@article{jbp:/content/journals/10.1075/ll.21041.mod, author = "Modan, Gabriella and Wells, Katie J.", title = "Signs at work: New labor relations and structures of feeling in Washington, D.C.’s Covid landscape", journal= "Linguistic Landscape", year = "2022", volume = "8", number = "2-3", pages = "281-298", doi = "https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.21041.mod", url = "https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/ll.21041.mod", publisher = "John Benjamins", issn = "2214-9953", type = "Journal Article", keywords = "structure of feeling", keywords = "affective regime", keywords = "labor", keywords = "semiotic landscape", keywords = "linguistic landscape", keywords = "Covid", keywords = "DC", keywords = "Washington", abstract = "Abstract

We use a geographically informed notion of landscape and Williams’ (1977) framework structure of feeling to examine ‘closed’, masking, and social distancing signs on businesses in the Washington, DC central-city neighborhood of Adams Morgan. We argue that the semantic content and discursive structure of the Covid signs, together with the in-the-moment feeling of walking down empty streets while a little-understood virus had just started raging, promoted a reconceptualization of labor relations tied to solidarity, public health, and communal responsibility, and making visible the working conditions of low-wage workers. This new structure of feeling opens up a space – however narrow – of political possibility.", }