From failure and allyship to feminist solidarities: negotiating our privileges and oppressions across borders

In this essay we use performative writing to explore the (im)possibilities of feminist alliances across difference drawing upon our lived experiences in an advising relationship between a cisgender queer Chicana feminist advisor and a cisgender Kuwaiti-Palestinian heterosexual female doctoral advisee. Drawing upon the trope of failure, we explore the importance of performing an intersectional feminist ethic when working transnationally to create feminist alliances that are grounded in shared experiences of Otherness rather than specific identities. Following the work of Halberstam and McIntosh and Hobson, we consider the productivity of performances of failure as key moments of critical reflection for feminist allyship.