Loving coalitions : seven texts on feminist resistance

Kawesa, Victoria and Knobblock, Ina and Vlachou, Maria and Koobak, Redi and Mehrabi, Tara and Tlostanova, Madina and Lykke, Nina (2023) Loving coalitions : seven texts on feminist resistance. Janus Unbound: Journal of Critical Studies, 3 (1). pp. 28-63. (https://journals.library.mun.ca/index.php/JU/artic...)

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Abstract

In 2021, seven interdisciplinary gender studies scholars of mixed ethnic and racial origins, who have worked/still work in different gender studies centres in Sweden, formed a collective called Loving Coalitions. Our initial aim was to take as a point of departure our different yet intersecting everyday experiences of feeling epistemically, racially, and existentially Othered within Swedish gender studies and society, and start to work towards feminist coalition building. During these years we engaged with creative and artistic modes of knowledge production, such as automatic writing, collective memory-work, poetry, letters, and fiction. In our Loving Coalitions we learnt that by creatively writing about and collectively discussing our experiences and memories of multiple challenging and, at times, impossible border crossings—national, epistemic, racialised, gender, legal, existential—we organically created a safe space in which we can compare notes between our different backgrounds and academic trajectories, and collectively understand and theorize about them in new transformative ways. We are also currently weaving together our discussions, letters, poems, memories, testimonies, and stories into a collective book publication that will celebrate the journey of a beautiful coalition of seven different yet interconnected feminist scholars: Memories that Bridge: Weaving Feminist (Her)Stories in Loving Coalition.

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