Making Queer Kin in the Labor of the Greenhouse

Abstract

STS is in a unique position to expand pedagogical practice. Classroom activities can build comprehension but also present opportunities to reckon with the limits and affordances of theory. Field trips to see rare books, taxidermy animals, and plants—both pressed and alive—provide exciting but obvious ways to enrich STS coursework. We could also be designing board games, making kombucha, or growing a garden together. As we experiment with old and new ways of engaging learners, I argue that following the practices that make plants available for study, observation, and pleasure provide a grounded means of making theory tangible. Botanical experiences can push the boundaries of our understanding of cognition, intimacy, and kinship; plants can be enrolled as co-teachers in the classroom. In this article I reflect on how a particular activity in collaboration with the Global Flora greenhouse clarified theory and concepts of labor, kinship, and learning through doing. The article is about the possibility (or for some the impossibility) of taking a generous interpretation of the charge from Donna Haraway to “make kin.” It attempts to answer the burning question of my students, “How do we do it? Make kin that is.”