Reflections on Activist Scholarship in the Trump-Bolsonaro Era: Dual Hemisphere Hate Transforms Intellectual Praxis into Political Imperative

En este artículo se reflexiona sobre la importancia del activismo académico, dado el inquietante cambio global hacia la derecha, enfocando la discusión en Brasil y Estados Unidos. Al inicio se explican los puntos de partida, pues estos moldean el análisis individual y compartido. Luego, se retoma nuestro primer proyecto de activismo académico, el libro Taking Risks: Feminist Activism and Research in the Americas, y la definición de activismo académico usada a lo largo del mismo y, por lo tanto, en este artículo. Después, se amplía la información sobre las circunstancias en Estados Unidos bajo el mandato de Trump, y en Brasil con Bolsonaro, lo que permite afirmar que este periodo conlleva una nueva urgencia para el activismo académico feminista. Para terminar, se divisa un futuro donde los electores en los hemisferios norte y sur hayan expulsado a Trump y a Bolsonaro, y el activismo académico sea una vez más una herramienta de pro-acción, no de reacción y supervivencia.In this paper we reflect on the importance of activist scholarship given the frightening global shift to the right, focusing our discussion on Brazil and the U.S. We start by explaining our points of departure as they shape our individual and shared analysis. Next, we recap our first activist scholarship project, the book Taking Risks: Feminist Activism and Research in the Americas, and the definition of activist scholarship used throughout it and thus in this paper. Next, we further expand on the circumstances in the U.S. under Trump and Brazil under Bolsonaro which lead us to claim that this period brings a new urgency to feminist activist scholarship. We close by looking toward a future where the electorates in the northern and southern hemispheres have voted out both Trump and Bolsonaro and activist scholarship is once again a tool of pro-action not reaction and survival

Reflections on Activist Scholarship in the Trump-Bolsonaro Era: Dual Hemisphere Hate Transforms Intellectual Praxis into Political Imperative

En este artículo se reflexiona sobre la importancia del activismo académico, dado el inquietante cambio global hacia la derecha, enfocando la discusión en Brasil y Estados Unidos. Al inicio se explican los puntos de partida, pues estos moldean el análisis individual y compartido. Luego, se retoma nuestro primer proyecto de activismo académico, el libro Taking Risks: Feminist Activism and Research in the Americas, y la definición de activismo académico usada a lo largo del mismo y, por lo tanto, en este artículo. Después, se amplía la información sobre las circunstancias en Estados Unidos bajo el mandato de Trump, y en Brasil con Bolsonaro, lo que permite afirmar que este periodo conlleva una nueva urgencia para el activismo académico feminista. Para terminar, se divisa un futuro donde los electores en los hemisferios norte y sur hayan expulsado a Trump y a Bolsonaro, y el activismo académico sea una vez más una herramienta de pro-acción, no de reacción y supervivencia.In this paper we reflect on the importance of activist scholarship given the frightening global shift to the right, focusing our discussion on Brazil and the U.S. We start by explaining our points of departure as they shape our individual and shared analysis. Next, we recap our first activist scholarship project, the book Taking Risks: Feminist Activism and Research in the Americas, and the definition of activist scholarship used throughout it and thus in this paper. Next, we further expand on the circumstances in the U.S. under Trump and Brazil under Bolsonaro which lead us to claim that this period brings a new urgency to feminist activist scholarship. We close by looking toward a future where the electorates in the northern and southern hemispheres have voted out both Trump and Bolsonaro and activist scholarship is once again a tool of pro-action not reaction and survival

Feminist Teacher

Using feminist pedagogical practices that incorporate student knowledge production and digital scholarship methods, a team at the University of Washington Bothell founded the online, open-access Feminist Community Archive of Washington (FCA-WA). Faculty, students, and the library partner with local feminist and gender justice organizations to develop content for the archive. As part of a core gender, women, & sexuality studies (GWSS) course, our/the assignment asks the students to collect artifacts and conduct interviews with activists that document the current work and histories of their organizations. The library has archived these materials and made them available in an open-access, online digital collection. In an era of disappearing information and contested stories, the FCA-WA aims to expand the archival record and serve as a permanent and open home for the histories of groups and individuals working to support social justice for women, femmes, gender-nonconforming folks, and their allies. We contend that the assignment and archive, in addition to being a repository for potentially forgotten histories, are projects that embody intersectional feminist praxis and work toward upsetting academic structures of inequity. In the academy, marginalized peoples’ stories and research methods are rendered invisible; classes and assignments that “speak to” or are taught by minoritized students and faculty are not the norm. Similarly, archives are typically created and maintained by non-marginalized scholars, ultimately reflecting the stories of the elite, their ways of knowing, and their methods of research. Perhaps most troubling, said archives are framed as neutral receptacles, which perpetuates a false narrative that leaves power imbalances unquestioned. We maintain that the FCA-WA, and the assignment used to fill it, undermines these hierarchical logics and structures. In this paper, we seek to explain the assignment and archive in the context of intersectional feminism. We then explain the assignment and archive, and conclude by demonstrating the potential of feminist, community-engaged, student knowledge production and archive building to subvert academic hierarchies, and we consider directions for future research and collaborations

El Nino-Southern oscillation

What is happening: While observed El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability is within the broad range of natural variability, the possibility that anthropogenic forcing has influenced ENSO cannot be ruled out. What is expected: While the mean climate of the Pacific is expected to change, it is unclear how the amplitude or frequency of ENSO will change (if at all) over the next 100 years. What we are doing about it: Investing in Pacific region climate change programs, high quality data collection and monitoring, improving pre-instrumental ENSO reconstructions, process studies to understand mechanisms of variability, and enhancing modelling capabilities