DOI:
AUTHOR(S)
Tasnim Alam Mukim
ABSTRACT
Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild” is frequently praised as a celebration of cyborg hybridity, yet most readings overlook the reproductive coercion and colonial power undergirding its cross-species intimacy. This paper applies Hybrid Relational Ethics, distilled from Donna Haraway’s cyborg theory and Rosi Braidotti’s posthuman ethics, to six close-read passages from the 2005 edition of “Bloodchild”. The analysis follows a tri-axial lens of gender, species, and colonial rule. The findings demonstrate, first, that Terran bodies operate as colonial womb economies managed through narcotic dependence. Second, that male pregnancy unsettles gender binaries while leaving patriarchal risk-distribution intact. Third, that intimacy functions as an economy of care that masks structural domination. And finally, that negotiated consent remains partial when shaped by sovereign reproductive power. This occurs because reproductive authority dictates the terms of choice, turning consent into a conditional act shaped by dependence, coercion, and unequal control over bodily autonomy. These findings rethink cyborg studies by asking how hybridity negotiates consent and risk, and they extend bioethical debates on surrogacy and xenogeneic gestation by foregrounding embodied vulnerability. The study concludes that posthuman futures are ethically viable only when accountability travels with the body, redistributing rather than exporting vulnerability.
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