Paper short abstract:

In the islands of Guinea-Bissau, the Bijagó ethnic group remains faithful to its animist tradition; within this ancestral culture same-sex relationships between women stand defiant of the static concepts of identity white colonialism tried to impose

Paper long abstract:

Over the past decades, the first generations of post-colonial Africans have shown extreme reluctance in discussing same-sex relationships. Rather, the negotiation of new African identities has remained tied to concepts of sexuality informed by old colonial standards of Christian morality.

To the exception of male polygamy (polygyny), a broad spectrum of other non-monogamous and/or non-static or non-heteronormative identities and relationship models are either seen with contempt by westernized elites and not acknowledged by mainstream discourses or are repressed, out-casted, persecuted and punished as un-African, this being particularly true for same-sex relationships. In fact, though, the opposite is true: fluid identities and same-sex practices are deeply rooted within African traditional cultures.

Anchored on unprecedented field work done over the past three years in the remote and hard to access Bijagó archipelago of Guinea-Bissau, "Câmara - Female same-sex relationships in the Bijagó tradition" is primarily based on interviews conducted with men and women belonging to different generations and social strata living in the island of Formosa, where the ancestral animist tradition of the Bijagó people is still predominant.

In this tradition, articulated in close interdependence with nature and its cycles, women do not entertain the concept of what the western canon would perceive as life-long heteronormative monogamous relationships. Often, throughout adolescence as well as later, as elders, girls and women establish same-sex relationships, normally - though not necessarily - within their own age group. In creole, they call each other "câmara" - from the Portuguese "camarada" (comrade).