Paper short abstract:

The paper re-examines the idea of tradition in the gender and sexual lives of African men, as well as the possibility of reconciling the prevalent narrative of African sexual/gender tradition with ‘non-traditional’ gender/sexual desires.

Paper long abstract:

Animated by ideas on both decoloniality of knowledge and postcoloniality, in this paper I re-examine the idea of tradition in the lives of African men and try to imagine a possibility of reintroducing 'non-traditional' desires into the prevalent discourse African tradition, where 'non-traditional' desires means nonconforming desires, practices, identities, relationships, and bodies. The question underpinning the paper is, how do some desires become part of, while others are expelled from, tradition? The paper traces when and for what purpose do people take recourse in tradition, as well as how some scholars of gender and sexuality, in situating nonconforming desires, practices, identities, relationships, and bodies outside of that which is considered traditionally African, have worsened the difficulties for progressive scholars and activists working on gender and sexuality in Africa - that is, within a space where the discourse of tradition is used positively in attempts to challenge the effects of colonialist economic and cultural globalization. Decolonialising, transformative studies of gender and sexuality, it is argued, need to renegotiate the opposition of 'tradition' and 'non-traditional desires' if they are going to unsettle views of the former that clash with claims for the recognition of sexual equality and right to pleasure in post-colonial Africa, and undo views of the latter that implicitly or overtly construct African desires as exceptional. In conclusion the paper offers some ways of thinking through colonialist and traditionalist configurations of gender and sexuality that continue to inhibit much of African men's desiring practices.