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Queer studies and religion in Southern Africa: The production of queer Christian subjects
Abstract
The question of how to write about queer Africa has been a significant debate in scholarship over the last decade. One of the key emerging areas, in the development of ‘queer Africa scholarship’ has been through the framing of queer African subjects at the intersections with religion and in particular, Christianity. As scholars begin to further imagine queer African subjects as Christian, it is important to explore how and in what ways these subjectivities are constructed. In this article, I apply a qualitative analysis to academic literature that explicitly focuses on, or includes a substantive analysis of queer Christians and/or queer Christianity in Southern Africa. While Southern Africa is not representative of the entire continent, this region is a productive site within which to understand how queer subjects are imagined to be situated, what they are imagined to be doing and how they are imagined to be doing what they do. The context produces queer and LGBTI + (this acronym is sometimes preferred to 'queer' to refer collectively to people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and in various other ways as gender and/or sex non‐conforming.) subjects who find and make religious homes within legally permissive and restrictive countries and do so through a variety of normative, queer and normatively queer ways, thus revealing religious and sexual contradictions and boundary crossing. This has opened up numerous ways of understanding how religion can be negotiated and transformed in this region. I conclude by examining the theoretical and epistemological possibilities that are revealed through the current imaginings of queer Christian subjects in Southern Africa, as well as the potential these understandings offer for different spaces and new discourses in future scholarship.
... Mbembe's concept of the 'unarchivable', we argue that literary narratives, be they fictional, autobiographical or non-fictional, play a pivotal role in making visible and knowable a nascent queer African Islamic discourse as well as offering an alternative intimate archive of queer lived experiences on the continent. Considering that there is a considerably expansive body of scholarship on the intersection of queerness and Christianity in Africa (Robertson 2021; Klinken & Chitando 2021), the overarching aim of the article is to centre Islamic traditions as pivotal to African cultural production creating unique knowledges of the intersections between queerness and Islam within different spaces on the African continent. ...
... Arguing that religion should be engaged as 'a site of African queer subjectivity and agency', van Klinken (2019, 15) specifically examines the ways in which queer activists and communities in Kenya creatively engage with Christian language, symbols and imagery. Although there is an emerging sub-field of religion and queer African studies, most of this scholarship focuses on Christian traditions and contexts (Ncube 2015;Robertson 2021;van Klinken & Chitando 2021). ...
This article discusses the work of Abdellah Taïa, the first openly gay Moroccan novelist to write his queerness, as a major contribution to an emergent queer African Islamic discourse. Bringing Taïa’s work into conversation with diverse literary texts from elsewhere on the continent, the article makes two major interventions in the field of queer African studies. First, it centres Islam as a resource for queer agency, creativity and subjectivity in contemporary Africa. This addresses Western conceptions of queer politics and queer rights that operate on a largely secular, if not anti-religious and specifically anti-Islamic basis. Second, it renegotiates the marginality of North Africa, and especially the Maghreb, in queer African studies. This addresses problematic historic divisions between North and sub-Saharan Africa, and acknowledges the political, cultural and intellectual unity of the continent. The article demonstrates that literary works make visible queer lived experiences on the continent. Drawing on Michelle Caswell’s ideas of the ‘archiving of the unspeakable’ and Achille Mbembe’s concept of the ‘unarchivable’, this article adopts a ‘scavenger methodology’ to argue that literary works are important in creating an emergent queer African Islamic discourse as well as an alternative archive of African queer lived experiences.
... Scholars like Achille Mbembe and Adriaan van Klinken have argued that religions in Africa sustain homophobia through religious indoctrination. An interesting contemporary dimension to the narrative, however, is that queer people are also religious, and they have attempted to use enabling spaces-through literary texts, films and social media-to publicly assert their religiosity (Onanuga 2021;Robertson 2021). Within these discriminatory religious spaces, Islam and Christianity have been at the forefront, with documentary evidence existing of their religious leaders supporting queerphobia and inciting their adherents against the acceptance of nonnormative performances and identities. ...
