Haraway, the compost-ist
In an extremely brief commentary piece, Haraway wrote in 2015 that it mattered what “stories tell stories…concepts think concepts…figures figure figures…systems systematize systems” (160). All these words representing in variation a being(s) constructing things, she points us toward the concrete in each instance. Who is doing what? What power relations are at play? Who is response-able and responsible? This is one instance where she discusses the Chthulucene—remarking that she is not drawing from the racist DH Lawrence narrative (the spelling difference is important for her)—rather, and she acknowledges the imperfection of the Greek root in the use of this word as another example of power, Haraway directs our reading to see the “tentacular” as she calls it. Like the Hydra of myth, the Chthulucene is marked by regenerating limbs and heads that rise one after another when struck down. She is driving us to focus in the midst of all the many distractions on the world in which and upon which we live. It’s concrete, not transcendental, as Dr. Losh and I discussed. She paraphrases Jason Moore’s argument “that cheap nature is at an end; cheapening nature cannot work much longer to sustain extraction and production in and of the contemporary world because most of the reserves of the earth have been drained, burned, depleted, poisoned, exterminated, and otherwise exhausted” (160). That word, “exhaustion,” arrives at the end with a whoosh. This that precedes it is extensive and specific. These are destructive verbs that delimit how capitalism, imperialism, racism, sexism, ableism, and more -isms have used up the precious and fine plain on which we exist. It’s startling to conceive and consider the extinctions that take place each day without the conscious knowledge of each one of us but of course it occurs. For all its dark humor, the moment when the dolphins fly away in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a moment not far from us now. The unfortunate fact though is they may spiritually flee but their bodies will likely beach themselves as the oceans acidify.
The horrors are awful and we cannot ignore them. Haraway argues for a way of knowing and being with the natural world that would not ease all these pains but would allow us to maybe exist into the future. Making kin is a solution in that it is a “logical relation” sought not one solely of blood or culture. In fact, she wants us to go beyond the making of people in our lives, the drawing in of others to our spheres. She encourages the making of kin beyond kind, relishing Shakespeare’s pun (161), and this looks like any number of concrete, tactile interactions with one’s world. This isn’t from a “woowoo” attitude to ground oneself, but it is borne of the need to reconnect. The “touch grass” memes on Instagram are not all funny, silly stuff. There is a verisimilitude that so many of us miss and miss out on because of a distinction of ourselves from the earth. The natural aspect of this commentary is so present in the following quote. “I am a compost-ist, not a posthuman-ist: we are all compost, not posthuman” (161). There is room for the spirit in this all I think but Haraway really wants us to understand that we have to touch grass and revive that concrete connection to survive.
All of this is underscored by the presence, existence, and persistence of refugees, those of climate, capitalism, genocide, and so on. I want to wrap up here because her call for making kin means making kin of people unlike yourself. I mean this in the messy way that looks like some hurt white feelings and then some reflection on the part of the white person to not be so thin-skinned or wounded when they are called out for causing strife and pain. We have to learn how to exist in communities of variety because we will depend on it as the century stretches before us and as more folks become the victims of climate change, imperialism, and oligarchy.
