Many, if not all, of the foods humans consume on a daily basis (from kimchi to yogurt and beer) are the result of both human and nonhuman labor. Nonhuman labor refers to “work” that is done by nonhuman actors to produce food and other valuable products. This labor can take many forms, including living, eating, growing, reproducing, and metabolizing nature to meet one’s biophysical needs.
The breast/chestfeeding body is a site of intense politics and power relations in the United States. Hardly a week passes without an incident in the news of a person being publically shamed, or unlawfully asked to change their behavior while using their body to feed their infant in public. Lactating bodies are deemed out-of-place. Simultaneously, birth-parents are judged on their infant feeding practices, with those who do not nurse cast outside of the biologically deterministic ‘good mother’ role. This framing causes the nursing or not-nursing body to become a site of debate.
