Sophie Lewis

“...I submit that kinship, at least right now, is always a reference to something that is imagined to be inerasable; to "nature." Perhaps one day it will be fit for purpose again, who knows? Perhaps because the concept of nature has itself been turned inside out. But right now, even when it is conceptualized as practice-based, kinship functions as a linguistic appeal to something non-contingent that can ground a relation. And I am asking: can we suspend that fantasy of something non-contingent? Can we let go of it?”
― Sophie Lewis, Die Familie abschaffen: Wie wir Care-Arbeit und Verwandtschaft neu erfinden

“For all purposes except capital accumulation, the promise of family falls abjectly short of itself. Often, this is nobody's "fault" per se: simply, too much is being asked of too few. On the other hand, the family is where most of the rape happens on this earth, and most of the murder. No one is likelier to rob, bully, blackmail, manipulate, or hit you, or inflict unwanted touch, than family.”
― Sophie Lewis