DOI 10.60531/INSIGHTOUT.2023.1.4| HAMMETT: WHAT FUTURE FOR QUEER COWS?_ INSIGHTOUT 1(2023) 28lab and the land should be rewilded.39This is certainly a neat solution; nature and culture are put backin their boxes, and there is no messy entanglementanymore. The idea of cows existing outside of thecurrent agrifood system is an interesting one that I willexplore more in the final section on cow futures.Cow FuturesEva Giraud has noted that when it comes to imagining possible futures for animals and advocating forpractical steps to get there, multispecies researchcan often be silent.40Similarly, White believes thatthe same is true for Edelman’sNo Futureas Edelmanstates that any attempt by queer people to imaginea better future for themselves just ends up reproducing the same relations of oppression.41The logicbeing that insisting on imagining a future can limitthe possibilities of that same future. However, White believes there is another way to offer alternativepossibilities for what next.42As Alexis Shotwell writes,“[i]magining and practisingfutures that are not‘more of the same’ is difficult, necessary work”43. adrienne maree brown, one of theeditors ofOctavia’s Brood,a collection of short stories taking inspiration from Octavia Butler to writevisionary social justice-informed speculative fiction,writes that“the stories we tell can either reflect thesociety we are a part of or transform it. If we wantto bring new worlds into existence, then we need tochallenge the narratives that uphold current powerdynamics and patterns”44. I have produced a veryhumble attempt at imagining possible futures forcows, inspired by the stunning work of Shayda Kafaiwho imagines queer, fat food futures.45Dear Cows of the future,What do I wish for you in the hot days to come?Snouts touching cool, fresh water and gulp, gulp,gulp. Trees for shade. Each other for comfort. Plentyof grass for your tongue to sweep up and for yourteeth to chew. Babies suckling at your udders. Therewill be an abundance of communal caring. Bee, insect, soil, human, bird, cow, fox and on and on. Strongcommunities. More local food. If you give milk it willbe less anonymous and more appreciated. You willnot be expendable. I worry for the fate of worlds tocome. I worry for you dear cows that have become soentangled in this capitalist nightmare. It is a constantbackground hum, this worry. What becomes of themarginal, in precarious futures? We have to imagineglorious futures for each other and share them andcreate them. I am sorry that I cannot be certain whatcow utopias look like and how to get there, but I knowthere is a way towards joyous futures for you, barelypossible but absolutely necessary joint futures.46ConclusionI am drawn again to Rosie the cow. It is late, and sheis lit only by the white glow of my computer screens.She is almost cartoonish really, lopsided. Bony uptop. Large udder on the bottom. An ideal of genetic breeding. All to give so much milk, which she undoubtedly did and her kin undoubtedly do, day afterday. So much milk. Some drunk in coffee or on cereal,39See George Monbiot,“Lab-grown food will soon destroy farming – and save the planet”,The Guardian, 8 Jan. 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/08/lab-grown-food-destroy-farming-save-planet(accessed 31 Aug. 2023).40See Eva Haifa Giraud,What Comes after Entanglement? Activism, Anthropocentrism, and an Ethics of Exclusion(Durham, NC, 2019).41WSee White,“Fat, Queer, Dead”(see n. 7); Edelman,No Future(see n. 6).42See White,“Fat, Queer, Dead”(see n. 7).43Alexis Shotwell,Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times(Minneapolis and London, 2016), 165.44adrienne maree brown:,“Outro,””, in: Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown(eds.),Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Storiesfrom Social Justice Movements(Oakland, CA, and Edinburgh, 2015), 279–281 at 280.45See Shayda Kafai,“Imagining Queer, Fat Food Futures”,Fat Studies, 9/3(2020), 201–203.46Maria Puig de La Bellacasa"Matters of care in technoscience: Assembling neglected things,”Social Studies of Science, 41/1(2011),85-106, at 98.
