded through real or imagined privilege granted from above. As multimodal entertainment, the film depicts this pattern visually as an arti‐ ficially restricted waterfall and orally in the patriarch’s speech during the ex‐ position: “Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence.” (0: 09: 23-36) This warning serves to imply Im‐ mortan’s superiority: he has supposedly overcome his own selfishness to aid the people. In fact, however, he is much more selfish than the poor gathering below to compete for the precious resource, since he hoards all the water available at the Citadel in his compound. (see Yates 2017: 358, 365) When he briefly opens the gates to give the ground-dwellers a taste of what could be theirs if they made it to the top, the film depicts a literalization of a trickle-down economy, with the poor hardly getting a bowl full of water. (0: 08: 26-09: 19) Giving some of the precious resource to the Citadel’s lowest caste is rhetorically shaped into an act of goodwill, but actually serves to keep them pacified just enough to maintain Immortan Joe’s position at the absolute top of a neo-feudal pyramid. The trickle-down pattern expands to all rare resources at the Citadel, such as produce, breast milk, and petrol, all of which Immortan claims for himself before giving parts of them to others. While the nameless women who are hooked up to milking machines are dehumanized and treated like cattle, the result of their labor is turned into a privilege only made available to Immortan’s sons. To as‐ 256 Jonatan Jalle Steller 6 ‘Aqua Cola’ alludes to the practice of private companies to monetize bottled water from public sources. 7 By forcing the wives to wear bridal dresses and chastity belts, Immortan further exer‐ cises control over their bodies and their capacity to reproductive labor. (0: 22: 08-13, 0: 32: 04-09; see Gallagher 2015: 54) sociate this practice not with pre-capitalist societies but with capitalist en‐ deavors, water and milk are given brand names such as ‘Aqua Cola’ and ‘Moth‐ er’s Milk.’ (0: 06: 30-43) The use of ‘Aqua Cola’ marks the commodification of a vital resource at the Citadel, 6 and ‘Mother’s Milk’ reinforces the cloak of nurture that Immortan wraps around his practice of exploiting women’s bodies and hoarding breast milk at the top of the social hierarchy he controls. This practice, combined with the allusion to the 2008 economic crisis in the portrayal of one of Immortan’s cronies as a former banker (1: 26: 00; see Harris 2016: n.pag.), and a reference to Fukushima Daiichi, the Japanese power plant which saw a nuclear disaster in 2011, in the War Boys’ battle cry (0: 06: 14-27), suggests that greed was ultimately responsible for the nuclear catastrophe which led to the waste‐ land in the diegetic world. Resource hoarding is exposed as a male practice during a sequence in which Toast the Knowing, one of the five wives, sifts through a bag of guns which Max had initially collected from the women in the War Rig. She comments on the amount of ammo Max had kept for each of the weapons: “Well, we’ve only got four for Big Boy here [touches a rifle], so he’s all but useless. But we can squirt off this Little Pinky [dangles a small gun] a raunchy 29 times.” (1: 01: 26-40) The verbal connection between guns and penises based on their form ironically re‐ verses the functions of ending and creating life, but since the wives were subject to marital rape at the hands of Immortan Joe, they associate phalluses with destructive force. As with the women held like farm cattle, the patriarch treats the wives and their unborn children as his possession. (0: 12: 13-22; 0: 53: 58- 54: 08) The wives are subjected to a similar objectification when their quarters are revealed to lie behind a vault door (0: 12: 50-13: 43): as young women without genetic defects, they are treated as valuable assets, revealing the patriarch’s ideology of assigning people’s worth by their functional use to himself and their contribution to his desire to produce ‘untainted’ offspring. 7 The patriarchal hi‐ erarchy maintained under Immortan’s rule, which is repeatedly visualized as a caste pyramid, includes his blood relatives at the top, followed by the Imperators, the War Boys, and the wives as privileged groups. The hyperbolic portrayal of dominant culture as patriarchal in Fury Road employs a repertoire developed in difference feminism. Especially since the 1980s, there has been a tendency in this kind of thinking towards gendering 257 Resistance is Fertile 8 Far from speaking with a unified voice, however, other feminist writers using the term Patriarchy are critical of its usage as a reference to all types of hierarchies and limit its focus to refer to the “organization and monopolization of private property to the benefit of the head of the family.” (Irigaray 1985: 83, emphasis removed) 9 An overview of the academic debate surrounding the fourth entry in the wave narrative is provided by Prudence Chamberlain. (2017: 21-23) assessments of Western society with features similar to those of the Citadel, such as a male patriarch, his dominance over women, a ruling family, and caste-like social layers. (see Lerner 1986: 239) Patriarchy is not understood as the purely legal power held by men, but as a system of superand subordinate relations, in which labor is exchanged for maintenance, and submission is ex‐ changed for protection. In this view, even present-day workplace relations could be seen to involve feudal elements when, for example, performance leads to continued or increased privilege. Patriarchal structures are marked by any re‐ striction to two modes of behavior, dominant and submissive, as well as by the attempt to eliminate alternative models of bonding such as ‘sisterhood’: a term used by bell hooks to describe solidarity among women who have unlearnt to define themselves by their competition for male attention. (see hooks 1984: 43- 48) 8 In Fury Road, the depiction of patriarchy in line with difference feminism serves to set up a feminist intervention based on notions of sisterhood. One possible reason for this decision could be to attract female audiences to both action-based blockbuster fiction in general and the revival of the Mad Max franchise in particular. This intervention comes in the form of representing a growing allegiance between certain individuals as kinship based on the concept of sisterhood. This second set of characters starts out as an alliance between Furiosa and the wives, but later incorporates the Vuvalini and stretches the definition of sisterhood by temporarily including Max and Nux. The group’s journey away from and back to the Citadel can be read as one that traces de‐ velopments commonly referred to as the four waves of feminism. 9 The first wave is depicted during the exposition by showing Furiosa as a commander in an otherwise patriarchal hierarchy, which stands for the struggle of the women’s movement for equal rights. As a sign of being in command in her role at the Citadel, she holds her own steering wheel (0: 06: 07), and the first part of her name, ‘Imperator,’ highlights her rank above the War Boys. Furiosa’s superor‐ dinate but isolated role mirrors markers of early feminist thinking and activism, such as equality in law and later in the workplace. (see McPherson 2000: 208- 09) 258 Jonatan Jalle Steller 10 The link between Furiosa, the wives, and the storm is made overt in a tie-in graphic novel published during the release of the film. It comprises of episodes set before and after the film which were cut from the script. At the end of the graphic novel’s first chapter, the narrator explains: “Even now, change is brewing… A storm comes.” (Miller et al. 2015: ch. 1, 33) This is immediately followed by a splash page featuring Furiosa’s face. The second wave of feminism is pictured as a literal wave: a sandstorm which shelters Furiosa and the wives from any and all men. (0: 24: 24) 10 Here the wives cast off their chastity belts, highlighting the claim to reproductive rights and the control of their own bodies, which was central to second-wave feminism. (see McPherson 2000: 209-10) A close-up of a malfunctioning compass in Immortan Joe’s monster truck signifies feminism’s disorienting effect on patriarchy. (0: 25: 27-33) The Vuvalini, as representatives of the Green Place, can be read as allusions to second-wave feminists invested in gender difference. Their name invokes the term vulva as frequently featured in feminist activism and rhetoric. The Vuvalini all drive similar motorbikes, which highlights a flat, network-like structure (1: 15: 05-44) compared to the distribution of larger cars for higher ranks under Immortan Joe. While the film provides little introduction to the lost utopia of the Green Place, Furiosa’s first words to the Vuvalini are informative: “I am one of the Vuvalini! Of the Many Mothers! My Initiate Mother was K. T. Concannon! I am the daughter of Mary Jabassa! My clan was Swaddle Dog! ” (1: 14: 47-15: 05) Rather than impermeable castes, the matriarchal society the Vu‐ valini were once part of is evoked as a horizontal tribal structure with more than one marker of belonging. The mentioning of ‘many mothers’ hints at a fe‐ male-led society. While Furiosa acknowledges a biological mother (‘Mary Jabassa’), she also recounts who initiated her to the tribe of the Vuvalini (‘K. T. Concannon’). This indicates a Spartan-like communal upbringing, with clans based on, for example, talent (‘Vuvalini’) and age (‘Swaddle Dog’), instead of limiting kinship to real or imagined bloodlines. Furiosa thus identifies herself to the other Vuvalini through a set of (biological and non-biological) relations, and the importance of kinship beyond biological connection among the women is highlighted in gestures such as holding foreheads against one another as a sign of welcome or the gesture of holding a clenched fist close to the chest as a sign of commemorating the dead. (01: 15: 55, 1: 16: 22-36) The Vuvalini’s notion of kinship here extends beyond death and stands in stark contrast to Immortan’s disregard of everyone who has lost their material usefulness for him. References to the third wave of feminism can be observed in the disappoint‐ ment Furiosa and the wives experience when they talk to the Vuvalini, which mirrors a criticism of essentialism as a tendency that prevents improving the 259 Resistance is Fertile 11 Michelle Yates observes that the wives are predominantly white. (2017: 368) Indeed, the camera work geared towards providing a wasteland color palette does not at all help to refute criticism of Hollywood casually representing people of color as light-skinned. The tie-in graphic novel, however, provides a reason for the wives’ light skin: they powder up to look more like War Boys. (Miller et al. 2015: 29) lives of all people. The group realize that the Vuvalini are not a peaceful tribe, but use violence in the same way that the patriarchal society at the Citadel does (see McLean 2017: 386), leading to an emancipation from this separatist radi‐ calism. The third wave of feminism in the Anglo-American world was charac‐ terized