“Thank you for the Nurture”: Kinship and Technological Posthumanism in Orphan Black

Tobin, Katie

Abstract

This paper demonstrates how the Canadian science fiction television series Orphan Black explores new modalities of kinship, aligning the social implications of reproductive biotechnologies with queer networks of chosen families. Engaging with the writings of posthumanist thinker Donna Haraway and following the clone protagonists of Orphan Black the series destabilises the tradition of the nuclear family by inviting its viewership to question the driving forces behind biological kinship. Also informed by recent scholarship exploring the intersection between queer families, cultures surrounding Assistive Reproductive Technologies, and the works of José Esteban Muñoz, this paper invites engagements with queerness, under a posthumanist critical framework, as holding an underrepresented ‘utopian’ sociality. Driven by a wider cultural context of eradicated reproductive and bodily autonomy under patriarchal capitalism in North America, the series depicts the chosen family – both genetic and non-genetic – as the true site of liberation, solidarity, and ultimately freedom.

Citation

Tobin, K. (2023). “Thank you for the Nurture”: Kinship and Technological Posthumanism in Orphan Black. Interconnections: Journal of Posthumanism, 2(2), 48-62

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 9, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Nov 7, 2023
• Publication Date: 2023
• Deposit Date: Nov 9, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 9, 2023
• Journal: Interconnections: Journal of Posthumanism
• Print ISSN: 2564-260X
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 2
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 48-62
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1902130
• Publisher URL: https://journals.library.brocku.ca/index.php/posthumanismstudies/article/view/4342