How did you come to choose your research topic?

I was surprised by the emergence in the media of individual accounts about the decision not to parent for ecological reasons. More significantly, the stereotyping and mocking tone of some news articles caught my attention. I found it interesting that these reproductive paths stood at the intersection of so many social dynamics that belonged to fields of research of interest to me, such as gender studies and environmental social sciences. Hence, this topic represented the opportunity to deepen my knowledge in areas that I was excited to explore. Furthermore, I chose this research topic because the progressive intertwinement between global environmental crises and intimate life decisions has to be better understood and visibilised. Indeed, I initially understood “environmental childlessness” as a phenomenon underlining the emergency we face but also the individualisation of environmental activism.

Can you describe your thesis questions and the methodology you used to approach those questions?

Interested in how reproduction has become a site of environmental and ethical interrogations, I asked several research questions. I intended to explore how environmental concerns (re)shape reproductive intentions, what is the space allocated to environmental motives in people’s decision not to procreate, and what are the possible forms of environmental motives. Overall, understanding what is the pathway towards “environmental childlessness” served as a guiding thread throughout this project. To answer these questions, I conducted fourteen in-depth interviews and one focus group with people who felt concerned by “environmental childlessness”  – meaning that they were unsure about having children mainly because of the environmental situation. The interviews were held in person mostly with people living in Lausanne, Switzerland.

What are your major findings? 

Even though “environmental childlessness” is a highly situated phenomenon – in terms of class, political ideas, race – it should not yet be homogenised. First of all, the environmental motive was rarely the only reason why my interlocutors questioned their desire to have children. Second, the environmental dimension of childlessness is informed  by a plurality of factors such as profound uncertainties about the future, neo-Malthusian imaginaries, and ethical interrogations. My interlocutors navigated these elements  in very different ways and they seldom portrayed their decision as an irreversible one. Hence, my research drives us to think about reproduction as a negotiated and unstable process rather than as a calculated choice. Furthermore, it appeared that these interrogations do not correspond to an oversimplifying update of neo-Malthusian and apocalyptic thinking. Instead, they translate a broader rejection of current capitalist ways of living and the nuclear family cell. Indeed, the latter was particularly repellent to my interlocutors as it reproduces gender inequality and hardly reducible consumption practices. Finally, opting out of parenthood also appeared to be a way to control uncertainty and to imagine radically alternative futures. Far from being disengaged from the future of coming generations, my interlocutors saw in childlessness the opportunity to care for other kin and political engagements. 

What are you doing now?

Since December 2020, I am pursuing my investigation of these issues as a PhD candidate at the University of Lausanne. I am interested in how uncertainty is perceived and what are human responses to precarious futures. I also think that reproduction is illuminating when observing what kinds of futures are imagined. I intend to do multi-situated fieldwork in central Europe, engaging with “neo-rural” communities, urban ecologists, parents and non-parents. 

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“Environmental Childlessness?”: Reproduction and (Im)possible Futures amidst Environmental Crises  was published thanks to the financial support of the Vahabzadeh Foundation. It reproduces Mathilde Krähenbühl’s master dissertation (supervisor: Shaila Seshia Galvin), which won the 2021 Anthropology and Sociology Department Prize.

How to cite:
Krähenbühl, Mathilde. “Environmental Childlessness?”: Reproduction and (Im)possible Futures amidst Environmental Crises. Graduate Institute ePaper 44. Geneva: Graduate Institute Publications, 2022. http://books.openedition.org/iheid/8842. 

Banner picture: excerpt from an image by AStolnik/Shutterstock.com.
Interview by Nathalie Tanner, Research Office.