Religion, especially Christianity and Islam, continues to be indicted for fomenting anti-queer tenors and validating the ostracisation of queer-identifying and gender non-conforming people. The interrogation of the roles of African Traditional Religions (ATRs) in queer narratives is important; thus, I examine Buki Papillon’s An Ordinary Wonder, a text which characterises an intersex protagonist, to underscore the ways ATRs are projected as supportive of diversity and encouraging of agency and resilience against oppressive and defining structures in Nigerian fictional narratives. Drawing from Gloria Anzaldúa’s theories on queerness and spirituality, I submit that ATRs are intricately tied to belief systems and cultures, and may thus avail positive outcomes in the discourse of religions and non-normative identities. As an attempt towards queer advocacy, Papillon’s work is an intervention to decolonise non-normative identities in a society that still suffers from the demonisation of African traditional beliefs and religions.
... As Joseph Hellweg (2015, 890) puts it aptly, religion is 'neither necessarily a burden nor a boon, but a terrain rich for re-negotiation' . An important point to keep in mind is that LGBTIQ communities themselves actively engage this terrain of renegotiation, considering that many of them identify as religious and given that religious motifs inspire certain forms of LGBTIQ activism and advocacy in African contexts (Mbetbo 2013;Robertson 2021; van Klinken 2019). Thus, there is a strategic and political, as well as intellectual, imperative to engage with religion in its complexity and multiplicity and to explore and capitalize on the potential within religious traditions to contribute to the recognition of the dignity and rights of sexual and gender minorities. ...
Based on in-depth interviews with over twenty inspirational Kenyan and Ugandan Christian and Muslim leaders actively involved in struggles for LGBTIQ rights, this open access book shows how religious leaders in East African countries can be agents of progressive social change.
Through a community-based approach of life-story methodology, a team of field-leading scholars and practitioners from Kenya and the UK draws out crucial, critical insights into the personal, theological and social sacrifices and challenges that these religious leaders face in everyday realities dominated by conservative religious interpretations and theologies. In so doing, they also identify common strategies religious leaders develop to respond to these challenges while keeping true to their mission.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com
... Queer-identifying people, in professing their faiths and enabling safe spaces, are thus contributing to the emergence of affirming sects or religious bodies which specifically cater to the needs of members of the queer community. Robertson (2021) acknowledges the re-imagination of religion among queer-identifying persons in South Africa and contextualizes this reality within the irony of South Africa's progressive laws and the spate of violence against the queer community. Robertson's study the lived experiences of six queer clergy from South Africa however points to the disparate subjectivities and pluralism that continue to frame queerness and religion on the African continent. ...
... Reading "queer" from Africa Most inquiries into the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of African queer studies demonstrate the multifarious and contradictory shapes that queer takes in and across continental Africa, and the uses and abuses, if you will, of queer as a category, concept, and a way of being on the continent (cf. Migraine-George 2016, 2018;Macharia 2015;Migraine-George and Currier 2016;Ncube 2018;Nyeck 2020;Osinubi 2018;Robertson 2021). One only has to look at Kwame Otu's (2022) ethnography on queer self-fashioning in Ghana, which explores how a community of self-identified effeminate men in Ghana, known in local parlance as sasso, navigate homophobia amid the increased visibility of LGBT+ human rights politics, to understand these complexities. ...
“Queer” is a relatively recent and somewhat controversial term in African studies. Yet it is proving to be productive, not only for understanding African subjectivities of sexuality and gender, but also Africa’s position in the larger economy of knowledge. This essay explores the productive tensions between “queer” and “Africa,” and aims to read Africa as queer and to read queer from Africa. Thus, rather than imagining Africa and queer as polar opposites, the essay harnesses the critical, productive, and creative affinities between these two terms that are vital for the project of decolonizing and queering queer Africa.