by a concern with the lack of inclusiveness and practicality of the move‐ ment, with voicing anger as a form of liberation, and with rejecting the normativity of previous generations. (see Brown 2011: 147; Starr 2000: 474) This disappointment is captured in a brief response by one of the wives, The Dag, to a bragging comment about killing people made by one of the older women: “Thought somehow you girls were above that.” (1: 19: 47-49) The wives were held as breeding stock by the Citadel’s patriarchal society and their idealized notion of matriarchy as a nurturing environment had developed in response. In her comment, however, The Dag sees an unwanted symmetry between the two, and her rejection reinforces her vow not to kill innocent people. (0: 43: 53-59) In encountering the Vuvalini, Furiosa and the wives realize that their utopian ideal is not a static place of wonder. On the contrary, it does not exist anymore, and those who live to remember and talk about it have adopted practices which the wives initially attributed only to the dystopian society they have fled from. Lastly, allusions to the fourth wave of feminism can be found in the group’s decision to return to the Citadel and work collaboratively across genders, classes, generations, and ethnicities to change the society they know, repre‐ senting a turn towards the practical improvement of lives across the social spectrum. The decision to turn back specifically includes Nux and Max, and thus shows the group’s progress towards anti-misandry. (1: 23: 06-27) While a fourth wave of feminism is, in fact, contested in feminist scholarship and partly aban‐ doned in favor of a kaleidoscope metaphor (see Nicholson 2013: 54), current generations of feminists still see their experience as different from, for example, what it was a decade ago. (see Chamberlain 2017: 107) In addition to anti-mis‐ andry, intersectional difference further marks a supposed fourth wave. A shallow attempt Fury Road makes to signify diversity can be found in the group of wives, which includes short and tall characters, a Black and an Asian woman, a redhead, and two pregnant characters. 11 Furiosa’s prosthetic arm even adds disability to the group’s roster of mostly single, external differentiators (0: 38: 25), 260 Jonatan Jalle Steller 12 Depictions of disability often feature in the Mad Max franchise. While Furiosa wears a prosthetic arm throughout most of the film, she ultimately ascends the Citadel without it, indicating that the imitation of the ‘able’ human body is another practice she attrib‐ utes to the old order. 13 The so-called Erinyes are most commonly known today as goddesses who wreaked vengeance against men. (see Johnston 2006: n.pag.) and thereby symbolically adds ability to the list of divisions the group manages to overcome. 12 Generations of women who learn from one another are not just portrayed through the wave metaphor, but also in the overt parallel between ammunition as an ‘anti-seed’ and the actual seeds which the Vuvalini pass on to the wives. The older women had collected seeds in order to one day re-grow the many plants which gave the Green Place its name. In depicting how the Vuvalini pass on these heirlooms, the film signifies intergenerational learning as a feature of the continuously evolving, matriarchal cluster of characters. (1: 20: 04-28; 1: 40: 35-52) In line with the wave metaphor the text alludes to, the seeds function as cyphers for knowledge passed on from one generation to the next. In this reading, acknowledging both previous and new struggles is an important aspect of fostering solidarity through building a shared understanding of the historical conditions which have shaped the present. By the troublesome and temporary inclusion of Nux and Max into the collective, Fury Road leaves open to what degree men are (or should be) included in positively connoted collectivities - be they called kin in Donna Haraway’s sense, sisters in the terminology of bell hooks, or, more generally, affinity group in sociological terms. (see Kramer 2011: 382-83) 4 Kinship Through Solidarity For the purpose of this study, it is productive to observe how exactly kinship among the two character clusters is produced. The plot is driven by the matri‐ archal collective’s continuous integration of new members and - in the same breath - getting past Furiosa’s initially misandrous positions signaled through her name, which evokes the Furies of ancient Greek culture. 13 While the film picks up on idealized notions of women living together, many of its motifs bear a striking resemblance to a very specific, US -American communal group called The Furies Collective. This lesbian commune was formed in Washington, D. C. in 1971 in response to the “organized brutality, and stunning ignorance” (Brown 1995: 125) of male supremacy. Rita Mae Brown’s autobiographical account of the commune’s intentions provides a number of intertextual parallels to the film: 261 Resistance is Fertile 14 In addition to humanity’s responsibility for poisoning the landscape, the film also sug‐ gests that the environment itself holds agency: “The soil. We had to get out. We had no water. The water was filth. It was poisoned. It was sour. And then the crows came. We could not grow anything.” (1: 17: 42-51) [t]he patriarchs may not topple in our lifetime but someone has to brave the unknown and that is the destiny of our generation. We are the bridge generation between the desert and the promised land. If we don’t build it no one gets there. Our political enemies by their colossal greed will render the earth uninhabitable. If people do not replace profit, if the land is not nourished, if simultaneity does not replace the concept of intellectual polarization, if men do not release the feminine within themselves and identify with women, if cooperation does not replace competition, generations hence will choke on blood and dust. (Brown 1995: 132) The excerpt stereotypically connects greed and competition to the domain of the masculine, and nourishment and cooperation to the domain of the feminine. Rita Mae Brown’s writing must be seen in the context of lesbianand gay-rights activism, which has lived off the rhetorical use of dualisms such as the above. And yet Fury Road contains a number of parallels to the excerpt in addition to the commune’s name: an initial confrontation of women and men, the desert setting, the vilification of greed and hoarding, an acknowledgment of other types of masculinity, the Green Place as a promised land, the realization that a bridge between polarized genders is needed, an emphasis on cooperation among kin, and the depiction of blood as a marker of both involuntary and voluntary rela‐ tions. Just like the above excerpt, the film suggests a vicinity of women to nature commonly observed in ecofeminist scholarship. (see Yates 2017: 354) Fury Road, however, does not use such an attribution as a universal pattern that would include the ascription of culture to men. Just like the Vuvalini are depicted as unsuccessful in soil management (1: 17: 18-58), 14 some men are depicted to have an avid grasp of nature, as in the case of Max’ visually blending into the land‐ scape after the sand storm. (0: 29: 00-38) While the film dwells in polar opposi‐ tions of masculinity and femininity, it also contains elements of moving beyond this binary when Furiosa is shown to have adopted a more androgynous femi‐ ninity than the wives, and Nux is repeatedly shown as a fragile character com‐ pared to other War Boys. In the context of the representation of masculinity and femininity as polarized identities in the beginning of the film, it is important to acknowledge that this is used as a starting point for developing forms of cooperation across genders. Max’ alliance with Furiosa and the wives is based on a common experience of 262 Jonatan Jalle Steller 15 While Furiosa’s objectification is expressed in the branding on her neck and outlined in her backstory as a former wife to Immortan (0: 03: 17-47, 1: 12: 23-13: 14), Max suffers an on-screen objectification through a muzzle he struggles to free himself from similar to the wives’ chastity belts. (0: 30: 05-54; 0: 32: 04-09) 16 The pattern of mutual exchanges already exists among the wives and extends to Furiosa at the beginning of the film. While the women predominantly share information, their bond is visualized by collaborating hands, as, for example, in a succession of cuts to various hands and what they do along the War Rig. (1: 01: 08-26) 17 The allegiance among the War Boys, on the other hand, is attributed to a form of military drum drowning out everything else: a character called Doof Warrior, a blind War Boy trauma and objectification under Immortan Joe (see Du Plooy 2018: 422; see Yates 2017: 361), 15 and the process of his inclusion into the women’s collective is marked by exchanges of looks, guns, and blood. The former pattern progresses from rivalry to intimate understanding when Max notices the desperation in Furiosa’s eyes before he recognizes that she has been stabbed by one of the War Boys who attack the collective. (1: 35: 57-36: 02) The intermediate move away from hostility is symbolically negotiated on screen as a series of gun exchanges: Max initially threatens Furiosa, and vice versa (0: 34: 11-48), before the two of them proceed to mutual acceptance of one another under the condition of male subordination, as shown in Max’ handing over all weapons (0: 39: 38-41: 08), and finally graduate to mutual trust in repeatedly handing each other guns. (0: 49: 46-53) These handovers are part of a pattern of reciprocal sharing of re‐ sources in the film, such as giving up a formerly secret code necessary to drive the War Rig. (0: 46: 12-42) The exchanges mark the progress of Max’ integration into the collective through Furiosa and culminates in his own integration of Nux into the group by handing him useful items. (1: 10: 52-11: 16) 16 The collective is shown to be held together by affinity rather than involuntary blood relations as in the case of Immortan Joe’s family. In contrast to the Citadel’s failing subor‐ dinate relations, members of the collective share a series of voluntary blood donations: while Max’ initial donation to Nux is a forced one that illustrates superordinate masculinities leeching on subordinate ones (0: 14: 02-47), he ends up voluntarily donating to Furiosa in what amounts to support for the group’s cause rather than his own agenda. (1: 43: 40-44: 42) Even though the blood trans‐ fusions could be seen to differ from Haraway’s vision of kinship in producing a metaphorical biological relation, their function in the text is to highlight the logical and mutually beneficial relation between those who exchange blood rather than implying their shared ancestry. Solidarity among the collective is explicitly stressed in a two-minute delib‐ eration during the film’s first climax, adding yet another form of exchange to this cluster of characters. (1: 23: 06-25: 12) 17 Each member gets to speak up in four 263 Resistance is Fertile playing an electric guitar (0: 15: 56-16: 44), marks their commitment as being motivated by top-down orders rather than horizontal solidarity. 