45: The Fantasy of Family and the Meaning of Family Abolition feat. Sophie Lewis and M.E. O’Brien

Ordinary Unhappiness

Abby and Patrick welcome writer Sophie Lewis and writer and psychotherapist M.E. O’Brien to discuss their recent books on family abolition, Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation and Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care. They discuss the roots of “abolition” as a philosophical concept, why it doesn’t simply mean “destruction,” and the historical relationship of family abolition to movements for police and prison abolition. Turning to the “family form” itself, they juxtapose the family as an abstract social ideal with the actual history of the nuclear family as an institution fundamentally related to the political economies of property accumulation, slavery, and settler colonialism, and more. They explore how contemporary resistances to the mere phrase “family abolition” can reflect an investment in fantasy over and against the social realities of the family as a site of violence, abuse, and labor that is rendered invisible and even disposable. Drawing on Black feminist scholarship, they unpack how questioning the family as a form can in fact catalyze liberatory and even life-saving modes of care and solidarity from the austerity-ridden cores of Western social democracies to Gaza and beyond.
Sophie Lewis’s books are available here:
Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation: https://bookshop.org/p/books/abolish-the-family-a-manifesto-for-care-and-liberation-sophie-lewis/17862950

Full Surrogacy Now: https://bookshop.org/p/books/full-surrogacy-now-feminism-against-family-sophie-lewis/12024545?ean=9781786637291

M.E. O’Brien’s books are available here:

Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/family-abolition-capitalism-and-the-communizing-of-care-m-e-o-brien/17561686

Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072, with Eman Abdelhadi: https://bookshop.org/p/books/everything-for-everyone-an-oral-history-of-the-new-york-commune-2052-2072-eman-abdelhadi/18166819

Other relevant articles:

Sophie Lewis, “Covid-19 is Straining the Concept of the Family. Let’s Break It.” https://www.thenation.com/article/society/family-covid-care-marriage/

Lewis, “I’ll Do The Dishes,” https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n09/sophie-lewis/i-ll-do-the-dishes

Lewis, “Mothering Against Motherhood,” https://haters.noblogs.org/files/2022/03/Mothering-Against-imposed.pdf

M.E. O’Brien, “The Family Problem, Now”: https://www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/the-family-problem-outro

O’Brien, “Trans Childhoods and the Family Romance,” https://www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/trans-childhoods

O’Brien, “Communizing Care,” https://pinko.online/pinko-1/communizing-care

Pinko Magazine: https://pinko.online/

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