Reproduction, Kin and Climate Crisis

What is it like to have a baby in climate crisis? Engaging a range of concepts, including the Pyrocene, breath, care and embodiment, the authors explore how climate crisis is changing experiences of having children. They also raise questions about how gender and sexuality are shaped by histories of human engagements with fire. The book is underpinned by an interview-based project undertaken in 2020–2021 in South Eastern Australia. The research explored the experiences of pregnant women and their partners, pre- and post-birth, during the catastrophic bushfire season of 2019–2020 and the subsequent COVID-19 pandemic. It is also informed by interviews with experts on bushfire smoke and/or reproduction, including clinicians, architects and air quality scientists. Making an original contribution to social theory, the authors draw together ideas from feminist technoscience studies and queer theory about reproduction and kin into debates on contemporary planetary crises. They explore the diverse relations between climate crisis, kinship and reproduction; embodiment and breathing; biosensing and air quality; and Pyro-reproductive futures. The book has a distinctly Australian flavour, but is nonetheless global in its themes. The arguments apply in many ways to other climate-related disasters, such as floods and wildfires in other parts of the world.