Preface | CU Experts

Overview

Abstract; This chapter introduces Bandita as both a reinterpretation of Iris Marion Young and a critique of feminist political theory’s marginal position within the discipline. It argues that these projects are inseparable. Rereading Young reveals how feminist political theory experiences what she would call “internal exclusion”: feminists are formally included in the academy, yet their work is persistently misread, ignored, or dismissed. Inspired by Young’s feminist theory of structure, the chapter reframes disciplinary habits—especially practices of reading, writing, and citation—as sedimented patterns that reproduce this marginalization. It introduces the metaphor of “desire paths” to suggest how collective shifts in scholarly behavior might gradually reshape these patterns over time. In doing so, it positions Bandita as both diagnosis and invitation: an effort to transform the structural conditions that constrain feminist political theory’s authority and influence.