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laindarko2 's review for:
Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene
by Donna J. Haraway
challenging
inspiring
slow-paced
Make kin, not babies!
I'm compromising with the 4 star rating as I would give this a 5 for the impact it has had on me but a 3 for overall structure as a text.
Haraway's writings on how to be in a troubled world, in a trouble time, inhabiting troubled minds, bodies, and consciences, are really, really important to me. My main takeaways being the emphases on kin-making, storytelling, play, and acceptance that sometimes healing/resurgence/decolonizing are bumpy processes; they can be risky, partial, imperfect, and could sometimes even fail, but they are always worthwhile practices. Haraway presents some compelling examples of the exact kinds of healing and kin-making processes she's talking about and she provides an immense network of other texts, ideas, stories, and art to look into -- going beyond merely citing sources and treating her sources (no matter how old) more like active collaborators, very much in keeping with her principles. Her use of language and story is definitely challenging to get used to, and one could argue that she limits the accessibility of her ideas in this way, but there's intentionality to every word choice and turn of phrase and I don't think this book would be what it is without it. Her use of language is, in itself, an example of the creative reimaginings that she is advocating for. We love a theorist who doesn't just talk the talk, but walks the walk!
However, I think this book needed to be edited down a lot. There's a lot of unnecessary repetition. Most of the main ideas are explained wonderfully in just the introduction and don't really need to be re-explained, yet they are, in every chapter and using more or less the same words. I don't know much about the background of this book's publication, but I have a suspicion that it started out as an essay and was inflated to fit a more publishing-friendly page count.
Regardless, this book is an essential part of my personal library at this point. I would recommend at least the introduction and first chapter to all of my fellow Braiding Sweetgrass-loving academics.
I'm compromising with the 4 star rating as I would give this a 5 for the impact it has had on me but a 3 for overall structure as a text.
Haraway's writings on how to be in a troubled world, in a trouble time, inhabiting troubled minds, bodies, and consciences, are really, really important to me. My main takeaways being the emphases on kin-making, storytelling, play, and acceptance that sometimes healing/resurgence/decolonizing are bumpy processes; they can be risky, partial, imperfect, and could sometimes even fail, but they are always worthwhile practices. Haraway presents some compelling examples of the exact kinds of healing and kin-making processes she's talking about and she provides an immense network of other texts, ideas, stories, and art to look into -- going beyond merely citing sources and treating her sources (no matter how old) more like active collaborators, very much in keeping with her principles. Her use of language and story is definitely challenging to get used to, and one could argue that she limits the accessibility of her ideas in this way, but there's intentionality to every word choice and turn of phrase and I don't think this book would be what it is without it. Her use of language is, in itself, an example of the creative reimaginings that she is advocating for. We love a theorist who doesn't just talk the talk, but walks the walk!
However, I think this book needed to be edited down a lot. There's a lot of unnecessary repetition. Most of the main ideas are explained wonderfully in just the introduction and don't really need to be re-explained, yet they are, in every chapter and using more or less the same words. I don't know much about the background of this book's publication, but I have a suspicion that it started out as an essay and was inflated to fit a more publishing-friendly page count.
Regardless, this book is an essential part of my personal library at this point. I would recommend at least the introduction and first chapter to all of my fellow Braiding Sweetgrass-loving academics.