“Willpower knows no obstacles”: Examining Neoliberal Postfeminist Messaging in Nike’s Transnational Advertisements for Women

Nike, a US-headquartered transnational corporation lauded for its putatively empowering women-centered advertisements, frequently releases nationally/regionally focused advertisements depicting women determinedly engaging in physical activity and, in doing so, overcoming gendered barriers and stigmas. Indeed, the global ubiquity of the empowered (Nike-clad) woman illustrates Nike’s role in advancing women’s empowerment, both in the US and globally. Universalizing “just do it” beyond geographical borders, Nike’s form of transnational feminism centers on a carefully manufactured, Western-centered image of empowered female athleticism. However, this notably contradicts transnational feminist efforts to reject the universalization of Western-centered representations of women. Using a critical cultural studies approach in concert with a transnational feminist framework, we analyze six recent Nike advertisements (the United States, Mexico, the Middle East, Turkey, India, and Russia) and critique the corporation’s universalization of neoliberal postfeminist messaging within its global marketing strategies. We find that Nike utilizes three thematics to extend their caricature of the (Nike-powered) female athlete beyond the spatial and symbolic borders of the US market: responsibilitization, competitive individualism, and empowerment. We conclude that Nike normalizes a white, Western-centered neoliberal postfeminism, undermining the structural and sporting realities of the non-white/non-Western women their promotional campaigning seeks to embolden.

Equitable COVID-19 Vaccination for Hispanics in the United States: A Success Story from California Border Communities

The ongoing 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic continues to impact the health of individuals worldwide, including causing pauses in lifesaving cancer screening and prevention measures. From time to time, elective medical procedures, such as those used for cancer screening and early detection, were deferred due to concerns regarding the spread of the infection. The short- and long-term consequences of these temporary measures are concerning, particularly for medically underserved populations, who already experience inequities and disparities related to timely cancer care. Clearly, the way out of this pandemic is by increasing COVID-19 vaccination rates and doing so in an equitable manner so that communities most affected receive preferential access and administration. In this article, we provide a perspective on vaccine equity by featuring the experience of the California Hispanic community, who has been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. We first compared vaccination rates in two United States–Mexico border counties in California (San Diego County and Imperial County) to counties elsewhere in California with a similar Hispanic population size. We show that the border counties have substantially lower unvaccinated proportions of Hispanics compared to other counties. We next looked at county vaccination rates according to the California Healthy Places Index, a health equity metric and found that San Diego and Imperial counties achieved more equitable access and distribution than the rest of the state. Finally, we detail strategies implemented to achieve high and equitable vaccination in this border region, including Imperial County, an agricultural region that was California’s epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis at the height of the pandemic. These United States–Mexico border county data show that equitable vaccine access and delivery is possible. Multiple strategies can be used to guide the delivery and access to other public health and cancer preventive services.

Global Harmonization of Urbanization Measures: Proceed with Care

By 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population is expected to be living in cities and towns, a marked increase from today’s level of 55 percent. If the general trend is unmistakable, efforts to measure it precisely have been beset with difficulties: the criteria defining urban areas, cities and towns differ from one country to the next and can also change over time for any given country. The past decade has seen great progress toward the long-awaited goal of scientifically comparable urbanization measures, thanks to the combined efforts of multiple disciplines. These efforts have been organized around what is termed the “statistical urbanization” concept, whereby urban areas are defined by population density, contiguity and total population size. Data derived from remote-sensing methods can now supply a variety of spatial proxies for urban areas defined in this way. However, it remains to be understood how such proxies complement, or depart from, meaningful country-specific alternatives. In this paper, we investigate finely resolved population census and satellite-derived data for the United States, Mexico and India, three countries with widely varying conceptions of urban places and long histories of debate and refinement of their national criteria. At the extremes of the urban–rural continuum, we find evidence of generally good agreement between the national and remote sensing-derived measures (albeit with variation by country), but identify significant disagreements in the middle ranges where today’s urban policies are often focused.

Introducción.

