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- Convenors:
-
Rui Garrido
(Portucalense University)
Ana Lúcia Sá (Centre for International Studies - ISCTE-IUL)
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- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- BS004
- Start time:
- 29 June, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Zurich
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
Africa is in a homophobic moment that imposes challenges to the LGBTI activist movements. The panel seeks to discuss the organization, dynamics and networks of activist movements, questioning if the political contexts of the PALOP are more likely to include these movements.
Long Abstract:
The attempt of approval of the Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda in 2014 and the persecution and incarceration of LGBTI people in Cameroon also in 2014 are some recent examples of what is considered as a homophobic climbing in Africa. So, the African LGBTI activist movements act, very often, in a very hostile political and social context.
However, these movements, acting primarily in urban settings, show surprising forms of diversity and resilience. The homophobia that has been felt with more intensity in Africa sharpens the actions of the LGBTI activisms in the continent. Consequently, these urban settings are perceived in a contradictory way, as spaces of invisibility, security and refuge, but also as spaces of violence.
The political landscape in the five Portuguese-Speaking African countries, doesn't include the "state homophobia" as in other African countries. Angola is the only country of the five that still criminalizes sodomy. This doesn't mean that the activist movements work without political and state oppression. The aim of the panel is to discuss the diverse forms of organization, performances, networks, articulations with other organized groups of the civil society and strategies with policy-makers and societies in urban spaces these movements have. This panel is open to receive communications on different disciplinary approaches by researchers and activists on the LGBTI activist movements in Lusophone Africa and beyond.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
In probing the limitations to the right to Freedom of Association (FOA) under International Human Rights Law, this paper questions the justification of the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act as an exception to the FOA enjoyed by Nigerians and other Africans affected by similar laws.
Paper long abstract:
On the 7th of January 2014, the President of Nigeria signed the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act (SSMPA) into law; both Houses of the National Assembly considered the law for over seven years. In addition to criminalizing same sex marriages and civil unions with fourteen years' imprisonment, the Act states that anyone who 'supports the registration, operation and sustenance of gay clubs, societies, organizations, processions or meetings in Nigeria' is liable on conviction to ten years' imprisonment. This section has forced many human rights NGOs and groups to curtail their activities. The law also has led to a crackdown on LGBTI groups and individuals who, even before the Act was passed, faced excessive incidences of human rights abuses. Freedom of association (FOA) is recognized as a fundamental human right under International Human Rights Law (IHRL) and has been described as a requisite pillar for democracy. FOA can be limited only for a stated number of reasons. This paper analyzes the implications of the SSMPA on the right to FOA. It examines if and how the SSMPA derogates from the IHRL on FOA. In probing the limitations to the rights to FOA under IHRL, this paper also explores the concept of public morality. Specifically, the paper explores whether the Nigerian government's justification for the SSMPA as 'protecting public morality' is legitimate under IHRL.
Paper short abstract:
The premise of the paper is that LGBTQI activism is a social and political activism focusing on human rights concepts and agendas. The paper characterizes LGBTQI organizations in the five African Lusophone countries, focusing on their claims, agendas and campaigns.
Paper long abstract:
Lusophone Africa is considered to have a more tolerant setting in what regards to LGBTQI communities than Francophone or Anglophone Africa. Nevertheless, LGBTQI individuals and groups face day-to-day prejudices, discrimination and violence. The paper aims at presenting an outline of LGBTQI organizations in the five African Lusophone countries, focusing on their claims, agendas and campaigns. The analysis of the organizations considers the broader social and political context of each country, presenting their specificities, namely in what regards to religion and regime type. The premise of the paper is that LGBTQI activism is a social and political activism focusing on human rights concepts and agendas. So the paper asks how human rights are conceptualized and entangled with concepts of self determination or sexual minorities on the rhetoric of the Lusophone organizations. The paper also recurs to social movements theory to explain the social mobilization, the agendas and the aimed political and social changes these movements advocate.
Paper short abstract:
Liminal spaces are crucial to flourishing LGBTI culture and activism in Africa as elsewhere. Lusophone countries show less state-sponsored homophobia than anglophone countries. Urban and televised culture creates a Luso-specific LGBTI liminality, mirrored in a more permissive popular opinion.
Paper long abstract:
Earlier work (Fleisch 2014, Seppinen and Fleisch 2016, Fleisch and Seppinen 2016; all unpublished conference presentations) emphasises the existence of liminal spaces in lusophone Africa as a specific difference compared to the confrontational and conflicted public debate unfolding in several anglophone African countries. This contribution brings to the fore commonalities among LGBTI people across various sites mostly in southern Africa. Shared dynamics in the promotion of LGBTI/gay/queer culture can be detected; many of these seem rooted in role models and templates from the Global North. Arguably, urban spaces have served as catalysts from which gay/queer practices found their way into local communities - both urban and rural. Examples scrutinized with regard to these dynamics include language, artistic and other cultural practices. This leads to the central claim defended in this paper: While colonial historical legacies have left a significant imprint on LGBTI-related popular attitudes, gay culture flourishes drawing on shared LGBTI legacies across national boundaries. While this may provide support to local actors and LGBTI stakeholders, it also opens possibilities for discourses that ostracize exactly along these lines (cf. the notorious misperception of homosexuality as un-African). How this plays out against the urban-rural and the Luso-Anglo binaries will be discussed to the best of our empirical abilities - the careful formulation due to the fact that these issues are sensitive in some of the contexts where data were collected, especially as far as direct observation goes, less so perhaps for social media commentary that is also considered for this paper.
Paper short abstract:
This paper seeks to understand the dynamics of LGBTI activism in context of a Small State. Looking for Sao Tome and Principe, it tries to have a glimpse of the urban mobilization of this groups.
Paper long abstract:
The African LGBTI activism runs in a very hostile landscape. Across the African continent, human rights groups working with LGBTI issues face State and social repression. Urban spaces usually are perceived as places of security and anonymity, but that is not so clear in a context of a Small State. São Tomé and Principe (STP) is considered a Small State, with a population around 192000 inhabitants, in which 65% lives in urban areas, and 1001 km2 of territory, the country in 2015 was 143 in the Human Development Index (UNDP, 2015). STP decriminalized the same-sex activity between consenting adults in 2012, when the country adopted a new Penal Code. The Constitution of 2003 proclaims the principle of equality under the Law between all citizens. The political and juridical environment of the archipelago is not hostile to the sexual minorities, in opposition to other African nations. Meanwhile this much more favorable situation to LGBTI people, the activism in favor of sexual minorities is virtually nonexistent. Few NGO in the country work directly with human rights issues, and for these, sexual minorities are not a priority.
But why this invisibility of LGBTI in Sao Tome and Principe? The capital city, Sao Tome, is not a big city that provides anonymity for these people, but it's a vital space. How these people organize themselves? What kind of activism they practice? This paper seeks to understand the organization of groups operate in the São Tome and Principe.