Paper short abstract:

Reflection on a collaborative research experience among a diverse group of mostly young African researchers to produce Sexual Diversity in Africa (fall 2013). What lessons can we learn from a process that emphasized post-colonial critiques of Africanist scholarship, and building transnational networks?

Paper long abstract:

Joseph Massad (2002) coined the term "gay international" to mock Western activists whose inappropriate and culturally insensitive interventions to promote sexual minority rights in Egypt - and by extension the Global South more generally - exposed the ostensible beneficiaries of their activism to increased danger. Western "queer imperialism" has also been criticized in the academic sphere. Indeed, the majority of studies of non-normative sexualities in Africa since they began to proliferate in the 1990s are the result of research by European, North American and white South African researchers, my own obviously included. African lgbti and their enemies mostly provided the raw data in these studies. In recent years, however, Africans have been taking a more assertive role in the production of knowledge on the topic, often in collaboration with Western researchers and funding agencies. In this paper, I reflect on one such collaborative experience that brought together a diverse group of mostly young researchers and activists over the course of six years to produce Sexual Diversity in Africa: Politics, Theory and Citizenship, to be published in Fall 2013. What lessons can we learn from a process that emphasized close attention to post-colonial critiques of Africanist scholarship and building transnational networks?