Putting gender on the agenda in Rio de Janeiro

Considerable scholarly attention has been devoted to the investigation of language and gendered performances in the workplace, particularly in the Global North. However, as yet few studies have examined such dynamics in the context of contemporary social movements. Drawing on (auto)ethnographic observations and audio recordings, this article takes a critical look at the negotiation of meaning in public debates held by bicycle advocates in Rio de Janeiro. The gendered performances which arise from small stories suggest that female participants find themselves in a ‘double bind’ as they seek to raise awareness of the gendered violence they experience whilst simultaneously adhering to the discursive norms of the movement. Such performances may be understood as characteristic of a postfeminist sensibility in which everyday violence is mitigated in order to project a courageous, resilient subject undeterred by such threats.

Navigating the Double Bind: A Systematic Literature Review of the Experiences of Novice Teachers of Color in K–12 Schools

A robust body of U.S.-based research demonstrates the importance of teachers of color to promote positive outcomes among students of color, and recent policies aim to increase the proportion of teachers of color. These policies are unlikely to succeed if they ignore how educational systems currently marginalize teachers of color, particularly early in teachers’ careers, when they are more likely to leave. Thus, we conducted a systematic narrative review of the experiences of novice teachers of color in K–12 schools. We identified 72 relevant studies, from 1996 to the present, and qualitatively analyzed themes within them. We found that novices’ experiences of their socialization into K–12 educational institutions were deeply racialized, through their interactions with every aspect of K–12 educational systems. Novices’ experiences often placed them in a double bind, as they experienced tensions between their personal commitments as people of color and their professional commitments in schools that perpetuated oppressive systems. Welcoming novice teachers of color into K–12 schools thus necessitates broader efforts to dismantle the many ways oppressive systems are embedded within and perpetuated by schools—efforts to which novice teachers of color can contribute, but for which they should not bear sole responsibility.

Sex Work, Queer Economic Justice, and Communicative Ethics

There are various academic and activist perspectives on sex work as an area of inquiry at the intersection of queer, feminist, and class politics. Exploring this topic with an eye toward a communicative ethic helps to foreground consent and mutuality when considering some of the major theoretical topics connected with sex work. A historiography of the sex wars of the 1970s and 1980s illuminates how public discussions about feminism and sexuality were influenced by the emergence of pornography as a major media force. Taking seriously the refrain “sex work is work,” how labor can be a useful analytic for connecting sex work to the broader economy is considered, while also pointing to the limits of categories such as “sex,” “work,” and “labor.” Situating sex work in the contemporary context of neoliberal and paternalistic rationalities of the state, how advocates for sex workers are caught in a communicative double bind is discussed. Taking into account shared commitments among scholars of sex work in the communication discipline, alternatives to criminalization provide scholars and activists a place to start in imagining a future that is safer for queer bodies and practices.

Aesthetics in a Changing World—Reflecting the Anthropocene Condition through the Works of Jason deCaires Taylor and Robert Smithson

This article focuses on an important aspect of aesthetics in the context of the Anthropocene: the situatedness of aesthetic techniques and operations within earth’s (changing) materiality. Aesthetics is not only a way of making sensible but also contributes ontologically to the world it makes sensible. In this view aesthetics does not rely on a subject’s capacity to apprehend the world as a perceptually objectifiable entity. Focusing on works by Jason deCaires Taylor (Anthropocene and La Gardinera de la Esperanza) and Robert Smithson (Spiral Jetty), the authors interrogate how artistic engagements with anthropocenic materiality and temporality have the potential to articulate a double bind between aesthetics and ontology. Both artists not only allow recipients to be confronted with complex earthly entanglements but also have a material and aesthetic impact on their respective sites. Discussing deCaires Taylor’s and Smithson’s works, the authors argue that the artists’ aesthetics is not only a way of granting experiential access to an earth that resists objectification but also a manifestation of the processes through which earth’s materiality transforms throughout time.