In Feminism in Coalition Liza Taylor examines how US women of color feminists’ coalitional politics provides an indispensable resource to contemporary political theory, feminist studies, and intersectional social justice activism. Taylor charts the theorization of coalition in the work of Bernice Johnson Reagon, Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, the Combahee River Collective, Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, and others. For these activist-scholars, coalition is a dangerous struggle that emerges from a shared political commitment to undermining oppression and an emphasis on self-transformation. Taylor shows how their coalitional understandings of group politics, identity, consciousness, and scholarship have transformed how activists and theorists build alliances across race, class, gender, sexuality, faith, and ethnicity to tackle systems of domination. Their coalitional politics enrich current discussions surrounding the impetus and longevity of effective activism, present robust theoretical accounts of political subject formation and political consciousness, and demonstrate the promise of collective modes of scholarship. In this way, women of color feminists have been formulating solutions to long-standing problems in political theory. By illustrating coalition’s vitality to a variety of practical and philosophical interdisciplinary discussions, Taylor encourages us to rethink feminist and political theory.

Liza Taylor is Assistant Professor of Political Science at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

Acknowledgments  ix
Introduction  1
1. From Rosa Luxemburg to the Combahee River Collective: Spontaneous Coalition as a Precursor to Intersectional Marxism and Politico-Ethical Coalition Politics  33
2. Women of Color Feminism and Politico-Ethical Coalition Politics: Recentering the Politics of Coalition with Reagon, Smith, Combahee, and Lorde  67
3. Coalition from the Inside Out: Struggling toward Coalitional Identity and Developing a Coalitional Consciousness with Lode, Anzaldúa, Sandoval, and Pratt  106
4. Writing Feminist Theory, Doing Feminist Politics: Rethinking Collective Feminist Authorship with This Bridge Called My Back  150
5. The Women's March on Washington and Politico-Ethical Coalitional Opportunities in the Age of Trump  189
Conclusion: Lessons for Contemporary and Future Feminist Activists  225
Notes  249
References  259
Index  277