Mothering against motherhood: doula work, xenohospitality and the idea of the momrade

Today, a new vein of queer Marxist-feminist family-abolitionist theorising is reviving contemporary feminists’ willingness to imagine, politically, what women's liberationists in the 1970s called ‘mothering against motherhood’. Concurrently, the jokey portmanteau ‘momrade’, i.e. mom + comrade, has circulated persistently in the twenty-first century on online forums maintained by communities of mothers and/or leftists. This article asks: what if, in the name of abolishing the family, we took the joke entirely seriously? What makes a ‘mom’ a ‘momrade’, or vice versa? In what ways does the work of reproduction, conceivably, actively participate in class struggles, producing new worlds (and un-producing others)? How do the collective arts of mothering unmake selves? And how does the verb ‘to mother’ work to abolish the present state of things? The chosen point of departure for exploring these questions is the concept of xenohospitality; a term I borrow from Helen Hester – one of the authors of the Xenofeminist Manifesto – who defines it as openness to the alien, a definition I link closely to ‘comradeliness’. Further, the meaning of the term ‘family abolition’, here, is aptly summed up by the formula ‘xenofam ≥ biofam’; to abolish the family is not to destroy relationships of care and nurturance, but on the contrary, to expand and proliferate them. Reflecting on the conditions of possibility for such universally xenofamilial – that is to say, comradely – kin relations, this article implicitly argues for utopia(nism) in feminist kinship studies. It grounds this utopianism, however, in first-hand experiences of informal ‘death doula’ labour. The labour of mothering one's mother is offered as a potential practice of un-mothering oneself and others. In fact, the argument pivots on these auto-ethnographic observations about maternal bereavement, because the event of the author's mother's death interrupted and intruded upon the feminist theorising involved.

Marrying in a single moment: Zimbabwean Baptist ethics and the management of kin relations

Scholarship about Southern Africa registers a persistent tension between the prospect of relations created in a processual manner over time and the role of discrete ritual or lifecycle events. Marriage is one of the sites where this tension becomes particularly evident, not only in bridewealth transactions but also in an increasing prominence given to European-style ‘white weddings’. For Baptist Christians living in urban Zimbabwe, the tension raises a host of ethical considerations. This group of Christians seeks to establish and maintain social relations that they value for cultural and for religious reasons, while also facing the ethical task of moderating the degree of obligation that these relations can exert over them. They do so in order to maintain the moral autonomy necessary to live ethical Baptist lives, and attempt to achieve this goal by creating marriages according to a model of immediate transformation, rather than one of gradual unfolding. I suggest that drawing from recent discussions in the anthropological study of ethics offers a way to discuss choice and evaluation in marriage practice in ways not reducible to class interest or social and material expediency alone.

Guanxi, Three Forms or One

A consensus holds that guanxi has three forms—family, friendship and acquaintance guanxi—distinguished by the strength of obligation. It is also assumed that through fictive kinship, friendship and family guanxi may merge. The chapter shows that kinship obligations and guanxi obligations are fundamentally dissimilar, thus the notion of family guanxi is redundant, and that pseudo-family ties do not provide access to kin relations but affirm the distinction between family and friendship ties. Because guanxi is cultivated by its participants, friendship guanxi and acquaintance guanxi are not distinct forms but rather different stages of guanxi formation. In considering the sources of these confusions the chapter goes on to discuss problems arising from employment of common-language terms in sociological analysis, untested assumptions concerning Chinese culture, and methodological commitments which privilege latent structures of strong ties. It is shown that the strength of guanxi ties, strategically pursued by participants, fluctuate through agentic practices.

Traditional Rural Society

A constant source in academic discussion of guanxi is a book, universally regarded as a template for understanding guanxi, first published in 1947 by Fei Xiaotong. The relevance of Fei’s model is critically assessed in the chapter. It demonstrates that Fei’s account of Chinese social relationships draws upon an idealized Confucianism rather than empirically-grounded social analysis. The discussion shows that Fei ignores non-kin relations in rural society, and an account of their importance is provided. A problem with Fei’s account of social obligation is identified. A proposed solution distinguishes between obligations generated through role compliance and obligations arising from exchange relations. Finally, it is shown that guanxi requires a notion of instrumental self-interest, absent in Fei’s account, and that interested action in guanxi operates through enhancing social standing or face, about which Fei has nothing to say. In this way the chapter clears the ground for discussion in subsequent chapters.

Fictive Kin Networks among African Americans, Black Caribbeans, and Non-Latino Whites

Using data from the National Survey of American Life, we investigated the social and demographic correlates of fictive kin network involvement among African Americans, Black Caribbeans, and non-Latino Whites. Specifically, we examined the factors shaping whether respondents have fictive kin, the number of fictive present kin in their networks, and the frequency with which they received support from fictive kin. Overall, 87% of respondents had a fictive kin relationship, the average network size was 7.5, and 61% of participants routinely received fictive kin support. Affective closeness and contact with family, friends, and church members were positively associated with fictive kin relations. Age, region, income, and marital and parental status were related to fictive kin network involvement, though these associations varied by race/ethnicity. Collectively, findings indicate that fictive kin ties extend beyond marginalized communities, and they operate as a means to strengthen family bonds, rather than substitute for family deficits.