UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Thinking With and Through the Concept of Coalition: On What Feminists Can Teach Us about Doing Political Theory, Theorizing Subjectivity, and Organizing Politically Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5j2180w2 Author Taylor, Alice Elizabeth Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Thinking With and Through the Concept of Coalition: On What Feminists Can Teach Us about Doing Political Theory, Theorizing Subjectivity, and Organizing Politically A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science by Alice Elizabeth Taylor 2015 © Copyright by Alice Elizabeth Taylor 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Thinking With and Through the Concept of Coalition: On What Feminists Can Teach Us about Doing Political Theory, Theorizing Subjectivity, and Organizing Politically by Alice Elizabeth Taylor Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor Carole Pateman, Chair Despite the extensive attention political scientists have given to predicting decision-making patterns within parliamentary coalitional governments or voting outcomes of legislative and policy coalitions within congressional systems, the literature largely neglects social justice activist coalitions that form outside the formal governing bodies of the state and at the hands of political activists who are often invested in contesting formal institutions. While a narrow set of political theorists have turned attention to theorizing extra-governmental coalitions such as these, scholarship here is beset by a false crisis that effectively obscures the high-stakes politics (the arrangements of power) that situate coalitions across intractable race, class, gender, sexuality and ethnicity divides. By theorizing the proliferation of differences as a discursive phenomenon, contemporary political theories adopt problematic notions of: ontological unfixity–the idea that all social identities (i.e., “workers” or “women”) are in the process of becoming in and through ii language and therefore remain permanently unfinished or unfixed; epistemological undecidability–the idea that social forces (i.e., the movements of power and forms of oppression) may never be decidedly known or fully comprehended; and political indeterminacy–the idea that activist politics cannot be planned, predicted or advocated for in advance of its occurrence. This dissertation brings feminist theory to bear on these discussions. After exposing the limitations of scholarship on coalition within both political science and political theory, I turn to women of color feminist activists and scholars to develop four unique ways in which feminist theorists think with and through the concept of coalition. Confronted with political questions related to organized group resistance across deep cleavages of difference, I develop a notion of politico- ethical coalition politics that foregrounds the decidable and goal-oriented politics that situate social justice coalitional encounters. In attending to ontological and epistemological questions related to the proliferation of differences that have destabilized unitary categories such as “class” and thrown into question unitary systems of oppression, I develop notions of coalitional identity and coalitional consciousness that effectively accommodate complexity without subscribing to either unfixity or undecidability. In the final chapter, I develop a notion of coalitional scholarship, arguing that the collaborative, unapologetically political, and intensely self-reflexive ways in which women of color feminists do political theory not only usher in new and innovative reconceptions of activist politics and political subjectivity, but also encourage a rethinking of methodological questions related to how to do political theory. iii The dissertation of Alice Elizabeth Taylor is approved. Joshua Foa Dienstag Raymond Rocco Juliet A. Willliams Carole Pateman, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2015 iv For Lori Marso. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 The Roots of Social Justice Activist Coalition Politics 5 On the Limitations of Contemporary Political Theories of Coalition 12 Theorizing Social Justice Activist Coalitions Beyond Unfixity and Undecidability 19 Outline of Dissertation 36 1. Low-Stakes Coalition Politics: Winning for Winning’s Sake 40 Defining Coalition 43 Theorizing Winning Coalitions 53 Some Implications of a Limited Theoretical Framework 67 The Ghettoization of Extra-Governmental Coalitions: An Exception That Proves the Rule 67 Conversations That Could Have Been 74 Conclusion 82 2. Contemporary Articulations of Activist Coalition Politics: Encountering a Tension, Obscuring Politics 84 The Undecidability of CLASSE 88 Encountering a Tension 97 Coalition as Left Hegemony 99 Coalition as Left Assemblage 109 Obscuring Politics 123 Coalition as Spectacle 124 Coalition as Precarious Community 133 Conclusion 139 3. Women of Color Feminism and Politico-Ethical Coalition Politics 143 Reagon’s Challenge 145 Misreading Reagon’s Solution as Receptive Generosity 149 Cole’s Reading: Reagon’s Ethical Solution 149 Homes vs. Coalitions: Coalition as Political Encounter 153 Giving in Coalition: A Self-Reflexive Political Commitment 158 Reagon in Conversation with Contemporaneous Women of Color Feminists 162 Barbara Smith: Reaffirming the Politics of Coalition 163 Audre Lorde: Coalitional Spaces as Angry, but Never Hateful 169 Chandra Mohanty: Pushing Against a Rhetorical Distinction 173 Empirical Accounts of Politico-Ethical Coalition Politics 177 Conclusion 182 4. Coalition from the Inside Out: Struggling Toward Coalitional Identity, Developing Coalitional Consciousness 185 Coalitional Identity: Rethinking Ontological Unfixity 189 Coalitional Consciousness: Rethinking Epistemological Undecidability 203 vi Confronting One’s Complicity in Oppression: A White Woman’s Struggle Toward Coalitional Consciousness 215 Conclusion 223 5. Feminism in Coalition: Writing Feminist Theory, Doing Feminist Politics 226 Sisterhood Is Powerful: On the Limitations of Textual Sisterhood 231 This Bridge Called My Back: Feminist Theory Through Textual Coalition 244 To Be Real: On the Limitations of Textual Mosaic 266 Conclusion 283 Conclusion 287 Bibliography 301 vii LIST OF ACRONYMS CLASSE Coalition large de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS At the beginning of Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity (2003), Chandra Mohanty states that her search for “emancipatory knowledge” has taught her that “...ideas are always communally wrought, not privately owned.” The communities that have encouraged, challenged, inspired, and certainly shaped this dissertation project are expansive indeed. It seems that it would be almost impossible to accurately list every single person who deserves my deepest gratitude for bringing this project together; nevertheless, I would like to acknowledge a constellation of different communities without which this project never would have been. The first of these is the community of feminist scholars who have continuously inspired me to not only insist on writing a “feminist” political theory dissertation, but who have also had a heavy hand in shaping the ideas presented here. At the top of this list are my two feminist mentors: my undergraduate mentor, friend, colleague, and the source of my inspiration, Lori Marso; and my dissertation advisor, Carole Pateman. Thank you, Lori, for introducing me to feminist political theory, for showing me that the most rigorous political thought emerges out of this context, and for continuously encouraging me to find my voice within this community. Thank you, Carole, for disrupting the canon of political thought so profoundly. Your work has been an unremitting source of inspiration for me. Thank you for insisting time again that political theory be connected to real world politics and for your impatience with anything that strays too far afield. Thank you also for your rigor as a political thinker, your exacting standards as an advisor, and your patience and flexibility in allowing me to learn from, engage, and celebrate the feminist voices that I believe will push contemporary political thought in productive directions. My gratitude is beyond words. ix In addition to Lori and Carole, I would like to acknowledge a wider community of feminist scholars that I have had the privilege of becoming a part of. From UCLA, thank you to Rachel Lee, Grace Hong, fellow graduate students attending Rachel and Grace’s feminist theory seminars, and Ellen DuBois. A special thank you to Kirstie McClure for working with me in the initial stages of the dissertation project, for improving my work throughout my time at UCLA, and for the continued commitment and support you have shown me. A very special thank you to Juliet Williams for joining my dissertation committee, and for the many meetings in which you not only encouraged me to pursue the feminist project I wanted to pursue, but offered invaluable guidance on how to bring my project into being. The final shape of this project owes much to you and your guidance. Beyond UCLA, I would like to acknowledge and thank the feminist political theory conference circuit, and particularly the members of the Western Political Science Association Feminist