18 The Plains in particular are a locus horridus which provides space for utopian thought. (see Malec 2016: 138) The lifeless land affords the Vuvalini freedom from reproduction and childbearing. (see Rowson 2017: 63) distinct phases of the conversation: where to go, what there is to find, how to get there, and why to go. The phases emulate constructive discussion in groups, with no voice being shut down or drowned out by another in the interest of reaching consensus. This depiction of deliberation as a path to solidarity is in line with feminist conceptions of sisterhood: [w]hen women actively struggle in a truly supportive way to understand our differ‐ ences, to change misguided, distorted perspectives, we lay the foundation for the ex‐ perience of political solidarity. […] To experience solidarity, we must have a com‐ munity of interests, shared beliefs and goals around which to unite, to build Sisterhood. Support can be occasional. […] Solidarity requires sustained, ongoing commitment. (hooks 1984: 64) Furiosa, the Vuvalini, the wives, Nux, and Max all show solidarity rather than just support. Even though Max does not join the collective as it enters the Citadel at the end, he continuously oversteps points of no return and shares the im‐ provement of lives in particular and livelihood in general as a common goal. 5 Allegorical Fertilization and Collective Redistribution Following the group’s deliberation, the collective’s desire to improve people’s livelihood is captured in a fertilization analogy. While this picks up on the film’s motifs up to this point, such as pregnancies, seeds, and the wasteland, it clashes with Haraway’s mantra of making kin rather than babies. The film’s underlying critique is not one of overpopulation, as in Haraway’s case, but of neo-feudal flourishes in capitalism, which the fertilization theme manages to address without occluding the ambiguity needed in the blockbuster genre. Those who inhabit Fury Road’s diegetic world, for example, repeatedly refer to guzzoline instead of gasoline. Employing the meaning of guzzle, i.e. greedily drinking a liquid, to describe petrol highlights pure consumption without a conception of give and take, seed and harvest, or investment and return. With a salt lake called the Plains of Silence the film even features soil drained of all resources which could support life to highlight the necessity to maintain social and biological environments instead of merely using them up. 18 264 Jonatan Jalle Steller 19 Examples of this sexually charged imagery span the entire race to the front on the return journey (e.g. 1: 38: 11-41: 13): the Citadel functions as the egg, the War Rig as sperm, the canyon as an oviduct, and the war parties on both sides of the canyon’s entrance as a vulva (1: 25: 26-26: 21) constrained by a chastity belt similar to the ones Immortan forced the wives to wear. (0: 32: 08) 20 While Max removes himself from the collective to move elsewhere in the next franchise installment, his continued solidarity with the ascension is demonstrated by his and Furiosa’s looking and nodding at each other. In its final scene, the film depicts a path of replacing the individual leader of the Citadel with an all-female configuration of the collective around Furiosa to wash out the toxicity this society has amassed both literally (in genetic code) and metaphorically (in top-down leadership). This reinvigoration by women has been alluded to since the film’s exposition. In the wives’ quarters, for example, a water supply takes the prominent shape of sperm connecting to an egg. (0: 13: 33) The high-angle shot foreshadows the wives’ development throughout the film from passive victims to active agents who ‘inseminate’ the society that has victimized them. Their return journey evokes sexually charged imagery through which the film’s formal climax is linked to what is shown on the content level: 19 the introduction of the literal and metaphorical seeds of a utopian space into the Citadel. The film here makes a point about competing in existing struc‐ tures and hierarchies not as individuals but as kin to effect change from within. Just like the group carries the Vuvalini’s seed collection, they also return en‐ riched with utopian ideas to contribute to the Citadel’s society. In its depiction of the Citadel, the film uses verticality to represent institu‐ tional hierarchy. This visual metaphor is picked up in the final scene when Furiosa, the wives, and the remaining Vuvalini ascend to the top of one of the monoliths. (1: 46: 32-48: 25) 20 Several visual cues allude to the policies which the collective is set to introduce. A shot of the women ascending in an elevator, for example, is similar to a shot from the exposition (0: 09: 51-10: 09), but a tight-knit group has now replaced the individuals standing on the platform. Under the leadership of the collective, power appears to be kept in check by means of peers. Secondly, poor ground-dwellers attempting to climb onto the platform are now aided in their efforts rather than thrown back down. This indicates an effort to reduce or even flatten existing hierarchies to establish permeable social layers. And thirdly, the women’s efforts are aided by the ‘Milking Mothers,’ who open the floodgates to provide water to the people permanently rather than as an incentive. This indicates that redistribution supersedes hoarding as the guiding principle. 21 Treating resources such as water as commons and emphasizing interconnec‐ tions rather than individual struggles matches the nurturing environment 265 Resistance is Fertile 21 The tie-in graphic novel with narrative blocks cut from the film provides more insight into the collective’s policy changes. The reformed Citadel is introduced as “[a] place where all are equal, and everyone is provided for.” (Miller et al. 2015: 3) propagated by feminist activists such as Rita Mae Brown and bell hooks. Rela‐ tions among Fury Road’s collective are not just nurturing, but also caring: rather than sourcing out care work to unattached professionals, such as the Organic Mechanic, who tattooed Max on Immortan’s orders, Max and the others provide medical help to Furiosa out of solidarity. (1: 42: 42-44: 42) The film here offers an access point to proponents of care responsibilities as a central concern in dem‐ ocratic politics. Joan C. Tronto, for example, defines care as a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, our selves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web. (Tronto 2013: 19, emphasis removed) Care thus extends not just to relations between people, but also includes rela‐ tions between people and their environment. Instead of leaving the dirty work to others, proponents of care work make a case for promoting shared respon‐ sibilities to a core value of democracy without restricting such work to women. (see Tronto 2013: 7-8, 29) In the same vein, Fury Road understands kinship not just as an extension of sisterhood to solidarity across biological and social dif‐ ferences, but also as a web of humans maintaining the environment’s livelihood. Even though the film cuts off after the women’s ascent rather than showing how the seeds are being planted into the Citadel’s fertile ground, Fury Road suggests that the wives, with the help of the Vuvalini, recognize the importance of cross-species assemblages similar to what Haraway envisions. 6 Conclusion Despite Fury Road’s many references to difference-feminist thought, it is in‐ debted to an ideal of fertility along with a belief in radical reform of existing institutions from within. The film employs feminist critique to render the Citadel as a hyperbolic cypher for the target audience’s Western societies: neoliberal resource hoarding, caste-like social layers, and hypermasculine individualism are portrayed as patriarchal structures in need of being reformed through knowledge gained by previous generations of feminists. The result of engaging with this popular text as an aid to understanding common conceptions of kin‐ ship today lies in the realization that neither kinship nor collective action au‐ tomatically lead to a better world. While the small group in the diegetic world 266 Jonatan Jalle Steller stands in for a larger movement in real life, the film’s key tragedy lies in the loss of the Green Place of Many Mothers as a ready-made paradise. The message that is conveyed here is that utopian spaces do not wait to be discovered but need to be collectively built and actively maintained. By using the women’s ascension into the Citadel as a final scene without explicitly showing the women’s (or the seed’s) effects on society, Fury Road shies away from universally praising their protagonists as successful ‘oddkin.’ Instead, it hands the responsibility to con‐ sider what a utopian society could look like back to the audience. The film un‐ derstands kinship as a web of relations across individuals, their past, and their utopian ideals. The inclusion of relations to the environment, however, is what the diegetic society still needs to discover, leaving the audience to consider what constitutes a utopian space. A web of non-biological kin relations can only serve as a means to a better life rather than an end in itself. Works Cited Bampatzimopoulos, Sotirios (2015). ‘Female Action Hero vs Male Dominance: The Female Representation in Mad Max: Fury Road.’ Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi, 55.2, 205-18. Brown, Jeffrey A. (2011). 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Primack (2017). ‘Driving Toward Disability Rhetorics: Narrative, Crip Theory, and Eco-Ability in Mad Max: Fury Road.’ Critical Studies in Media Communication, 34.4, 344-57. Fuist, Todd Nicholas (2016). ‘Religion, Gender, and Power in Mad Max: Fury Road.’ Hu‐ manity & Society, 40.1, 97-99. Gallagher, Cavan (2015). ‘Old Hands, New Breed: Mad Max: Fury Road and Evolving Gender Roles.’ Metro, 186, 48-55. 267 Resistance is Fertile Haraway, Donna (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press. Harris, Rachel Lee (2016). ‘Behind the Makeup and Costumes of Mad Max: Fury Road.’ The New York Times, 10 February. www.nytimes.com/ 2016/ 02/ 11/ movies/ mad-max-fu ry-road-and-the-furiosa-factor.html (accessed 13 July 2019). hooks, bell (1984). Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Irigaray, Luce (1985). This Sex Which Is Not One. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 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Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Tronto, Joan C. (2013). Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice. New York: New York University Press. Voigts, Eckart (2015). ‘Introduction: The Dystopian Imagination: An Overview,’ in Eckart Voigts and Alessandra Boller, eds., Dystopia, Science Fiction, Post-Apocalypse: Classics - New Tendencies - Model Interpretations, Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 1-11. Yates, Michelle (2017). ‘Re-Casting Nature as Feminist Space in Mad Max: Fury Road.’ Science Fiction Film and Television, 10.3, 353-70. 