Short Abstract

Across Africa, LGBTQI+ activists and their allies navigate diverse political, cultural and social contexts. This panel explores activist strategies, alliances, narratives and forms of resistance, examining how activism seeks to reshape politics and belonging.

Long Abstract

LGBTQI+ rights are an important site through which broader questions of democracy, human rights and belonging are being contested. Activists, human rights defenders and researchers engage with diverse political opportunities and constraints, navigate local and transnational networks, and develop strategies for advancing claims. These movements’ experiences offer important insights into state-society relations, social movement mobilization and the politics of identity in contemporary Africa.

This panel’s overarching question is: How do LGBTQI+ activists and allies navigate and reshape political, cultural and social landscapes in contemporary Africa? Recognizing the diversity of contexts and experiences across the continent, the panel seeks to explore multiple dimensions of this question from various regional, disciplinary and methodological perspectives. It invites proposals on any aspect of the topic, including (but not limited to):

• Studies of national movements or activist groups, including approaches to resistance and activism, strategies, or tensions within groups or movements

• Relations between national LGBTQI+ movements or groups and other national actors.

• Transnational activism and solidarity networks

• The relationship between national activists and international donors, including religious and non-Western ones

• The framing of the rights of sexual and gender minorities: relationship with (neo)colonialism, decolonization, history, national culture and religion, nationalism, democracy

• Digital activism, queer visibility and online safety

• The rise of politicized anti-LGBTQI+ movements in Africa

• Queer belonging, citizenship and solidarity

• LGBTQI+ activism in times of democratic and human rights backsliding

• Safety, security, resilience and ethical research with gender and sexually diverse communities in Africa.

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