Donna J. Haraway is a feminist science studies scholar and distinguished professor emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She uses her personal experiences, such as caring for her aging dog and navigating menopause, to ground her theoretical arguments about multispecies entanglement. Throughout the text, she argues against human exceptionalism and advocates for making "oddkin" with other living and non-living entities.

Camille is a human child symbiotically bonded to North American monarch butterflies, serving as the prototype for the "Children of Compost." Born in 2025 in a ruined environment, Camille and successive generations learn to survive on a damaged planet by making interspecies kin and reducing human population numbers. The character illustrates the practical application of the text's theoretical concepts.

Lynn Margulis is an evolutionary biologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who studies microbial evolution. She developed the theory of symbiogenesis, proposing that new cells and species evolve through the long-lasting fusion of genomes. Her scientific framework provides the biological foundation for the text's argument that no organism is truly self-made.

Vinciane Despret is a Belgian philosopher, psychologist, and ethologist who studies how scientists and animals shape one another in the field. She develops the "virtue of politeness," a method of engaging with other species by remaining open to their true potential. Her collaborative research and speculative fiction writing strongly influence the text's narrative approach.

Isabelle Stengers is a Belgian philosopher of science trained in chemistry who frames the earth as an intrusive, systemic force. She hosts a 2013 Cerisy colloquium that structures the book's final speculative stories. Her work demands that political and ecological decisions account for all entities that will bear their consequences.

Anna Tsing is an anthropologist who studies survival and salvage accumulation in precarious, capitalist systems. Her concept of refugia—places where diverse species rebuild after disturbances—provides a critical framework for the text's understanding of the current geological epoch. She advocates for recognizing the contaminated diversity of the modern world.

Bruno Latour is a French sociologist of science who writes about the "Earthbound" and rejects the modern separation of nature and society. While he shares a commitment to situated practices, his reliance on traditional concepts of enemies and trials of strength presents an intellectual contrast to the book's core arguments.

Beatriz Da Costa is an artist-researcher at the University of California, Irvine, who designs collaborative projects crossing class and species lines. She equips racing pigeons with pollution sensors, demonstrating how play and non-instrumental collaboration produce serious worldly engagement. Her work exemplifies the text's call for cross-species trust.

Cayenne is an aging dog who requires the synthetic estrogen DES for urinary incontinence after a heart condition rules out other treatments. This medical need connects the dog and the household to a vast, historical web of pharmaceutical testing, agricultural practices, and cross-species impacts.

Rusten Hogness is a partner to the author who contributes foundational vocabulary to the text's theoretical framework. By proposing "compost" over "posthuman," he helps shift the book's focus toward interconnected, earthly decay and renewal.

Fabrizio Terranova is a filmmaker who attends a speculative colloquium in Normandy. Together with his colleagues, he co-authors a multi-generational science fiction story about a child bonded to monarch butterflies, putting theoretical concepts of kinship into narrative practice.

Bob Matsuyama is a pigeon fancier who provides crucial practical knowledge for an urban air pollution study. He trains both the birds and the academic researchers, ensuring that the racing pigeons can safely carry electronic sensors without experiencing anxiety or injury.

Amotz Zahavi is an ornithologist who studies Arabian babblers. His field site becomes a case study for observing how scientists and birds mutually shape one another's behavior, leading to new understandings of animal altruism and trust.

Jocelyne Porcher is a sociologist who investigates the working relationships between French farmers and their livestock. Her research highlights how daily labor and conversation create complex, subjective bonds between humans and domesticated animals.

James Lovelock is a scientist who partners with evolutionary biologists to develop broad theories concerning earth as a complex, interacting system. His foundational work influences the materialist frameworks adopted by subsequent philosophers in the text.

Nils Bubandt is a scholar who co-organizes an academic conference focusing on the arts of living on a damaged planet. His collaborative discussions help crystallize terms relating to the structural roots of environmental crises.

M. Beth Dempster is a Canadian environmental studies graduate student who coins a central term in her 1998 master's thesis. By defining collectively producing systems that lack self-defined boundaries, she provides the conceptual vocabulary that anchors the book's biological arguments.

Jason W. Moore is a sociologist who advocates for the terminology focusing on capitalistic impact. He argues that the exhaustion of "cheap nature" through colonial extraction and plantation systems is the true driver of planetary ecological crises.

Ursula K. Le Guin is a speculative fiction author whose essays and stories provide a crucial narrative model for the text. Her proposition that stories should act as containers for diverse experiences, rather than weapons for solitary heroes, shapes the book's approach to storytelling.

Cina Hazegh is a university student who assists in designing an artistic and scientific tracking project. By helping engineer lightweight sensor packs, the student contributes to a collaborative, cross-species environmental study.

Kevin Ponto is a student researcher who helps develop functional pollution-tracking equipment for racing pigeons. The engineering work requires months of patience to ensure the technology is safe and comfortable for the birds.

Camille 2 is a future descendant living in the Communities of Compost. This character travels to Michoacán and learns "symanimagenesis" from the Mazahua women, establishing an active kinship with the dead through monarch butterflies.

Camille 5 is a future descendant who lives after a viral disease extinguishes the monarch butterflies entirely. To honor the lost species, the character trains as a Speaker for the Dead, preserving the memory and ecological impact of extinct creatures.

Philippe Pignarre is an essayist and co-author who argues that denunciation is ineffective against capitalism. He instead champions on-the-ground collectives that invent new practices of imagination and mourning.