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- Convenor:
-
Xaman Minillo
(University of Bristol)
Send message to Convenor
- Discussant:
-
Adriaan van Klinken
(University of Leeds)
- Stream:
- Social Anthropology
- Location:
- Appleton Tower, Seminar Room 2.07
- Sessions:
- Thursday 13 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
African LGBTQ activisms challenge popular narratives about queer sexualities being 'un-African', developing innovative counter narratives and arts of resistance. The panel examines African queer 'artivisms' and the connections and disruptions between queer and African identities.
Long Abstract:
Discourses trying to frame African sexualities as monolithic and unchanging abound. Within postcolonial nationalist political projects, Africanist discourses can promote excluding conceptions of citizenship and belonging declaring homosexuality to be 'un-African'. Dominant religious narratives can directly oppose homosexuality to Christianity or Islam. In a global system where many white Euro-American LGBTQ secular activisms denounce a generalized 'African homophobia' and African LGBTQs as victims, they can encourage Westernized conceptions of homosexuality and simultaneously reaffirm claims of homosexuality being un-African.
African LGBTQ activisms highlight the contradictions of such discourses and disrupt their underlying ahistorical claims through the promotion of counter narratives that criticize, appropriate and transform discourses on being queer (loosely understood here as a refusal or inability to signify monolithically in relation to sex, gender, and sexuality; Sedgwick 1993). Creative and inventive expressions of LGBTQ activism can be understood as 'arts of resistance', that is, informal modes of civic agency that construe counter-narratives through various artistic expressions (Scott 1992, Obadare and Willems 2015). These arts of resistance creatively combine words and text with other media, such as images, sound, and body. Such 'artivism' (Sandoval and Latorre 2008, Robinson and Cambre 2013) disrupts monolithic discourses on African sexualities and represents possible ways of being African and queer.
This panel invites studies of such creative expressions of African LGBTQ activism, the nature and future of African queerness that they represent, and the ways in which they disrupt popular discourses on African sexualities enmeshed with issues of citizenship, religion, human rights, family and race.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 13 June, 2019, -Lyn Johnstone (Royal Holloway University)
Paper short abstract:
In this article, I use a case study of the 2008 film Rafiki, which was banned in its home country of Kenya for reasons relating to its homosexual content, to explore the complexity of attitudes towards queerness in Africa beyond simplistic dichotomies of Africa versus the West in the literature.
Paper long abstract:
In September 2018, following a law-suit brought against the Kenyan Film Classification Board (KFCB), Kenya's High Court temporarily lifted the ban on the film Rafiki so that it could be shown in its country of origin - a pre-requisite for Oscar eligibility. Rafiki received praise from critics at Cannes mainly because of the film's ban in Kenya due to its lesbian content.
The familiar situation of a non-Western queer film receiving praise abroad while banned at home conforms to the simplistic construction of Africa versus the West when it comes to progress towards Western models of out politics and acceptance of homosexuality. Beyond these lazy constructions, however, lies a more complicated picture of attitudes towards non-normative sexualities in Kenya.
In this article, I explore the complexity of attitudes towards queerness in Africa beyond simplistic dichotomies in the literature. I look firstly at the KFCB's original praise of Rafiki as 'a story about the realities of our time' and an interview with the film's director, who notes that, before the original ban was imposed, the KFCB had asked her to change, not so much the homosexual content, but the film's ending, which was deemed 'too hopeful'. I argue that the controversy surrounding Rafiki can be seen as an adaptation of Massad's (2002) theory of the 'gay international', but rather than create homosexuality where it does not exist, as Massad's theory claims, in the case of Rafiki the West has created false dichotomies around the idea of queer acceptance in Africa.
Tanja Dittfeld (University of Sydney)
Paper short abstract:
Most research on African LGBTQ+ activisms white-washes the needs, experiences and expressions of LGBTQ+ activisms in Africa. This paper offers reflections on how to avoid the imposition of national tunnel-vision and Western-centric universalism in the study of African LGBTQ+ activisms.
Paper long abstract:
LGBTQ+ activisms are undeniably on the rise in Africa, and yet Africa remains largely absent from social science research using a social movement perspective. Studying social movement activism in Africa is admittedly somewhat of an epistemological conundrum as social movement theory predominantly focuses on socio-political movements in Europe, North and South America. As such, it is not to say what is African about African social movements, or to what extent they were and are shaped by external actors, concepts and norms.
The forms that social movement activisms vis-à-vis artivisms take are embedded in global formations like imperialism and colonialism, especially in postcolonial settings. African LGBTQ+ activisms do as such not necessarily challenge but rather absorb projections of Western power into the very fabric of local struggles. The study of arts of resistance as part of the broader African LGBTQ+ social movement should thus not merely be approached as a study of ways of bringing about and resisting change, but also a study of ways of (re)asserting a narrative independent of Western impositions.
As part of a larger PhD project looking into LGBQ+ activisms in Uganda, this paper offers reflections on the (Western) power and influence hidden in social movement scholarship and its implications for the study of African LGBTQ+ activisms, as well as notions of belonging and exclusions inherent in the universal human rights-based language and claims used in and about African LGBTQ+ activisms.
Alex Muller (University of Cape Town) Talia Meer (University of Cape Town)
Paper short abstract:
In our paper, we analyse excerpts from comics and podcasts that we co-created with 18 young queer people from three African countries. These challenge mainstream representations of African queerness and youth, and explore the potential of participatory processes for creative queer activism.
Paper long abstract:
The lived realities of young queer people in African contexts are not well documented. Mainstream discourses in African countries tend to portray queer people either as 'deviant' and 'unAfrican', or as victims of violence and HIV. Challenging media representation and popular stereotypes is thus an important site of queer activism on the continent.
To create popular media for and by young queer Africans, we worked with a group of 18 queer youth from Botswana, Kenya and Zimbabwe to creatively document their lives and explore how these are shaped by socio-political contexts. Through participatory methods (creating personal timelines, mental and body maps, and group discussions around themes that emerged) and workshops on podcast and comic making, we facilitated the creation of a comic anthology, based on autobiographical short stories, and of podcasts, based on conversations within the group.
In this paper, we analyse some of the emerging themes, illustrated by excerpts from comics and podcasts. The narratives highlight the heterogeneity of experience, identity and politics associated with African queerness, and are testament to creative individual and collective resilience. Many, but not all, young people explicitly or implicitly resisted Western ideas and narratives tied to queerness, rejecting the impetus to 'come out' or to espouse a particular identity on the spectrum of L, G, B or T. As academic and activist interventions, our collective process and the resulting popular media disrupt notions of heterosexual African nationhood and the conventions of Western queerness, and highlight the diversity of queer life on the continent.