Introducción El inicio de la administración del presidente Trump en los Estados Unidos estuvo marcado entre otras cosas por una posición muy agresiva frente a México. Los trabajadores mexicanos que habían migrado y que sin permiso de residencia trabajaban en los Estados Unidos así como los que intentaban cruzar la frontera en busca de empleo fueron víctimas de todo tipo de acusaciones desde el gobierno mismo así como de persecución y maltrato. Los lazos comerciales y financieros entre México y los Estados Unidos que se habían estrechado como nunca antes a causa del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte fueron cuestionados como una relación desfavorable para los Estados Unidos y favorable para México. Esta concepción de las relaciones entre México y Estados Unidos que no sólo era del presidente Trump sino de una buena parte de su gabinete y del congreso estadunidense, ejerció una presión sin precedente para modificar el TLCAN, obligando a los dos países miembros a renegociar el tratado so pena de que Estados Unidos lo diera por terminado unilateralmente. Las negociaciones duraron tres años y de ellas emergió un nuevo acuerdo trilateral que se llamó en Inglés United States, Mexico and Canada Agreement (USMCA en Inglés, T-MEC en Español). La revista Norteamérica consideró importante convocar a un grupo de expertos a analizar desde varias perspectivas este nuevo acuerdo con relación al anteriormente existente y evaluar algunas de sus probables implicaciones en la región para integrar un dossier sobre el tema. Inicialmente eran seis los textos comprometidos, pero retrasos en la elaboración y dictaminación, causados sin duda por la pandemia que aun nos afecta a todos, nos han hecho presentar en este número solamente cinco finalmente aprobados y en su versión final para su publicación.

From NAFTA to USMCA: Can a Good Idea that Came Too Late Be Born Again?

This article analyzes from the trade perspective the lower-than-expected growth dividends of the export-led strategy adopted by Mexico in the 1990s. Particular attention is given to employment, labor productivity, and regional outcomes. The North American Free Trade Agreement (nafta) caused Mexican exports to skyrocket in the first years of its implementation. This initial lift was quickly sapped by China’s emergence after its entry into the World Trade Organization (wto) in 2001. Recent years witnessed a renewed dynamism of Mexican presence in the U.S. market. In an international context marked by deglobalization and decoupling, this rebound is expected to continue under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (usmca). Yet, in order to deliver economic growth, Mexico needs to diversify the geographical location of its exporting industries. The analysis of Mexican exports shows also that idiosyncratic weaknesses, such as the low contribution of the business services sector or the deficient trade and transport infrastructure, must be addressed.

A new tiger beetle from the Gulf Coast of Texas (Coleoptera, Cicindelidae, Cicindelini)

A new tiger beetle species, Eunota albicauda Duran, Roman & Huber n. sp., of the tribe Cicindelini, is described from the Gulf Coast of southern Texas. It is superficially most similar to E. togata (LaFerté-Sénectère, 1841) and E. circumpicta (LaFerté-Sénectère, 1841) but is distinguished on the basis of multiple character states not shared with either species. We reconstructed a phylogeny for Eunota to address the placement of this new taxon. Little is known about the biology or distribution of this exceedingly rare species. Despite extensive tiger beetle collecting from this region, only two specimens of E. albicauda n. sp. are known, collected in the mid-20th century. Future efforts to locate additional specimens should focus on coastal salt flats and marshes in southern Texas, including areas near the United States-Mexico border, late in the season (September-October).

The Rebranded NAFTA: Will the USMCA Achieve the Goals of the Trump Administration for North American Trade?

The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (usmca) was the product of a renegotiation of the former North American Free Trade Agreement (nafta) that was intended by the Trump administration to “put America first.” This article analyzes the most important new provisions in the usmca that that administration believed would inhibit foreign investment in Mexico and reverse the offshoring of U.S. jobs. Some of the new provisions represent improvements over nafta, especially the limitations on investor-state dispute settlement and strengthened protections for labor rights. However, the new requirements for automobile production are likely to backfire by making North American automotive production more expensive and less competitive. On the whole, the formation of the usmca probably enhanced, rather than lessened, the confidence of foreign investors in the Mexican economy. However, the agreement is unlikely to bring about large gains in U.S. manufacturing employment or to boost the long-run growth of the Mexican economy.