In this talk, Leopoldina Fortunati revisits the book When The Arcana of Reproduction that first appeared in the 1980s. It entered a world where feminist theory was already challenging the invisibility of reproductive labor—housework, care, and the embodied work of producing and sustaining life. By deconstructing the main Marxian categories, the book exposed how this labor, though systematically devalued and naturalized, is productive and indispensable to capitalism. 

Today, revisiting The Arcana of Reproduction allows us to see both continuities and transformations. The “arcana”—the hidden mechanisms of reproduction—have not disappeared; instead, they have taken on new forms. While the backbone of reproductive labor continues to be unpaid, an increasing part of it has become globalized and commodified, with migrant women often sustaining the care needs of wealthier nations. Digital technologies have reorganized both productive and immaterial reproductive work: platforms mediate childcare, domestic work, dating, sociality, and even sexuality.