269 Resistance is Fertile Herakut: “There is something better than perfection” (Frankfurt, reproduced with per‐ mission) IV. Kinship and Collective Action: A Conversation Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther This chapter was devised as a conversation between the editors of this volume. The text in its current form reflects a collaborative effort in writing. While each section was originally written by one of us, and subsequently responded to by the respective next person, we all worked on, edited, and revised all sections to some extent, and also came up with the questions together. The fact that we did not assign names to individual sections is meant to reflect this shared effort in collective thinking. The letters A, B, C, and D are assigned to the sections in the order in which these sections appear, and do not imply the same original voice each time. 1 What ist the particular quality of kinship and collective action? A: Kinship and collective action come together when we think about the non-human - may it be machine, animal, (organic / inorganic) matter, or climate phenomenon -, and questions of ontology, agency, and epistemology emerge as entangled (think a Japanese nursing-care robot - inorganic material AI - that may become kin to an elderly person, and works towards reforming the Japanese health care system at the same time). It is through questions such as ‘what does it feel like to be this elderly person who has a nursing-care robot as kin, acting together towards sustaining health in Japan’ where concerns about quality enter my thinking. When we look at quality not in terms of a value statement of excellence, but in terms of an affective or emotional feedback loop, kinship and / or collective action as potentially abstract concepts become matters of ex‐ perience. The quality of kinship and collective action moves away from a humanist criticism or representational theoretical assessment towards a specific, local, and embodied situatedness. Inquiring about the quality of this (non-)human care as‐ semblage translates into noticing the caretaking rituals and embodied entan‐ glements that emerge between robot and human. Noticing the quality of kinship or collective action - no matter the example - may then result in an aesthetic engagement based on a participatory encounter between observer and partici‐ pant. Participation, here, can lead us into a specific aesthetic engagement that is not based on distance or objectivity (think criticism! ), but on different modes of participation that connect or divide, inflict or shelter, affect or are affected, put at risk or protect. B: The realization that it is participation or - to use other terms - interactions, dynamics, and relations that matter most may sound like a truism at first. Yet, this insight proves crucial in order to understand how and why kinship and collective action each prove appealing alone, but also develop a particular quality together that opens up new spaces for pressing questions regarding hu‐ manity, questions which increasingly also need to address issues beyond what is still commonly considered ‘human.’ If we keep acknowledging the fact that, for instance, both kinship in collective action and collective action in kinship are constantly being negotiated, struggled with, cultivated, or even rejected as part of participatory interactions, this allows us to see, and perhaps even appre‐ ciate this quality as a particular energy that holds the potential to teach us something about (trans-)humanity; not in an ontological sense, not in terms of who we are, but rather in a sense that lays open to us who we have thought or felt we are, as we try to reconcile these thoughts and feelings with our progres‐ sive (in the sense of always developing) views of (trans-)humanity. Kinship and collective action thus simultaneously possess a reflective as well as a visionary quality. They force us to keep thinking either about what keeps us from uniting, or what compels us to do so. With regard to the question of how the elderly person that receives care from a Japanese nursing-care robot might feel, we thus not only find ourselves called to ask what may validate this person’s statements to us, but also how witnessing or learning about affective and emotional regimes that transcend ‘normalcy’ affect us. Initially, they might indeed elicit feelings of rejection, voyeurism, or interest, but once we have experienced (even) the narrative interaction of such an example of kinship and collective action, we also find ourselves affected, and sometimes perhaps even changed with regard to our perception of what we previously considered ‘normal.’ This aspect of potential affective engagement 272 Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther or learning beyond any case at hand thus marks another particular quality of kinship and collective action. C: What might help us think through these matters is an understanding of how constructed and rooted in particular cultural moments in human history our notions of kinship often are, and how an engagement with different cultures and their views on kinship might help us develop a broader understanding of possible modes and qualities of kinship. As ‘we / us / our’ are fluent categories as well, a first step to this may be to acknowledge and become aware of the underlying cultural and ideological implications of our own cultural position. To pick up on the example of the interactions between a nursing-care robot and a Japanese person in need of care: what may seem strange and even uncaring to Europeans and North Americans raised in a Christian humanist tradition with a narrow conception of who can possess a soul (humans) may seem less so to a person in Japan whose worldview is rooted in Shintoism and the idea that ani‐ mals, plants, rocks, and artificial devices (robots) can possess a spiritual essence, and the ability to enter into a process of collective action with a human being. This difference is so deeply rooted in culture and language that it can make it difficult to even have intercultural discussions about these matters. Objects that do not move of their own accord are (in English, and most Romance languages) in-animate, that is, they do not possess a soul (Latin anima). The Japanese term for inanimate object (無生物), by comparison, is comprised of the kanji signs ‘nothing,’ ‘life,’ and ‘thing,’ but does not seem to carry the same implications of soullessness. These differences not only suggest that meaning may be lost in translation, but are also indicative of an underlying cultural understanding of relationalities. Not all animate beings must, of course, necessarily be considered to possess a soul, but humanist thought is relentlessly hierarchical, privileging human be‐ ings over animals, and animals over inanimate objects. Moreover, as Rosi Braidotti argues, the concept of the human has undergone severe historical shifts - more so where the inclusion in the category of the human also implied being entitled to human rights. (see Braidotti 2013: 1) The current pressing global challenges - first and foremost the ongoing climate catastrophe and its various impacts - suggest that, to countermand our destructive potential, we urgently need to reconsider our limited understanding of ‘humanity’ as the (only) leading category. Instead, we need to take into account potentially unfamiliar qualities of kinship, as well as possibilities and strategies of collective action beyond the human. 273 Kinship and Collective Action: A Conversation D: Beyond (and before) considering the implications of theorizing kinship and collective action for our understanding of the (non-)human, I believe it is im‐ portant to think about how the two concepts relate to other terms in the same semantic field. How is kinship different from family, friendship, or love; and what is captured in collective action that does not similarly emerge under labels such as politics, protest, or alliance? Maybe it is primarily the fact that most of these words carry with them heavy cultural baggage and imply a certainty and stability of function within a particular culture that sets them apart from kinship and collective action, which, in our usage, both foreground the spontaneous, affective, and emergent nature of belonging and intersubjective experience in the public sphere. Kinship can include family, and those who are kin can sometimes come to be considered family. Love and friendship may structure relations of kinship, but these relations may not be called friendship or love, because they are perceived as something more, something less, or simply something different from these heavily determined categories. Collective action can become a powerful political force, but might emerge outside the structures of that which is considered po‐ litical. It may take on the shape of protest, but may also operate on levels that are not clearly positioned in opposition to anything. And while alliances might structure the relations of those that become part of an acting collective, these relations may be much more fleeting, or much more intimate and lasting than the term ‘alliance’ implies. The particular quality of kinship and collective ac‐ tion, then, lies, I believe, in their scope. Speaking of and theorizing with kinship and collective action acknowledges the potentiality and creativity inherent in encounters between subjects and positions, in emerging and nurturing struc‐ tures of belonging within and beyond cultural visibility, and in the dynamics of collectives that create and shape unpredictable shifts in what is commonly called ‘the political.’ 