Exploring the relationship between religion and queerness in Africa, this chapter discusses three Nigerian queer-themed novels – Elnathan John and Àlàbá Ònájìn’s On Ajayi Crowther Street, Buki Papillon’s An Ordinary Wonder, and Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees. Each of these texts offer a literary representation of Pentecostal Christianity, its demonization of queer sexuality, and its culture of deliverance of the queer body. The chapter argues that deliverance is a central, critical and productive theme in contemporary queer Nigerian literature used with a twofold purpose: first, to critique a dominant religious culture that demonizes queer subjects; second, to suggest that Pentecostalism may need deliverance itself from its obsession with demons, in order for queer African bodies to flourish. The chapter distinguishes three different strategies – exposing religious hypocrisy, reclaiming indigenous religion, and reinterpreting Christianity – that offer alternative modalities of African queer religious worldmaking. It argues that such worldmaking can be conceptualized as post-queer in the sense that the novels move beyond, and present alternatives to, a Eurocentric secular frame of understanding sexual and gendered embodiment.
This article examines the writings of the Nigerian author Akwaeke Emezi, in particular their acclaimed semi-autobiographical novel Freshwater (2018), as a form of African queer and trans autotheorizing. It critically examines the theoretical significance of the indigenous Igbo concept of ọgbanje (spirit-child), which is central in Emezi’s self-writing and which serves to decenter and decolonize Western trans terminology. Reading Emezi in conversation with Stella Nyanzi’s argument about the queer possibilities of African understandings of spirits, the article argues that ọgbanje is an indigenous concept that allows for transing not just the category of gender, but also of religion and of the human. It further contends that Emezi, through the narrative epistemological frame of ọgbanje, performs a decolonial gesture that interrogates gender dualism, religious orthodoxy, secularity, and anthropocentric thought and that creatively reconceptualizes gender, religion, and, fundamentally, human personhood. Thus, this article advances debates about decolonization, religion, and (trans)gender in the fields of trans studies in religion and queer African studies, as well as in religious and trans/queer studies more broadly.
The recent publication by Adriaan van Klinken and Ezra Chitando, titled Reimagining Christianity and Sexual Diversity in Africa (2021), continues to garner much attention from the theological community. This publication is important on numerous fronts. At least two are noteworthy and inform the present appraisal. First, van Klinken and Chitando’s work speaks to the religious, particularly Christian, realities that beset contemporary Africa. Second, their work takes seriously the ways in which the lives of Africans are being rendered precarious because of the limited socio-political progress with regard to LGBT+ rights. This review article is offered taking seriously the ways in which LGBT+ lives are rendered precarious by the oppressive logic of forms of Christianity. This article has three movements. First, it offers an appraisal of the publication by van Klinken and Chitando. Second, the article critically considers the moment in which the publication was produced. Here an investigation into a particular Christian conservatism, which has led to fundamentalism, is provided. This reality, it is argued, renders this publication quite important. Third, it offers contemplation on the method that three queer theologians in South Africa are employing in their scholarship. Making this third move, the article responds to what is considered a limitation in the publication. This review article attempts to contribute and continue the work of re-imagining that van Klinken and Chitando invite readers to. Through their publication van Klinken and Chitando offer an invitation. This invitation is most clear: we are requested to re-imagine Africans who are LGBT+ as humans—fully human, and thus creatures of God. It is this invitation to which this review article responds.
Queer theology is a theological field developed during the first decades of the twenty‐first century. In queer activism as well as in queer theory, this insult is turned on its head. The deconstructive and anti‐normative use of queer theory has given rise to critique, questioning the value of a concept that intentionally is kept empty. In that way, queer perspectives facilitate a questioning of normality, whether related to sexuality, gender, or understandings of God, or a combination of them all. The social context of the gender analysis consists of changes related to gender and families, which are one aspect of the challenges facing European welfare systems. Qualitative methods have the potential of placing experiences of queer Christian life, issues of power and justice, of pandemics and threats against climate and environment, of caring and vulnerability, at the center of theological reflection.
This research report summarises the empirical findings of a 2018 research study with five diverse church congregations in Cape Town, South Africa exploring how local churches can become spaces of inclusion and belonging for people of LGBTIQ+orientation. It draws on the lived experiences of individuals, ministers and LGBTIQ congregants through semi structured interviews and storytelling methods within these five congregations to develop theory from below that can offer insights on which other churches can draw.
