The reproduction of reproduction: theorizing reproductive (im)mobilities
Mimí Sheller
Abstract
Through a reading of the articles gathered in this special issue, this commentary seeks to assess how critical research on reproductive processes, spatialities, temporalities, and assemblages can push mobilities theory towards rethinking the politics of (im)mobilities, which can also give us a new lens on the reproduction of reproduction. It begins with questions of scale, and the power relations involved in the heterogeneous mobile embodiments and bodily entanglements of reproduction, including mobilities involved in fertility, assisted conception, surrogacy, abortion, egg freezing, or traveling to give birth. It then draws on process theories and relational ontologies within mobilities theory to think about multiple kinds of becoming as crucial to temporal processes of reproduction, involving both molar and molecular politics. Lastly, it elucidates the kinopolitics of reproduction and broadens the field of critical mobility studies to better take into account the material assemblages and affective entanglements of reproductive politics.