Giving birth or not: Reproduction, environmental concerns, and (im)possible futures

The interdependence between human reproduction and ecological concerns has resurfaced in the past decade. Although reproductive justice movements have highlighted the necessity to secure stable and healthy environments to ensure reproductive futures for decades, this reemergence in Euro-American societies is centred around childlessness and the carbon footprint narrative. Nonetheless, far from being a mere update of neo-Malthusian and apocalyptic imaginaries, interrogations around procreation amid climate change exemplify concerns over uncertain futures and alternative conceptions of ‘family’. Through ethnographic fieldwork in central Europe with ‘neo-rural’ communities, urban ecologists, parents and non-parents, this research explores how does the perception of environmental precariousness alter reproductive paths and what kinds of futures are imagined.