Donna Haraway : cyborgs, making kin and the Chthulucene in a posthuman world

This chapter explores the work of Donna Haraway, and its possible applications to social work. It is not a complete review of Haraway’s extensive writing, but rather it identifies aspects of her work that have relevance for social workers in the twenty-first century. These include her discussion of affinity rather than identity, her advocacy for making kin with those with whom we live and work, her work on the cyborg and its challenge to our understanding of humanity, human relationships both with technology and with the natural world, and her advocacy of the Chthulucene rather than the Anthropocene to describe this historical moment. Specifically, the following aspects of social work are addressed: the role of the sciences, our understanding of relationships, connection to the ʼnatural world’, relations with technology, dualisms, Indigenous epistemologies, and the reframing of ‘human’ rights. Donna Haraway’s work spans and connects the sciences and the humanities, and it is this connection that can open up the possibilities of a ‘posthuman’ social work.