Exercising the imagination: ecofeminist science fictions as object-oriented thought experiments in education

ABSTRACT

This essay offers a rationale for deploying ecofeminist science fiction stories as object-oriented thought experiments in science and environmental education, with particular reference to developments in genetics and evolutionary biology, and their implications for human (and more-than-human) reproduction and kinship in the period following the determination of the double helical structure of DNA by scientists affiliated with Cambridge University’s Cavendish Laboratory in 1953, and the impact of subsequent gene-centric discourses on the biological sciences and the wider culture. The utility and defensibility of this approach is exemplified by reference to two science fiction novels by the late Naomi Mitchison that foreground and anticipate implications of genetic sciences for matters of concern to ecofeminists, including reproductive rights and responsibilities, population control, human relations with the more-than-human, and problematizing gendered (and other) binaries in everyday speech and popular culture.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecofeminism
• science fiction
• thought experiments
• nondualism
• genetics
• Naomi Mitchison

Acknowledgements

I thank Emily Gray, Hillary Whitehouse, and two anonymous reviewers for constructive comments on an early draft of this essay. I also acknowledge and pay my respects to the traditional custodians of Melbourne/Naarm, the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin nation, on whose unceded lands I live and work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

(Regarding the use of full names in the reference list, I depart from the Gender and Education style guidelines to facilitate reading the gender politics of the sources on which I draw. I also believe that it is discourteous to authors to arbitrarily truncate the ways in which they choose to identify themselves.)

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 https://circe-sfu.ca/ierg/

2 https://csi.asu.edu/

3 See, for example, Michael Frayn’s (2000) play, Copenhagen, a dramatisation of a meeting between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in 1941.

4 I adopt Haraway’s (1989, 5) characterization of SF: ‘In the late 1960s science fiction anthologist and critic Judith Merril idiosyncratically began using the signifier SF to designate a complex emerging narrative field in which the boundaries between science fiction (conventionally, sf) and fantasy became highly permeable in confusing ways, commercially and linguistically. Her designation, SF, came to be widely adopted as critics, readers, writers, fans, and publishers struggled to comprehend an increasingly heterodox array of writing, reading, and marketing practices indicated by a proliferation of “sf” phrases: speculative fiction, science fiction, science fantasy, speculative futures, speculative fabulation’. More recently, Haraway (2016, 2) adds ‘string figures, speculative feminism, science fact, so far.’, to which I add serious fun

5 I call Mitchison’s two SF stories ‘proto-ecofeminist’ because Memoirs of a Spacewoman clearly predates Francoise d'Eaubonne’s (1974) coinage of the term ecofeminist and although Solution Three was first published in 1975, a longhand draft dates from 1970 (see Susan M. Squier 1995, 161–163).

6 Adding to the evidence of Mitchison’s ‘neglect’, when I sought to purchase a personal copy of Solution Three, the only source I could find that had it in stock offered it as ‘second-hand copy in good condition’. The copy I received appeared never to have been opened and enclosed a slip identifying it as a complimentary review copy.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Noel Gough

Noel Gough is Professor Emeritus in the School of Education at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. His teaching, research, and publications focus on research methodology and curriculum studies, with particular reference to environmental education, science education, internationalisation, and globalisation. He coedited and contributed to Curriculum Visions (Peter Lang, 2002), Internationalisation and Globalisation in Mathematics and Science Education (Springer, 2007), and Transnational Education and Curriculum Studies: International Perspectives (Routledge, 2021) and is founding editor of Transnational Curriculum Inquiry.