Paper short abstract:

In a context where sexualities in urban Africa are construed as reproductive health issues rather than complex phenomena with various desires, practices, and imaginaries, how can junior scholars build research designs that disrupt dominant cis-heteronormative, ethnocentric and moralistic narratives?

Paper long abstract:

Historically, the womb of African women has been cast as a problematic issue following Malthusian developmentalist discourses promoting demographic control in the global South. As the challenges posed by the environmental crisis and demographic growth seem particularly salient in African cities, the western/colonial gaze still prevails in (inter)national policies and academic circles alike. As a result, sexualities in urban Africa are narrowly construed as a reproductive health issue rather than the complex political, historical and social phenomena reporting on various desires, practices, and imaginaries.

How then, can (junior) scholars studying these issues build research designs that interrogate and disrupt these dominant cis-heteronormative, ethnocentric, and moralistic narratives? My work explores the socio-political complexity of ‘dissident’ sexualities’ manifestations in public spaces in Kinshasa and Abidjan by questioning (1) the dichotomy between public and private spaces in both social and biological bodies, (2) the urban spatial inscriptions of dissident sexualities, and (3) their broader entanglements with state power/violence.

My goal is to discuss epistemic violence, exploratory methodologies, and processes of theorizing dissident sexualities in urban spaces. In light of my topic and the existing literature, I seek novel and critical approaches to addressing the ethical and semantic difficulties I will face as I inquire into the politics of ‘dissident’ sexualities and intimacy in African cities. In so doing, I hope to examine the promises of a feminist, queer and decolonial sexual futures’ analysis through concrete research devices, including discussions on my positionality as a western ‘activist-researcher’, participatory fieldwork/methods and collaborative dissemination strategies considered.