2 If kinship and collective action are practices rather than fixed and stable systems, what do these practices entail? A: One reason - maybe the main reason - why re-thinking and re-conceptualizing both kinship and collective action as open-ended practices (rather than as fixed or, at best, historically situated systems and structures) seems so attractive is that such theorizing foregrounds epistemological and ontological poten‐ tiality. Rather than positing a world of narrow generational reproduction and teleological, subject-oriented political agency, acknowledging the improvised nature of affective structures of belonging, and the unruliness of the (human 274 Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther and more-than-human) bodies that come together in collectives enables a more nuanced understanding of the complex entanglements that make up ‘the polit‐ ical’ and that re-establish, again and again, mutual dependencies and responsi‐ bilities. This thinking allows for the humble insight that no individual ‘subject’ (wherever its borders may lie at a given moment) can know in advance what may emerge from a certain web of relations, a particular moment of collective protest. As Judith Butler observes in relation to public assemblies and gather‐ ings, this movement or stillness, this parking of my body in the middle of another’s action, is neither my act nor yours, but something that happens by virtue of the relation between us, arising from that relation, equivocating between the I and the we, seeking at once to preserve and disseminate the generative value of that equivocation, an active and deliberately sustained relation, a collaboration distinct from hallucinatory merging or confusion. (Butler 2015: 9) In this view, the utopian or optimistic surplus of any collective action emerges before, in-between, and beyond discourse, its potentiality a social-somatic in‐ stance of a particular becoming. Similarly, we can understand kinship not as a fixed and predictable structure of biological generation, but, with Marshall Sahlins, as a “mutuality of being,” (Sahlins 2013: ix) and thus as an affective practice of belonging. Taking kinship and collective action as practices of be‐ coming is, I believe, crucial if we want to discover and experience the potential for change beyond the paranoid and repetitive narratives of modernist progress and political futurity. B: Practices are peculiar things - no matter them being potentially affective (see Ahmed 2004; see Massumi 2015), or a form of becoming (see Deleuze and Guat‐ tari 1980; see DeLanda 2006; see Haraway 2008; see Rajchmann 2010), or a “mu‐ tuality of being” (Sahlins 2013) (all theoretically diverse concepts). Practices presuppose an ontology that is relational and that humans and non-humans are somehow interdependent. Doing, by definition, needs a doer and a done to. Even if I sing by myself under the shower in the morning, the sound waves that my body creates require walls, water molecules, and other bodies to bounce off to create sound and song. While sound waves remain invisible to the human eye (but not to the ear, which cannot be shut as easily), practices of kinship and collective action unveil a spooky truth, namely that we are all always already dependent on other beings. These practices thus break with Enlightenment no‐ tions of individuality. We are all specifically relational. Yet, while practices always entail an “intra-action,” (Barad 2007), an action from within a relationship which creates positionality between at least two ac‐ 275 Kinship and Collective Action: A Conversation tants - by intra-actively reading this piece, you, reader, become a reader, and this piece of paper with words becomes a text that is read; the intra-action of reading creates at least two subject positions, as well as a specific local and temporal phenomenon of text-reading. The peculiarity - the distinctiveness and irregularity - of any practice often comes with the institution it attaches itself to, or from within which institution the practice emerges from, and with the specific sphere it anchors itself in: the private or the public. Kinship practices, such as creating a non-human, queer family with my dog and my wife, may remain relatively private, but practices of collective action, such as protesting for marriage equality, or starting a special interest group or a club for queer (non-)human families, are very public and purposely political actions. Thinking with Isabell Stengers (see 2005, 2010), my point is that practices of kinship and practices of collective action may choose to present themselves differently. The questions for a collective, kin, literature, song, art, poetry (you name it) are (i) how to create links in-between these and other practices, and (ii) if one intends to become an ally to other causes (though careful and intentional delineation or even exclusion sometimes makes political sense, and may be nec‐ essary for safety reasons). The power of kinship and collective action, concep‐ tualized as practices that are always already relational, and thus temporal and material, lies in the insight that further creative practices may emerge from within them, depending on their chosen stickiness. C: In this sense, practices of kinship and collective action entail numerous layers of relations, actions, and social dynamics that have always triggered strong emotional responses and continue to do so. While, to speak with Bourdieu (1977), official or representational forms of kinship, such as marriage, seem to decline in importance, it is crucial to acknowledge that the conventions, ideas, or ideologies around kinship remain a constant in discussions on kinship, un‐ derscoring its importance in both present and future postmodern societies. Hence, although the first examples of kinship and collective action that spring to our minds might be those from archaic societies, debates on sperm and egg donation, international adoptions, so-called honor killings, or online dating platforms clearly show that kinship and collective action as practices have main‐ tained their strong socio-political and economic relevance. It is, in fact, because they are highly dynamic that they transform according to their respective con‐ text, which also includes time and space. The aforementioned issues also shed light on the fact that, while kinship always consists of various forms of collective action, (potential) practices of kinship usually also imply (at least a call for) collective action that can be po‐ 276 Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther litical, traditional, aesthetic, religious, or physical, etc. Indeed, registering on an online dating platform might follow the intention to ultimately make kin with a single person, but simultaneously, due to the very structural set-up of the platform, requires the presence of, and sometimes also interactions with hun‐ dreds or thousands of other people that may not be part of the actual, ultimate kin-making, but still play a key role in enabling this match to happen. In other words: without various processes of collective action that may - as in the above-mentioned case - play out in the background, or may even be considered ‘passive’ from a conventional point of view, kinship would not take place. Re‐ garding kinship and collective action as practices thus also always challenges us to consider the very hidden or invisible practices that might not even meet our current definition of this term, but may have developed new forms and hitherto unknown expressions. D: Maybe it would also be useful to think kinship and collective action not only as practices in themselves but as a) entangled practices, and b) as necessary practices; that is, as practices that need to be engaged in to achieve an end that lies beyond their own scope as concepts, and that is also necessary at a specific cultural moment. What I mean to say is that the aim of kinship as a practice may not be to achieve a state of kinship (which would be impossible anyway if kin‐ ship is, indeed, always a practice), but rather to practice kinship in order to achieve something together - something that goes beyond kinship. The case may be even clearer for collective action, as we tend to conceptualize both collectivity and the idea of acting together in the context of achieving a common (practical or political) goal. The chapters in this volume explore such ways of acting together - for a wide variety of human and non-human ac‐ tants -, and in their examples, the outcome of kinship or collective action is rarely just kinship or collective action in itself, but rather a sense of creating something - art, a movement for political change, a new understanding of things, a different way of relating to each other - beyond the simple recognition of someone or something as kin. Moreover, these acts and practices of kinship and collective action are rarely purely aesthetic, or merely descriptive of an affective relation between different subjects and objects entering into a rela‐ tionship. They are highly political practices at the cutting edge of grappling with actual and pressing problems (machine learning, global climate catastrophe, our understanding of what it means to be human, and how to relate to the non-human in a non-destructive manner) - problems, that is, which emerged from, or were at least aggravated by a historically prevalent model of kinship based on family relations, and the need to protect and pass on one’s wealth to future generations. To understand kinship and collective action as radical forms 277 Kinship and Collective Action: A Conversation of practice that reach beyond themselves may thus be a necessary practice in itself - a way of re-imagining ourselves as human beings in how we relate to each other and the world around us in more productive and less destructive ways. 3 What is the place of the political in kinship and collective action? If kinship and collective action are non-hierarchical, emergent, and local dynamics, how do they relate to an intersectional politics that thinks and works with identity categories such as gender, race, class, sexuality, etc.? A: Whereas the place of the political with regards to collective action may seem immediately obvious, since many examples of collective action that come to mind, such as protest, wars, or sports, tend to have strong ties to, if not their roots in the political, the place of the political when it comes to kinship proves more difficult to detect. This appears to be in part due to the fact that the very driving force of collective action is usually the wish to proudly represent a par‐ ticular political conviction, whereas kinship - albeit similarly political - fre‐ quently employs a variety of strategies to conceal the presence of the political. In this effort of making the political invisible, notions of kinship instead seek to highlight either essentialist or constructivist concepts of kinship as ‘natural’ or ‘normal.’ The fact that both of these lenses are linked to political convictions, however, is discussed less often, and sometimes blotted out altogether. To un‐ derstand the political in any given notion of kinship, then, means to ask for its respective underlying conceptualization of kinship and to inquire further into who benefits from it. Kinship and collective action relate to an intersectional politics that operates with identity categories on an affective, emotional, and performative level. While ontological conceptualizations of identity exist, making both kinship and collective action limited, closed, and potentially exclusive dynamics, affect, emotions, and performativity allow for new, fluid configurations of both kinship and collective action beyond the narrow categories of identity. Whereas inter‐ sectional politics also capture a large variety and thus many facets of lived ex‐ perience, the concepts of collective action and kinship place more emphasis on common affective and emotional regimes and responses, or highlight shared experiences of performativity. This may seem like blurring or dismissing iden‐ tity at first. Yet it is ultimately kinship and collective action that provide the fundament for (intersectional) identities to exist and thrive. 