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

Abstract

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.