Volume 5 of the Kinship series revolves around the question ofpractice: What are the practical
everyday and lifelong ways we become kin? We live in an astounding world of relations. We
share these ties that bind with our fellow humansand we share these relations with nonhuman
beings as well. From the bacterium swimming in your belly to the trees exhaling the breath you
breathe this community of life is our kinand for many cultures around the world being human
is based upon this extended sense of kinship. Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations is a
lively series that explores our deep interconnections with the living world. These five Kinship
volumesPlanet Place Partners Persons Practiceoffer essays interviews poetry and stories
of solidarity highlighting the interdependence that exists between humans and nonhuman beings.
More than 70 contributorsincluding Robin Wall Kimmerer Richard Powers David Abram J. Drew
Lanham and Sharon Blackieinvite readers into cosmologies narratives and everyday
interactions that embrace a more-than-human world as worthy of our response and responsibility.
These diverse voices render a wide range of possibilities for becoming better kin. From the
perspective of kinship as a recognition of nonhuman personhood of kincentric ethics and of
kinship as a verb involving active and ongoing participation how are we to live? Practice
Volume 5 of the Kinship series turns to the relations that we nurture and cultivate as part of
our lived ethics. The essayists and poets in this volume explore how we make kin and strengthen
kin relationships through respectful participationfrom creative writer and dance teacher Maya
Wards weave of landscape story song and body to Lakota peace activist Tiokasin Ghosthorses
reflections on language as a key way of knowing and practicing kinship to cultural geographer
Amba Sepies wrestling with how to become kin when ancestral connections have frayed. The volume
concludes with an amazing and spirited conversation between John Hausdoerffer Robin Wall
Kimmerer Sharon Blackie Enrique Salmon Orrin Williams and Maria Isabel Morales on the
breadth and qualities of kinship practices.
