Hybrid alienation: reproductive labour and emancipation in the anthropocene

Abstract This article develops an account of alienation that centres the way in which reproductive labour determines the constitution and shape of this world. The first part proposes a functionalist reading of the idea of the regeneration and reproduction of a liveable world as joint human and non-human labour. It draws on the Wages for Housework movement to argue that understanding reproduction as labour illuminates the ways in which the ‘naturalness’ of reproduction emerges as a function of a deeper political decision to valorise production. The second part provides a hybrid reconstruction of alienation as a means to critique such an arrangement of labour, without inadvertently falling back on a reified notion of ‘nature’. I argue that this helps us keep track of the political construction of ‘nature’ which underlies the concepts of political theory we rely on. The third part ties both of these strands together: a political organisation of labour that relies on the ‘naturalisation’ of reproduction alienates us by rendering it impossible to make our own fundamental decisions about the constitution of the collective. Thereby, it offers a way of holding onto the goal of emancipation in the Anthropocene.