278 Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther B: Conceptually, kinship and intersectionality address different questions or cultural problems. Where kinship describes an investment in making connec‐ tions with others (who those others are, and if this includes non-human entities may be based on the particular definition of kinship), intersectionality, in its original definition (see Crenshaw 1989), is a sociological tool designed to call attention to how different forms of oppression intersect with heightened effects for individuals that fall in both categories. Intersectionality is most effective where it addresses structural oppressions, for instance in organizations, in social hierarchies, or in the workplace, and where these inequalities can be addressed through structural means, that is, acting within and modifying existing struc‐ tures. Kinship, by comparison, suggests the absence of or even resistance to struc‐ tural hierarchies. Ideally, this means that where kinship exists and connects people from various backgrounds and with a diverse set of identities, there will be no need for intersectionality as a tool, because without hierarchies, no one would suffer the effects of different forms of oppression. In such a best-case scenario, in which kinship is established across different identities, it is the non-hierarchical character of kinship that makes it the basis for grassroots movements of collective action. It is, unfortunately, hardly ever that easy. Rarely can we simply make existing structures and oppressions go away by proclaiming our kinship with others. The best approach here may be to conceptualize kinship as a practice (see Heath Justice 2008) - something we have to work at to establish and maintain - rather than a fixed set of connections that, once proclaimed, establishes equality for everyone across the network. The role of the political in kinship and collective action would then be to keep an eye out for where inter‐ secting forms of oppression exist, and to actively counter them in practices of kinship and collective action. C: I believe, one of the reasons why notions of kinship that do not assume bio‐ logical or direct filial relations as their definitional basis often trigger questions about ‘the political’ lies in common assumptions about a teleological progression towards visibility and (state) recognition that supposedly underlie all emanci‐ patory endeavors. In contemporary liberal democracies, who counts as kin and who does not has wide-reaching implications for commodified systems of care and responsibility as allocated by the state. As Judith Butler (2002) points out in the context of the fight for gay marriage in the United States and other countries around the turn of the millennium, the fight for state-sanctioned recognition of certain kinds of sexual relationships and kinship structures is deeply embedded in a complex and contradictory field of desires and interests. When the private becomes political, it is not always immediately clear what is gained and lost by 279 Kinship and Collective Action: A Conversation whom. There is, for instance, no easy answer to the question whether one should (always) fight (for whatever reason) for the right of any two adult people to marry, regardless, for example, of their gender, in order to secure access to such rights as seeing a spouse in the hospital, while also knowing that such rights will remain denied to those who (by choice or necessity) live, love, and care outside the framework of the couple. Similarly, just as conceptualizing (and recognizing the reality of) kinship as spontaneous, emergent, and multiplying can relate awkwardly to the fight for the right to marry, to adopt children, and to have ‘a family’ (where ‘the family,’ again, denotes that which the state recognizes as such), focusing on collective action as dynamic, potentially non-teleological, and affective seems, at first glance, to contradict forms of identityand recognition-based protest and poli‐ tics. Here, too, however, a shift of focus towards seeing both kinship and col‐ lective action as dynamic processes seems paramount. No protest of any kind has ever found its way into the streets without roots in the messy spontaneity of an affective recognition as kin of a diverse group of agents, and no community could function if structures of kinship did not emerge alongside and beyond state-sanctioned forms of care. If we want our politics to remain open, emerging, and ever more inclusive, we need to keep reassessing our agendas, and dare to think and act with others in such a way that our own politics do not produce more exclusions, and ultimately more harm. D: Taking a step back from what has been discussed, the general problem of spotting the political in emergent forms of belonging such as kinship may also lie at the heart of the relational ontology this conundrum is based on. Monist ontologies rooted, for example, in relationalities or materiality often seem cut off from historical socio-political contexts, as well as from structural hierarchies imposed through state apparatuses or identity categories such as class, gender, race, etc. This flatness, which kinship as a relational belonging, a practice, or an emergence promises, may not only opt out of the so-called political, but - and this might be critical for our discussion right here - it may also opt out of our disciplinary knowledges, discourses, and representations of the political and political engagement as practiced in anglophone cultural and literary studies. Taking a step forward into the discussion again, it may hence be important that we do not intellectually reign over or domesticate diverse cultural forms of kinship to reduce them into our disciplinary frames, but rather look at each form of kinship as a relationality which potentially emerges from within or despite socio-political structures. In doing so, we could think with these following questions: 280 Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther • What are the fellow feelings or fellow affects of kinship - love, care, compassion, pity, shame, etc. -, and how do they intersect with the social and the political realm we are in? • What are the bio-political influences within this form of kinship (who can live and who will die; who is at risk and who is safe)? • Who is and who is not implicated in this form of kinship? These questions could be a starting point to think about the differences that matter and that are created in and outside of kinship formations. And it is these questions that could potentially function as corresponding tools between local and so-called ‘individual’ material-semiotic forms on the one hand, and systems of kinship on the other. 4 What is the role of acknowledgment and knowledge systems in the emergence of kinship and collective action? What do we have to unlearn in order for kinship and collective action to emerge? A: As the various contributions to this volume demonstrate, the idea of ‘kin’ is culturally specific and undergoing change, and models as well as practices of kinship are passed on and reiterated through cultural narratives. This has led to a certain disconnect between current theoretical conceptions of kinship - which, like Donna Haraway’s (2016) work on the subject, often proclaim and actively seek connections with other species -, and the cultural practices of individuals and societies - which may be much more conservative, anthropocentric, or xenophobic. Hereditary systems of wealth and power distribution and patriar‐ chal family structures that determine who is perceived as kin are deeply in‐ grained in western cultures, and continue to influence ethical codes and indi‐ vidual behaviors. Non-human animals and other natural entities (bodies of water, forests, glaciers…) are traditionally perceived as ranking below humans (or certain humans) in hierarchies rooted in ancient belief systems like Chris‐ tianity, which have been further cemented by the worldwide spread of exploi‐ tative economic systems like European settler colonialism. It therefore seems somewhat disingenuous to assume that we (humans / academics / specifically embodied and identified individuals living in the Global North) could simply proclaim kinship and engage in collective action with beings not traditionally included in our understanding of kin without having to engage in any active questioning of our own practices of kinship. If kinship and collective action are not to remain fashionable but empty academic terms that merely look good on paper and achieve nothing to assuage pressing problems like the current climate catastrophe and the various global injustices connected to it, they will have to 281 Kinship and Collective Action: A Conversation include a constant re-examination of our own professional and lived practices - and frequently an active pushback against existing systems that demand and reward hierarchical and exclusive thinking. Depending on our own position within academic, professional, or cultural structures, this may be difficult or occasionally impossible, but our questioning of our own practices needs, nev‐ ertheless, to be continuous. Narratives - be they theoretical or fictional - have the ability to draw attention to and serve to disseminate these questions, but only if we decide to actively engage with them. B: I agree that any truly critical engagement with kinship and collective action, as these concepts emerge in this volume, necessarily entails a process of self-re‐ flexivity. The theoretical debate surrounding the two ideas has, for a while now, been firmly embedded within critical social and cultural theories (feminist, queer, new-materialist, among others) that have long been interested in the dy‐ namics of knowledge production and reception, and their attending inequalities. While it has also always seemed a daunting challenge to simultaneously think radically new thoughts, and think about how we think them (and which thoughts then gain a foothold in thoroughly colonized and capitalized systems of writing, teaching, and publishing), recent developments on all levels of aca‐ demic and non-academic politics (and in this world more broadly) make such efforts paramount. The global rise of right-wing conservatism and populism goes (not surpris‐ ingly) hand in hand with the strategic financial draining of institutions of critical thinking, and a coupling of academic knowledge production with agendas of capitalist productivity and marketability. Hence, those still in positions of rela‐ tive (while often also already precarious) freedom should make every effort not to buy into the individualistic logic of the zero-sum game of global capital, but instead try, in every way (still, for now) available, to promote collaborative practices of knowledge production and dissemination, oriented by an ongoing learning from decolonial, feminist, anti-racist, and queer thinking. The worst we can do - and unfortunately, this often is the reality - is to do empty theorizing aimed at securing our place at the top of an imagined ladder of academic repu‐ tability, and, in the process, to practice (or, at least, to confirm) the racist, sexist, homophobic, capitalist, and unsustainable structures our writing hypocritically condemns. It would be foolish and wrongly idealistic to assume that this kind of ethics could be realized by each of us, every day, in all the work we do. But fostering more open, more reparative, less harmful, and truly more collective academic practices, and being accountable to others for what we do are very real options that require a tolerance for conflict and failure we must strive towards. 