Paper short abstract:

This paper reads everyday practices and interactions of queer individuals in selected city spaces in Nairobi, Kenya in ways that make it possible to read, and locate queer subjectivities that ultimately betrays a queer ‘tolerance’ against a backdrop of a violent legal framework and religious rhetoric

Paper long abstract:

In recent times, Kenya has become visible as a site of and frame for the contradictions of queer livability on one hand and queer visibility on the other. While the legal framework denies queer existence, there exist dynamic lived experiences that betray a queer 'tolerance' that is at odds with both the political and religious logic in the country. To unpack these contradictions, this paper reads the everyday practices and interactions of queer individuals in the city spaces in Nairobi, Kenya. Specifically, I select three spaces in the central business district of Nairobi to juxtapose these contradicting anxieties. In this paper, I wonder how the selected city spaces in Nairobi -the nightclub, the tavern, and the cruising spot - enable its users, the queer individuals, to animate and reanimate the space. I concern myself with two main thoughts: First, I read the several disparate spaces in how they structure themselves in ways that allow queer, queering and queered flows by its queer users. Secondly, I analyze how queer individuals in occupying such spaces invert or subvert the spaces in ways that make it possible to read, locate and recognize queer subjectivities and allow a reading of queer 'tolerance'. Through this, I contend that queer individuals attach and re-attach subjective meanings to these spaces and generate new understandings of the multiple and various queer selves against a backdrop of a violent and repressive nationalist and religious rhetoric.