As global health organizations and national governments tout “breast is best,” the value of human milk is being calculated – and profited from – in increasingly diverse forms. In this paper I chart three of the major ways in which human milk is being economically valued: calculating breastfeeding as a contribution to a country’s GDP; buying and selling human milk to hospitals for profit; and manufacturing key components of human milk and the infant gut. In exploring these bioeconomies, I draw together two approaches to biocapital not often put into conversation with one another: a focus on the micrological generative capacities of biological material, and attention to the macrological biopolitical governance of populations. I argue that juxtaposing these bioeconomies demonstrates key features of human milk biocapital: the multi-scalar workings of reproductive biopolitical valuation and governance; the human and more-than-human ecologies (and labours) on which biocapital depends; and the feminist geographical contestations that shape, and sometimes undermine, these valuations.

随着全球卫生组织和各国政府吹捧“母乳是最好的”，母乳的价值正在以越来越多样化的形式计算并从中获利。在本文中，我描绘了母乳在经济上受到重视的三种主要方式：计算母乳喂养对国家 GDP 的贡献；向医院买卖母乳以牟利；以及制造母乳和婴儿肠道的关键成分。在探索这些生物经济时，我将两种不常相互对话的生物资本方法结合在一起：关注生物材料的微观生成能力，以及关注人口的宏观生物政治治理。我认为，将这些生物经济并列显示出母乳生物资本的关键特征：生殖生命政治评估和治理的多尺度运作；生物资本所依赖的人类和超人类生态（和劳动力）；以及塑造、有时破坏这些估值的女权主义地域争论。