In this episode, I speak with Mirna Wabi-Sabi. She is a political theorist, writer, and editor at Gods & Radicals.

Mirna and I begin this discussion by laying out the nature of our upcoming collaborative work together, as I’ll be traveling to southern Brazil for two months, beginning December 8th. In explaining how our work overlaps in crucial ways, we remark on the absurdity of contemporary politics in both Brazil and the United States, and how the often narrow focus of climate justice activism in the Global North often limits our approach to addressing the roots of the ecological crisis more specifically, and the legacy of colonialism more generally. From there, we move into an examination of the themes presented in Mirna’s article, The History of Displacement of Non-White Women in Villa Mimosa: Mapping the roots of Brazil’s most notorious red light district from the Byzantine Empire and WW1,, which addresses the long and complex history of slavery and sex work in Europe and how this is tied to the varied forms of displacement of marginalized populations up the present moment.

This examination also includes the work of historian Clare Makepeace and her research into WWI, heterosexuality, and the role sex work played in the expression of male heteronormativity up to the present moment. Mirna examines how this dynamic is felt today in the displacement of women, with a particular focus on Rio’s red light district Villa Mimosa.

// Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/mirna-wabi-sabi-2

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