Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how sexual rights discourses shape the political practices of queer men involved LGBT rights activism in Ghana. Rather than operating deterministically, it finds that the nomenclature of sexual rights has been adopted and redeployed by activists in pragmatic and contextual ways.

Paper long abstract:

This paper draws on 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Accra, Ghana to examine the political practices of queer men - sasoi - involved in HIV and LGBT rights activism. Taking as its starting point debates concerning the 'globalisation' of gay rights and identity, the paper explores how sexual rights discourses shape saso political practices in this setting. Here, the paper delimits some of the terms, phrases, and frames of reference used by activists to articulate queer sexuality. This analysis suggests that the nomenclature of sexual rights has not erased or usurped forms of queer knowledge that are culturally located and produced. Rather, it has been integrated into a rich lexicon of queerness that travels between global and local registers, English and Ghanaian languages, and is deployed by activists in pragmatic and contextual ways. Specifically, concepts of LGBT rights are seen as meaningful when tied to claims that resonate with activists, such as the right to access healthcare or the right to be free from physical violence and abuse. They also provide a valuable strategic framework through which to articulate and challenge abuses, assert rights, and claim citizenship. These dynamics trouble the view that the globalisation of gay rights and identity operates deterministically and instead highlights the agency and productive power of saso sexual politics.