282 Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther C: Self-reflexive commentary on how we know what we know has a long tra‐ dition in the academy, and often remains an intellectual exercise (think sports for academics! ) only. I am intrigued by which has been said so far about the need for a corrective to our automatic ways of not actually doing what we preach in books or papers. How can we make our classrooms, papers, and conferences more participatory (think Sahlins) and more collective (think collective action as working towards a collective goal or piece of work). In short, what does it actually mean to create an integrative practice of thinking, teaching, writing with and among? Before I attempt to come up with something like the beginning of a toolbox for thinking, teaching, writing with and among, I want to shortly address a con‐ ception problem which can translate into an action problem when it comes to unlearning our academic practices as outlined in the first responses here. Since the development of the so-called ‘New Sciences’ in the early modern period, and the establishment of the Royal Society in England, knowledge and the quest towards it have been mainly thought of as bound to an intellectual, and thus immaterial scientific method (think Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum, 1620), derived through material-scientific instruments (think Robert Hooke’s Micro‐ graphia, 1665), discussed within a society of “modest witnesses” (think Haraway 1997) within the Royal Society, and bound to the body / mind dualism as devel‐ oped in Descartes’ discussion of scientific methods, in which reason paired with deduction is the “certain [route] to knowledge.” (Descartes 1701: 43) In short, the historicity of how we know what we know in the west is con‐ ceived as a highly regulated and institutional immaterial process of certain closed-off rational, conscious (male, white, straight) human beings, and regu‐ lated by strict methods and traditions. This historicity, which is knotted into our research and learning institutions of higher education at every step of the way, may create (i) interaction and (ii) unlearning problems for any collective or kin practices, which are always material-semantic and participatory. If, however, we re-think knowledge making as an open material-semantic process that has ripple effects, things change, and potential alter_native actions can emerge: we could, for example do the following (think and continue this thinking, teaching, writing with and among toolbox! ): • creative writing exercises and workshops with students and colleagues to activate the experience-driven entry into a topic that creative writing, art, and literary texts have, and theory or theorizing (most often) lack; • more workshops in which participants actually work together on a problem / question, and less one-directional papers at conferences (when 283 Kinship and Collective Action: A Conversation do you have the privilege of having so many well-trained people in one place? ); • allow ‘the real world’ and not just theories and books into classrooms, meetings, books, conferences (think activist, artist collectives, writers, students’ concerns, news, things, etc.); • think with ‘guerilla tactics’ of writing, presenting, and teaching together as collectives; • come up with ‘codes of conduct’ at conferences that are transparently communicated along meaningful themes to enforce gatherings that are more inclusive and participatory; • continue this list. D: I agree with all of the above-mentioned points, and simultaneously find my‐ self grappling with some of the challenges that arise for me when I think about implementing the proposed changes. The academy is, interestingly, one of the places from which critical thinking and (ideas for) new practices regarding kin‐ ship and collective action emerge, although, or perhaps to some extent because this field’s very setup and history also seem to be diametrically opposed to such radical ideas. Indeed, ‘thinking progressively against oneself ’ is a common and highly regarded mode in the academic field, and with this mode, usually through the practice of (public) self-critique and self-transformation, the academy has always been superb at legitimizing but - what is even more crucial - preserving itself. This being said, while it is certainly imperative to reform self-centered prac‐ tices in the academic field, and develop innovative and different ways of doing and thinking about issues, the question remains how the academic field and individual academics navigate the(ir) field’s innate self-centeredness and exclu‐ sivity which - by definition - select people in a variety of ways, who then attain (in many cases even formalized) permission (as in college degrees) to be part of it but (often even proudly - think of Ivy Leagues or required GPA s and grades to be eligible to study certain subjects) leave many others out. For many, if not for most people, questions of belonging, which are key to discussions surrounding kinship, occur in negative terms when it comes to the academic field: not belonging to those who passed the exam, found a publisher, or received a job offer. The constant struggle to overcome feelings of inadequacy, and the permanent, extremely high likelihood of exclusion seem to be such in‐ tegral parts of the game, however, that this premise, let alone the effects of the field’s omnipresent masochism, is rarely questioned. On the contrary, it seems to be these very aspects that testify to the ‘quality’ of academia, while tacit 284 Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther consent to these unwritten rules further contributes to the fact that kinship and collective action indeed often remain solely theoretical endeavors. While for all those who do belong, participation is rewarded with symbolic capital only, some also get to conduct paid work in the field. The main currency that denotes being ‘in the field’ (regardless of employment, if we think of inde‐ pendent scholars, for example), however, is peer-recognition. Citation indexes only constitute the most extreme form in this context. What matters more is being included in (conventional, progressive, or radical) conferences, projects, publications, or any other format that would receive recognition by others. While this might sound rather positive, it again also implies that many others are purposefully left out. So even if we find new ways of working together, of thinking about ourselves and others, or of undermining the status quo, how do we, those who are ‘in’ the field, sincerely come to terms with the fact that ex‐ clusion and self-centeredness are ingrained in it? In a similar fashion, actual ‘collective action’ remains absent from the highly competitive academic field. Since the latter is, according to its traditional self-image, not only more ‘detached from’ than ‘attached to’ the ‘real world,’ but also centered on single individuals and their success, ‘collective action’ often remains a subject of study at best. Would the only truly radical thought and practice not be to consider everybody a scholar? I thus wonder what it would take to conceive of a truly open university, in which universitas not only pertains to what is studied, but also by whom and in which ways? Being mindful of where we work, and reminding ourselves of the field’s deeply ingrained biases against tacit or embodied knowledge, for example, might be a starting point from which we can continuously reach out and try to open up the space to those who are ‘outside’ the field as much as possible - or ask them if they are willing to think, discuss, and create with us in their preferred environment. Works Cited Ahmed, Sara (2004). The Cultural Politics of Emotions. New York and London: Routledge. Bacon, Francis ([1620] 2000). The New Organon: Novum Organum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barad, Karen (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entangle‐ ment of Matter and Meaning. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. 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Haraway, Donna (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Haraway, Donna (2008). When Species Meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Haraway, Donna (1997). Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan_Meets_Onco‐ Mouse: Feminism and Technoscience. New York: Routledge. Heath Justice, Daniel (2008). ‘“Go Away, Water! ”: Kinship Criticism and the Decoloniza‐ tion Imperative,’ in The Native Critics Collective, eds., Reasoning Together. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 147-68. Hooke, Robert (2012). Micrographia (1665). Kindle. Massumi, Brian (2015). Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity. Sahlins, Marshall (2013). What Kinship Is - And Is Not. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stengers, Isabelle (2005). ‘The Cosmopolitical Proposal,’ in Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, eds., Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy. Cambridge: MIT Press, 994-1003. Stengers, Isabelle (2010). Cosmopolitics I. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 286 Gero Bauer, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Nicole Hirschfelder, Katharina Luther Contributors Ayman Bakr is assistant professor of Arabic literature and criticism. Since 2009, he has been teaching classical and modern Arabic literary genres, heritage issues, and contemporary cultural phenomena in Arabic cultures at the Gulf University for Science and Technology in Kuwait. In addition to his two disser‐ tations on classical Arabic literature, Bakr contributes to the field of contempo‐ rary Arabic literature and culture through publications and conferences. He has published a number of books and papers in cultural studies and literary criticism, a volume of poems (The Texts of the Magician, Cairo, Al-Adham Publishing, 2013), and recently his first novel (The Jungle, Cairo, Toya Publishing, 2020). Gero Bauer teaches English Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Tübingen, and is the managing director of Tübingen’s Center for Gender and Diversity Research. He studied English and History, and holds a PhD in English Literature. Since the publication of his first monograph, Houses, Secrets and the Closet: Locating Masculinities from the Gothic Novel to Henry James (2016), Bauer has been working on a new project on hope and kinship in contemporary Anglo-American fiction. He has published journal articles and book chapters on early modern natural philosophy (2014, 2017), gender and literature (2017), queer film and television (2018, 2019), and queer pedagogies (2020), and has been a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge and King’s College London. His research interests include anglophone literatures from 1800 until today, gender and queer