This handbook offers diverse perspectives on queer Africa, incorporating scholarly contributions on themes that reflect and inflect the trajectories of queer contributions to African studies within and outside academia.
The Routledge Handbook of Queer African Studies incorporates a range of unique perspectives, reflecting ongoing struggles between regimes of inclusion and those of transformation premised upon different relational and reflexive engagements between queer embodiment and Africa’s subjectivities. All sections of this handbook blend contributions from public intellectuals and practitioners with academic reflections on topics such as neoliberalism, social care, morality and ethics, social education, and technology, through the lens of queer African studies. The book renders visible the ongoing transformations and resistance within African societies as well as the inventiveness of queer presence in negotiating belonging.
This handbook will be of interest to students and scholars of gender and sexuality in Africa, Queer studies, and African culture and society.
This paper explores the experiences of gay men within the Methodist Church of Southern Africa in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Their experiences of the church are explored in relation to gay identity creation and negotiation in a religious environment. Six participants spoke about how they negotiate their intersecting sexual and religious identities. While adopting a qualitative approach utilising in-depth open narrative interviews to explore the stories of the research participants, this study applied Brekhus’s theoretical model, which was later employed by Schnoor to classify and categorise gay men into ideal types of gay methodist lifestylers, gay methodist commuters and gay methodist integrators in order to analyse the participants’ gay identity negotiation strategies within the MCSA church in Grahamstown.
Pentecostalism, like many other church traditions, is well known for its fixation with doctrinal dualisms which enforce a separation of body and spirit, and a Puritan sexual ethic. These conservative sexual norms have led to the policing of bodies and sexual practices. As a result, instead of encouraging safer sexual practices, the churches have been known to enforce abstinence outside of marriage, or sexual restrictions within it, thus marking sex in general as 'inde-cent'. Some of the consequences of this repression of sexuality are young people being forced into early marriages to avoid 'living in sin', teenage pregnancies as a consequence of not wanting to disobey the church's teaching on sex and contraceptives, as well as more serious consequences of unbridled sexual expressions resulting in sexually transmitted viruses. The consequences of a repressed sexuality are indeed serious. However, what if this 'repressive 1 Sarojini Nadar (PhD) holds the Desmond Tutu South African Research Chair (SARChI) in Religion and Social Justice at the University of the Western Cape. Her research is broadly located at the intersections of gender studies and religion, including gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health rights, and critical pedagogy in higher education. Johnathan Jodamus (PhD) is a lecturer at the University of the Western Cape. His research and teaching are interdisciplinary, focusing on gender studies and biblical studies. More recently, he has developed a wider research interest in how religion shapes and is shaped by gender, race, and sexuality.
Popular narratives cite religion as the driving force behind homophobia in Africa, portraying Christianity and LGBT expression as incompatible. Without denying Christianity’s contribution to the stigma, discrimination, and exclusion of same-sex-attracted and gender-variant people on the continent, Adriaan van Klinken presents an alternative narrative, foregrounding the ways in which religion also appears as a critical site of LGBT activism.
Taking up the notion of “arts of resistance,” Kenyan, Christian, Queer presents four case studies of grassroots LGBT activism through artistic and creative expressions—including the literary and cultural work of Binyavanga Wainaina, the “Same Love” music video produced by gay gospel musician George Barasa, the Stories of Our Lives anthology project, and the LGBT-affirming Cosmopolitan Affirming Church. Through these case studies, Van Klinken demonstrates how Kenyan traditions, black African identities, and Christian beliefs and practices are being navigated, appropriated, and transformed in order to allow for queer Kenyan Christian imaginations.
Transdisciplinary in scope and poignantly intimate in tone, Kenyan, Christian, Queer opens up critical avenues for rethinking the nature and future of the relationship between Christianity and queer activism in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa.
