Paper short abstract:

A lyrical theoretical paper that excavate issues of material predation and species waste, and how this might be re-imagined in the Anthropocene. Given, material predations have deep implications for creaturely survival and kin relations, I ask who decides the circumstances of kinship, and which kin are to be extinguished for ongoing survival in the Anthropocene. How might we might navigate a lifeboat ethics for planetary times, when our material predations are implicated in extinguishments and wasted flesh.

Paper long abstract:

As long as my material predation is seen as a necessity for my existence, can I even negotiate toward ‘multi-species reconciliation’ (D. Haraway 2010, 106); or contemplate ecological justice? My reluctance to renounce the commodities, and therefore give up the slaughters, must be either taken as hubris/entitlement. If having prey is the consequence of my own just existence, in the context of ecological justice, what are my responsibilities to non-human others?

To consider my existence as a material predator I devise a speculative figuration for Anthropocenic reckonings. ‘Kin carapace’ is my material predator encasement: a carapace of clever things that sparkle and chime, as well a mournful drag of ungainly bits and deaths clumped behind. She is as hungry for Earthly matter as my fleshy self. I have called her ‘kin carapace’ and she has emerged through my thinking with ‘bio-ore’- the ore, tailings, and flesh of fallen kin-waste of mining. She is my carrying device for spent prey and dead ore that comes with my commodity accumulations.

Amongst other events, kin carapace meets up with Donna Haraway at the Anthropocene Bar. In the high carbon stakes of the bar’s warming atmosphere we discuss questions of who does and doesn’t flourish and how do we decide? If all creatures of sea and land are potential ‘oddkin’(Haraway 2016) then which kin do I extinguish when my intransigent material want insists on being sated?

Note: this is a lyrical theoretical paper based on a presentation given at the 2018 ‘Hacking the Anthropocene’ event, held at the University of Sydney.