studies, camp, film and music video aesthetics, new materi‐ alism, affect studies, post-/ decolonial studies, and European literary and cultural history. Amina ElHalawani is a lecturer at the Department of English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Arts, Alexandria University. She pursued her PhD in Comparative Literature at the Universities of Perpignan and Tübingen within the framework of the Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate program “Cultural Studies in Literary Interzones,” and successfully defended her dissertation in 2018, which focused on revolution in Irish and Egyptian theaters. During the program, ElHalawani also conducted research at the Universities of Bergamo and Sydney. She is a Fulbright Alumna, having spent an academic year (2012- 2013) in the United States, teaching classes on Arabic language and culture, as well as comparative literature. ElHalawani’s current research interests include modes of resistance and revolution in theater, performance studies, twentieth century drama, theater of the absurd, post-coloniality, and the Global South. Sebastian Engelmann is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for Educa‐ tion, University of Tübingen. Sebastian studied Social Sciences, English Litera‐ ture, Theology, Applied Ethics, and Education Studies in Oldenburg and Jena. He does research in the fields of history and philosophy of education with a focus on systematic-historical questions in the context of democracy education. Most recent publications include Forgotten Pedagogues of German Education: A History of Alternative Education (2019) and “Kindred Spirits: Learning to Love Nature the Posthuman Way” (2019), as well as Demokratie (to be published in 2020), a book on the relation between democracy and education in a post-po‐ litical era. Maria Fleischhack obtained an MA in British Studies and Egyptology at Leipzig University, where she was a research associate until 2019. After working as an adjunct teacher at Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg in the winter term 2019 / 2020, she has now returned to Leipzig as a research associate. While her PhD project concerned the “The Representation of Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth-Century and Early-Twentieth-Century Fantastic Fiction,“ her cur‐ rent research interests lie in concepts of authorship in the digital age, as well as fandom studies. She is the president of the German Inklings Society, and a member of the Baker Street Irregulars. She has published on the literary recep‐ tion of ancient Egypt, fantasy literature, and Sherlock Holmes. Astrid Franke is professor of American Studies at the University of Tübingen. She received her PhD from the Kennedy Institute at Freie Universität Berlin, and then became an assistant professor at Frankfurt University. She has published on stereotypes in modern American novels, on the concept of the public in lit‐ erature, and the relation of poetry and (in-)justice. Using sociological concepts in cultural studies, she is also a member of the Collaborative Research Center “Threatened Orders,” leading a project on the surprising resilience of the racial order in the history of the United States. Anya Heise-von der Lippe is assistant lecturer with the chair of Anglophone Literatures and teaches English Literature and Culture at the University of Tü‐ bingen. After completing her PhD with a dissertation on Monstrous Textualities (to be published with the University of Wales press in 2021), she has recently started a new research project on Romanticism and Climate Change. Publica‐ tions include various chapters and articles on monsters, hypertext, zombies, dystopias, and cyberpunk, as well as the edited collections Posthuman Gothic 288 Contributors ( UWP , 2017) and Literaturwissenschaften in der Krise (co-edited with Russell West-Pavlov, Narr, 2018). Nicole Hirschfelder studied in Frankfurt, Germany and UW -Madison, USA . During her PhD years, she was a staff member at Tübingen’s American Studies Department, and an associate member of the Collaborative Research Center 923 “Threatened Order - Societies Under Stress.” While abroad, she was a candidate in Yale’s PhD research scholar program, and received her PhD from the Uni‐ versity of Tübingen. She published her first book, Oppression as Process: The Case of Bayard Rustin, in 2014. In 2016, she was a visiting professor at the University of Maryland, College Park and returned for another semester in 2019. Nicole Hirschfelder received tenure in 2018, and is now an Associate Professor at the American Studies Department at the University of Tübingen, and a project leader at the Collaborative Research Center “Threatened Orders.” Her main areas of scholarship (figurational sociology, protest, and the Civil Rights Movement) also inform her collaborations with schools and other (educational and govern‐ mental) institutions that strive to facilitate dialogues about the specific meanings of diversity, discrimination, the refugee situation, and the Black Lives Matter movement in the U. S. and Germany. Ingrid Hotz-Davies is professor of English Literature and Gender Studies at the University of Tübingen, and co-director of Tübingen’s Center for Gender and Diversity Research. Her work focusses on women’s writing, gender and queer studies, early modern literature, and the new materialisms. Major book publications include Adversarial Stances (1995), The Creation of Religious Iden‐ tities by English Women Poets (2001), Psychoanalytic-ism (2000), and The Dark Side of Camp Aesthetics (2018). Sama Khosravi Ooryad is a feminist researcher and graduate student of Wom‐ en’s and Gender Studies at Utrecht University, and holds a degree in English Literature from Shahid Beheshti University. She is interested in feminist move‐ ments and histories, socio-political analyses of literature and culture, and on‐ line / offline cultures of protest in the Middle East and beyond. Her work has been published by a peer-reviewed journal as well as independent literary and (feminist) online websites in both English and Persian. Khosravi Ooryad is also a poet and a member of the poetry movement Matrood (The Excluded), and she published a book of poems in Persian in 2017. Katharina Luther is a research fellow and PhD student at the English Depart‐ ment, section for American Studies, University of Tübingen. Her dissertation Knowing & Doing & Becoming: A Natureculture Poetics of Matter Poetry coins a 289 Contributors new genre of contemporary poetry as ‘matter poetry,’ and establishes Donna Haraway’s concept of “naturecultures” (2003) as a philosophy in its own right that has been a key constituent for a feminist new materialism. In 2019, Luther received the Prof. Dr. Friedrich Schubel Foundation Prize for the advancement of young researchers for her dissertation project. Luther’s research interests focus on the new materialism(s), contemporary poetry and literature, philos‐ ophy of science, environmental humanities, and the nonhuman at large. During the fall term 2019, she was a guest lecturer at the English Department and Honors College of the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also a pub‐ lished poet. Kim Luther is a research fellow and lecturer for Prof. Dr. Eckart Goebel, De‐ partment of Comparative Literature, Faculty of Philosophy, Eberhard Karls Uni‐ versität Tübingen. She is also a PhD student and member of the PhD program (Promotionsverbund) “Theory of Balance” at the Department of German Studies and Comparative Literature, chaired by Prof. Eckart Goebel. Since 2020, Luther has been the German editor for German Life and Letters (Wiley), one of German Studies’ most renowned international journals. In her dissertation, she analyzes the media discourse on modern technology, and how it deals with the non‐ human. Her research interests include utopian and dystopian literature, modern and contemporary fiction, posthumanism and transhumanism, and digitaliza‐ tion and social change. Ana Nolasco holds a doctorate and Master of Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art from the School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon, and is a tutor in Art and Aesthetics at the High Institute of Education and Science, Lisbon. She is currently developing a post-doctoral project entitled “Innovation, Art and Design: Emerging Creative Archipelagos; The Influences of Contemporary Cre‐ ative Processes on Lusophone Atlantic islands, Africa and Portugal” at UNI‐ DCOM / IADE Research Unit in Design and Communication, European Univer‐ sity, Lisbon, Portugal. Ana has published various essays on the theory of art, including “Social Art: ‘Echoes of Machim” in Advances in Social and Occupational Ergonomics (2019), “Post-production: Archive and Memory in the Work of César Schofield Cardoso” in Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art (2019), and “Designing National Identity Through Cloth: The pánu di téra of Cape Verde” in Island Studies Journal (2018). Jonatan Jalle Steller is a research assistant in British Cultural Studies at Leipzig University and currently teaches a range of classes on the history of the British Isles, their cultures, as well as their media in a global context. He studied History and English Language and Literature at the University of Freiburg. His PhD 290 Contributors thesis was titled “Maker Ideology: The Representation of Small Collectives in Present-Day Anglo-American Blockbuster Fiction.” His current focus is on pop‐ ular culture in general, and politics in film in particular. Other research interests include thrillers and sci-fi across different media, the role of the visual in liter‐ ature, the attention economy, critical code studies, and digital techniques in Cultural and Literary Studies. Joelle Tybon is a scholar of comparative literature who is interested in ques‐ tions of community and the networks of relations that connect people to one another and to nonhuman forces and actors. Drawing primarily on contempo‐ rary literary narratives, her research focuses on these networks and the events, moments, and actions that prompt us to recognize and reimagine the commun‐ ities to which we belong. She is currently an Assistant Teaching Professor at the University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute where she teaches Academic Writing and Literature courses to Chinese engineering stu‐ dents. Russell West-Pavlov is professor of Anglophone Literatures at the University of Tübingen, and a research associate at the University of Pretoria. He is con‐ venor of an extensive BMBF / DAAD research network on Global South Studies (2015-2020), and a founding convenor of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Global South Studies at the University of Tübingen. Major book publications include Temporalities (Routledge, 2013), Eastern African Literatures (Oxford University Press, 2018), German as Contact Zone (Narr / Francke/ Attempto, 2019), and Af‐ rikAffekt (Narr / Francke / Attempto, 2020). He has recently edited The Global South and Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2018). 291 Contributors