Grafting Symbiosis
Care, Empathy, and Scientific Reform in Naomi Mitchison’s Memoirs of a Spacewoman
Keywords:
Science fiction, otherness, care, empathy, feminist science, ScottishAbstract
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.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Grace Borland Sinclair

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Content in Fafnir is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC 3.0).
Beginning in November 2019, authors retain full copyright without restrictions. By publishing with Fafnir, authors grant a non-exclusive license to Fafnir to distribute the publisher’s version of the work, and give Fafnir permission to grant reprint and/or translation requests in accordance with our open-access policy and our Creative Commons license.
Prior to November 2019, copyright for all published material is held by Fafnir, but authors have full permission to use their work as they wish (i.e., self-archiving, reprint requests, using for other projects, etc.).
In both cases, re-use or re-posting of material published in Fafnir must acknowledge original publication and include a link to the publisher version.