Fafnir (Dec 2023)
Grafting Symbiosis: Care, Empathy, and Scientific Reform in Naomi Mitchison’s Memoirs of a Spacewoman
Abstract
This article examines the presence and potential applications of care, empathy, and anti-binary approaches in relation to scientific thought and practice in Naomi Mitchison’s first science fiction novel, Memoirs of a Spacewoman (1962). I argue that Mitchison’s portrayal of alien mothering and interspecies communication both interrogates the social consequences of reproductive technology and gestures towards a model of scientific study where empathy and care are valued, where the unstable boundaries between “Self” and “Other” can be interrogated, and where structures of sameness and difference might be revised. Mitchison’s emphasis on relationality, emotion, contextual particularity, and empathy shed light on the radical possibilities of engaging with care in the scientific field. By first engaging with the relevant historical and contemporary discourse surrounding care, feminist science and technology studies, and feminist speculative fiction criticism, this article investigates the ways in which Mitchison’s alien encounters can disrupt the gendered binaries of both social and scientific thought.