South Africa is the only country on the African continent that constitutionally protects transgender asylum seekers. In light of this, it has seen a marked rise in the emergence of this category of person within the asylum system. Drawing on research carried out between 2012 and 2015, I argue that transgender-identified refugees or “gender refugees” from Africa, living in South Africa, rather than accessing refuge continue to experience significant hindrances to their survival comparable with the persecution experienced in their countries of origin. I argue this is in part due to the nature of their asylum claim in relation to gender as a wider system of “common-sense” dichotomous administration, something which remains relatively constant across countries of origin and refugee-receiving countries. Rather than being protected gender refugees, because they are read as violating the rules of normative gender, they find themselves paradoxically with rights, but unable to access them. © 2018, GIGA German Institute for Global and Area Studies. All rights reserved.
Este artigo parte do contexto sul-africano para repensar a produção de conhecimento sobre relações de gênero e sexualidade. Lidando com a violência brutal e o assassinato de mulheres lésbicas blacks em particular, sigo as maneiras como aquilo que venho chamando de “virada queer” contribuiu simultaneamente com o avanço e a invisibilização de determinadas lutas. Com base na experiência do movimento #RhodesMustFall e algumas produções artísticas e culturais, argumento pela reimaginação queer não apenas em relação a identidades de gênero ou sexuais, mas também como uma forma de desestabilizar noções de pertencimento articuladas pelo racista e heteronormativo projeto neocolonial.
This article explores the intersections of religion, embodiment and queer sexuality in the autobiographic account of a South African self-identifying ‘lesbian sangoma’, on the basis of the book Black Bull, Ancestors and Me: My Life as a Lesbian Sangoma, by Nkunzi Zandile Nkabinde. The article offers an intertextual reading of this primary text, first vis-à-vis David Chidester’s Wild Religion: Tracking the Sacred in South Africa, and second, vis-à-vis some black lesbian feminist writings, specifically by Audre Lorde, M. Jacqui Alexander, and Gloria Wekker. This intertextual reading foregrounds the embodied and in fact queer nature of the wild forces of indigenous religion in contemporary South Africa, and it illuminates how embodied and erotic experience is grounded in the domain of the sacred. Hence the article concludes by arguing for a decolonising and post-secular move in the field of African queer studies, underlining the need to take the sacred seriously as a site of queer subjectivity.
This article is a contribution towards the development of queer theologies in contemporary African contexts. Based on fieldwork in the gay community in Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia, the article explores the significance of the theological notion of the Imago Dei, the Image of God, in the self-understanding of Zambian gay men as being gay and Christian. Bringing this incipient grassroots theology into conversation with broader theological discourses, in particular African theology (including African women’s theology) and queer theology, we interrogate current understandings of the Imago Dei that either ignore sexuality or exclude same-sex loving people (in African theology) or that conceptualize queerness from white Western privileged perspectives (in queer theology). Hence we develop the notion of the Imago Dei as a stepping stone towards an African queer theology.
On the basis of a study of a group of Zambian men identifying both as gay and as Christian, this article explores the negotiation
of sexual and religious identity and critically addresses the “surprise” some scholars have expressed about the general religiosity
of LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex) people in Africa. The study demonstrates that participants are
not just victims subjected to homophobic religious and political discourses but have agency: resisting discourses of demonization,
they humanize themselves by making claims toward the universal category of love—both their own inclination to loving relationships
and their share in God's love. Hence, they claim space for themselves as full citizens of Zambia as a “Christian nation.”
This article particularly highlights how some aspects of Pentecostalism appear to contribute to “queer empowerment,” and argues
that the religiosity of African LGBTIs critically interrogates Euro-American secular models of LGBTI liberation.
At the 2007 General Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), a compromise resolution was accepted regarding homosexual members. The resolution, inter alia, requires of gay ministers to remain celibate as a prerequisite to be legitimated. This research is a qualitative inquiry to evaluate the impact this resolution has on the lives of gay ministers and gay candidate ministers. Apart from doing a literature study Narrative and Post-foundational perspectives were obtained by interviewing six gay ministers and/or candidate ministers as co-researchers, and also by engaging in dialogue with interdisciplinary experts from Sociology, Psychology and Law. From the stories told by the gay ministers and/or gay candidate ministers, certain themes emerged, revealing the immense impact caused by the resolution.
