The Capitalocene is a name for the present epoch that locates planetary devastation in capitalism’s long history of extraction, plantation, and accumulation rather than in a generic human species. Haraway explores this name, crediting Andreas Malm and Jason Moore, and uses it throughout to refuse the Anthropocene’s species-level framing. It’s coupled with Anthropocene and Plantationocene as a boundary event in earth’s history that Haraway wants made “as short/thin as possible” (100).

The Chthulucene is Haraway’s name for an ongoing “timeplace” in which species live and die together on a damaged earth, inherently interconnected and rooted in chthonic (earthly) powers rather than the idea of higher powers or human exceptionalism. It’s introduced as a compound of Greek khthôn and kainos (the present and new beginnings), partially named for the spider Pimoa cthulhu, and explicitly distinguished from H. P. Lovecraft’s monster. The Chthulucene is positioned as a “third netbag” alongside Anthropocene and Capitalocene, gathering symbiogenesis, sympoiesis, and kin-making into a singular narrative through which she interprets the world.

Companion species are beings who become connected to each other through mundane material relationships; the category refuses the idea that humans are a central, independent species on earth but also acknowledges their inherent connection to the rest of nature. The term is introduced within the Terrapolis equation and subsequently elaborated on: “Companion species play string figure games where who is/are to be in/of the world is constituted in intra- and interaction” (13). For example, DES and Premarin in Haraway’s personal narratives make woman and dog companion species together with horses, heifers, and activists, all of whom are impacted in their own ways and thus connected by the drugs.

A holobiont is a symbiotic relationship in which all participants are equal, symbiotic organisms connected to each other rather than a hierarchical host and its helper. The term is defined following Lynn Margulis: holobionts “hold together contingently and dynamically” in knots of active, mutually developmental or beneficial relationships (60). Haraway cites Gilbert, Sapp, and Tauber’s “We Have Never Been Individuals” to argue that holobionts unravel the idea of boundaried individualism. The concept anchors Chapter 3’s biological argument.

Oddkin are kin made laterally and unexpectedly rather than through genealogy, the chosen relatives required to stay with the trouble or help each other mutually in the quest to inhabit a damaged earth. The term is introduced as opposite to “godkin,” alluding to humanity’s intellectual reliance on higher powers, and biogenetic family. Haraway writes that “staying with the trouble requires making oddkin; that is, we require each other in unexpected collaborations and combinations” (4). In the Camille stories, New Gauley’s first years are spent building a culture in which “oddkin would be abundant, and children would be rare but precious” (145). In Haraway’s argument, oddkin—or interspecies relationships—would create a more thoughtful, harmonious society and narrative with which to approach life on earth.

Response-ability is the cultivated capacity to respond to interspecies needs, distinct from individual moral responsibility; it’s a collective practice of attention that holds open space for others. The term is introduced early and threaded through every chapter. In Chapter 1, pigeon lofts and city kids’ encounters reframe response-ability around “absence and presence, killing and nurturing, living and dying” (28). Later, the wider impact of estrogen forces Haraway to acknowledge her own complicity in the exploitation of animals in the drug’s production, and she admits her failure to accept a “praxis of care and response—response-ability” (105).

Speakers for the Dead is Haraway’s adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s and Orson Scott Card’s concept: Those who bring extinct beings into active presence so that the living can acknowledge these beings’ impact or knowledge when acting in the present. The role is described as collecting “stories for those left behind when a being, or a way of being, dies” (69). On 164, the Communities of Compost in Haraway’s collaborative science-fiction story institutionalize “thousands of Speakers for the Dead” to incorporate extinct critters in their broader story of earth (164), influencing how the community continues to interact with nature, and the role becomes Camille 5’s vocation.

SF is Haraway’s umbrella acronym for the methodology, theoretical lens, and literary metaphor through which she researches and interprets the subjects she studies. The term is defined as “a sign for science fiction, speculative feminism, science fantasy, speculative fabulation, science fact, and also, string figures” (10). Portraying all of these concepts as a singular, complex unit conveys Haraway’s broader point that all things are interconnected, including practices like science, art, and philosophies.

Sympoiesis means “making-with,” the claim that nothing makes itself and that complex systems are collectively produced rather than self-organized. The term is introduced via M. Beth Dempster’s 1998 thesis as the alternative to autopoiesis, the concept that things evolve or are created separately from each other. It opens Chapter 3 as the keyword for living and “worlding” together, and Haraway writes that sympoiesis “enlarges and displaces autopoiesis” (125), tying nature, “critters,” and storytelling into one frame.