If same-sex discourse is part of regulatory practices that both produce and control
bodies, its development in the Dutch Reformed Church requires a genealogical
enquiry into the discursive practices from which it has emerged. It is argued that the
same-sex discourse which has developed within the Dutch Reformed Church serves
to protect heteronormativity and biblical discourse, and integrated within regulatory
practice, is instrumental in its accomplishment.
Uniquely among African countries, South Africa's Bill of Rights offers civil protection to individuals on the basis of vectors of identity including sexuality, gender and religion. Public opinion, however, lags behind the ideals of the Constitution. Against this historical background, a range of books has recently appeared, giving expression to the interface between sexuality, culture and religion from the viewpoint of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. These texts include autobiographical accounts in three books: Reclaiming the L-Word: Sappho's Daughters out in Africa (Diesel 2011a); Yes I Am!: Writing by South African Gay Men (Malan & Johaardien 2010); and Trans: Transgender Life Stories from South Africa (Morgan, Marais & Wellbeloved 2009). In this article I analyse the effects of autobiographical representations of spirituality and sexuality within different cultural contexts as represented in these books. I show the ways in which religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and African traditional belief systems, can constrain the individual rights of sexually nonconforming believers, and I also reveal ways in which believers establish meaningful spiritual and intimate lives despite these tensions. Queer spiritual autobiographies validate the lives of LGBT people, and they also foster the renegotiation of public culture to permit social justice for all, regardless of sexuality or gender expression.
In this paper, I explore the waves of homophobia that seem to be sweeping the African continent. I present evidence that homophobia is not only publicly approved by African leaders, but relies on unsubstantiated claims of an imposed homosexual identity, contradictory ideas on morality, and the use of outdated laws. I argue that these claims represent a façade that serves to entrench patriarchy and heteronormativity as legitimate and fixed in African societies. I show that the key difference between the West and Africa is not the presence or absence of same-sex desire, but its different social construction. Finally, I argue for an intersectional approach, which recognizes the intersections between sexism and homophobia, and assert that the situation calls for more focused organizing by Africans themselves in addressing the recent increase in expressions of homophobia.
Against the background of the HIV epidemic and the intense public controversy on homosexuality in African societies, this article investigates the discourses of academic African Christian theologians on homosexuality. Distinguishing some major strands in African theology, that is, inculturation, liberation, women's and reconstruction theology, the article examines how the central concepts of culture, liberation, justice, and human rights function in these discourses. On the basis of a qualitative analysis of a large number of publications, the article shows that stances of African theologians are varying from silence and rejection to acceptance. Although many African theologians have taken up the cudgels against gay rights, some "dissident voices" break the taboo and develop more inclusive concepts of African identity and African Christianity.
This book is a wild ride through recent South African history from the advent of democracy in 1994 to the euphoria of the football World Cup in 2010. In the context of South Africa's political journey and religious diversity, the author explores African indigenous religious heritage with a difference. As the spiritual dimension of an African Renaissance, indigenous religion has been recovered in South Africa as a national resource. The book analyzes indigenous rituals of purification on Robben Island, rituals of healing and reconciliation at the new national shrine, Freedom Park, and rituals of animal sacrifice at the World Cup. Not always in the national interest, indigenous religion also appears in the wild religious creativity of prison gangs, the global spirituality of neo-shamans, the ceremonial display of Zulu virgins, the ancient Egyptian theosophy in South Africa's Parliament, and the new traditionalism of South Africa's President Jacob Zuma. Arguing that the sacred is produced through the religious work of intensive interpretation, formal ritualization, and intense contestation, the author develops innovative insights for understanding the meaning and power of religion in a changing society. The book uncovers surprising dynamics of sacred space, violence, fundamentalism, heritage, media, sex, sovereignty, and the political economy of the sacred.
Wild Religion is a wild ride through recent South African history from the advent of democracy in 1994 to the euphoria of the football World Cup in 2010. In the context of South Africa's political journey and religious diversity, David Chidester explores African indigenous religious heritage with a difference. As the spiritual dimension of an African Renaissance, indigenous religion has been recovered in South Africa as a national resource. Wild Religion analyzes indigenous rituals of purification on Robben Island, rituals of healing and reconciliation at the new national shrine, Freedom Park, and rituals of animal sacrifice at the World Cup. Not always in the national interest, indigenous religion also appears in the wild religious creativity of prison gangs, the global spirituality of neo-shamans, the ceremonial display of Zulu virgins, the ancient Egyptian theosophy in South Africa's Parliament, and the new traditionalism of South Africa's President Jacob Zuma. Arguing that the sacred is produced through the religious work of intensive interpretation, formal ritualization, and intense contestation, Chidester develops innovative insights for understanding the meaning and power of religion in a changing society. For anyone interested in religion, Wild Religion uncovers surprising dynamics of sacred space, violence, fundamentalism, heritage, media, sex, sovereignty, and the political economy of the sacred.
In the tapestry of global queer cultures Africa has long been neglected or stereotyped. In Hungochani, Marc Epprecht seeks to change these limited views by tracing Southern Africa's history and traditions of homosexuality, modern gay and lesbian identities, and the vibrant gay rights movement that has emerged since the 1980s. Epprecht explores the diverse ways African cultures traditionally explained same-sex sexuality and follows the emergence of new forms of gender identity and sexuality that evolved with the introduction of capitalism, colonial rule, and Christian education. Using oral testimony, memoirs, literature, criminal court records, and early government enquiries from the eighteenth century to the present, he traces the complex origins of homophobia. By bringing forth a wealth of evidence about once-hidden sexual behaviour, Epprecht contributes to the honest, open discussion that is urgently needed in the battle against HIV/AIDS. Homosexuality - or hungochani as it is known in Zimbabwe - has been denounced by many politicians and church leaders as an example of how Western decadence has corrupted African traditions. However, a bold, new gay rights movement has emerged in several of the countries of the region since the 1980s, offering an exciting new dimension in the broad struggle for human rights and democracy unfolding on the continent. In a new preface to this edition, Epprecht considers the recent advances of equality on the continent such as the legalization of same-sex marriage in South Africa, as well as discriminatory setbacks such as Uganda's anti-homosexuality legislation.
In this study we explore individual 's experiences of identity integration between their sexual orientation and religious beliefs. Using both qualitative and quantitative research methods, we examined identity integration in forty members and participants of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York (MCC/NY), a gay-positive church located in Mid-town Manhattan. The survey and interview data collected showed that: (1)a majority of the research participants reported that they had successfully integrated their homosexual and religious identities, (2) being integrated was related to higher role involvement at MCC/NY, being a member of the church, attending more MCC/NY worship services and activities/ministries, and attending MCC/NY for more years, (3) lesbians were less likely than gay men to report past conflict between their identities, and more likely to report being fully integrated, and (4) MCC/NY played an important role in helping these participants achieve integration between their homosexual and religious identities.
Heterosexual Africa? The History of an Idea from the Age of Exploration to the Age of AIDS builds from Marc Epprechtâs previous book, Hungochani (which focuses expli citly on same-sex desire in southern Africa) to explore the historical processes by which a singular, heterosexual identity for Africa was constructed—by anthropologists, ethnopsychologists, colonial officials, African elites, and most recently, health care workers seeking to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This is an eloquently written, accessible book, based on a rich and diverse range of sources, that will find enthusiastic audiences in classrooms and in the general public. Epprecht argues that Africans, just like people all over the world, have always had a range of sexualities and sexual identities. Over the course of the last two centuries, however, African societies south of the Sahara have come to be viewed as singularly heterosexual. Epprecht carefully traces the many routes by which this singularity, this heteronormativity, became a dominant culture. A fascinating story that will surely generate lively debate Epprecht makes his project speak to a range of literatures—queer theory, the new imperial history, African social history, queer and womenâs studies, and biomedical literature on the HIV/AIDS pandemic. He does this with a light enough hand that his story is not bogged down by endless references to particular debates. Heterosexual Africa? aims to understand an enduring stereotype about Africa and Africans. It asks how Africa came to be defined as a âhomosexual-free zoneâ during the colonial era, and how this idea not only survived the transition to independence but flourished under conditions of globalization and early panicky responses to HIV/AIDS.
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