R Spronk
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 18746 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | R Spronk |
| NOMBRES | R |
| APELLIDO | Spronk |
| FIRMA | SPRONK R |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Amsterdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5207-711X |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 26 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 135 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 26 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2005 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
Thinking with Curiosity. The Anthropology of Sexuality and Gender
In this inaugural lecture, Spronk proposes to use curiosity as a guiding method to uncover moral evaluations – both in the worlds we study and in our own theorizing as scientists. As Saba Mahood has argued for over twenty years, feminist analysis is based on normative and ethnocentric ideas that emerge from modern notions of subjectivity. The chair proposes to study sex, sexuality and gender more empirically and to investigate the traditional, bu…
What’s identity got to do with it? The social life of sexual identity in the Netherlands
Same-sex erotic desire, or same-sex orientation, has become commonly understood and expressed through the notion of sexual identity. This article takes an intergenerational perspective to study the genealogy of sexual identity in the Netherlands. The authors explore how queer people perceive their feelings of same-sex desire and whether or not they come to understand their erotic desire in terms of sexual classifications. Their research shows tha…
The defiance of multiplicity
Geschierian magic
This article traces the intellectual trajectory of the anthropologist and Africanist Peter Geschiere, which is deeply informed by a commitment to meticulous and long-term ethnographic fieldwork that prioritizes local ways of being and subjectivities. The article highlights some of the significant contributions Geschiere made to the fields of Anthropology and African Studies, including his insights into the politics and perils of belonging which h…
Big data see through you
On Douyin, China's domestic version of TikTok, straight users are being recommended queer content, and videos created by straight men are being recommended to queer viewers. As Douyin recommends videos based on users' online activities (e.g., liking, sharing, or spending time watching a video) and networks (e.g., connections made on the platform), sexuality comes to be algorithmically interpreted and defined. This process differs from an understa…
Family matters
Guided by social justice and sexual health concerns, scholars of same-sex sexualities in Africa have mainly examined related conflicts and inequities, generating an unbalanced emphasis on homophobia. Following Stella Nyanzi's plea for a broader exploration of queer sexuality in Africa, we move beyond the strictly sexual sphere to study the kinship arrangements of same-sex couples in Kenya. These couples rely on the different possibilities afforde…
Ambiguous Pleasures
Among both male and female young urban professionals in Nairobi, sexuality is a key to achieving a 'modern' identity. These young men and women see themselves as the avant garde of a new Africa, while they also express the recurring worry of how to combine an 'African' identity with the new lifestyles with which they are experimenting. By focusing on public debates and their preoccupations with issues of African heritage, gerontocratic power rela…
Doing Knowledge through Knowing Women
Why will Serena Dankwa's monograph on same-sex desiring women in Ghana become a classic? There are myriad reasons why it should, of course. It is about a group of women who hardly figure in academic research. It is captivating, describing women's lives and using them to open up scholarly discussions. It is eloquently written. Most important, it is based on exceptional research. People's experiences and lives are centered rather than “the textual …
Frontiers and pioneers in (the study of) queer experiences in Africa Introduction
This part issue of the journalAfricabroadly explores the idea of frontiers and pioneers in the study of queer African lives. We envisage frontiers as exploring new openings in the study of sexuality by putting forward the practices and experiences of people across the African continent. We propose to study queerness as part of broader quotidian realities so as to further theorize the study of sexualities and queerness. We propose the term 'pionee…
Response by the author
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Labour of love
This paper examines the productive role of secrecy in the nexus of transnational mobility, kinship, and intimate relations among Ghanaian-Dutch and Somali-Dutch in the Netherlands. Whereas secrecy is typically understood as one person concealing knowledge from another, implying the latter's passivity, we argue that secrecy depends on mutually constitutive interactions. Secrecy is explored as the result of an interaction between those who obscure …
Life is queer
Structures, feelings andsavoir faire
The concept of 'middle class' in African societies has been recognized recently but at the same time it resists clear-cut definition. Rather than seeking clearer classification, I propose to embrace its contested nature as productive, seeing 'middle class' not as a category that we can find 'out there' and measure, but as a classification-in-the-making. Middle-class status, or a particular idea of the good life, is a position people strive toward…
Invisible Desires in Ghana and Kenya
This article explores the tension between same-sex sexual practices and eroticism, on the one hand, and theoretical investigations on sexual diversity, on the other. The author’s analysis is based on research in Ghana and Kenya over the last two decades. A significant proportion of the people she met have (had) experience with same-sex sexual practices at some point in their life. Their choice to start and continue with it and in what form differ…
Africa’s Legends
Africa’s Legends is a mobile application developed by the Ghanaian game development company Leti Arts in 2012. The app consists of one game and two comics about eight ‘African’ superheroes. This article aims to give insight into the intersection of digital technologies and social class; it contributes to theorizing digital technologies as a means to express middle-class aesthetics, aspirations and senses of being in the world. It does so by showi…
Ethnicizing sexuality
Ethnicity is a frequently used measure in research into youth and sexuality in the Netherlands, a country known and admired for its favourable sexual health outcomes. This paper critically examines the production of knowledge about sexuality and ethnicity in the Netherlands. It traces the concept of ethnicity through four research practices (rationales of taking up ethnicity and compiling research populations; determining ethnicity; statistical c…
When the clinic becomes a home. Successful VCT and ART services in a stressful environment
With the upscaling of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in resource-poor countries, many HIV-positive persons in Ghana have been accessing treatment in hospitals. Prevalence is relatively low compared to other African countries, 1.30%. HIV/AIDS remains heavily stigmatised in Ghana, which influences the provision and use of ART. This article investigates how HIV-positive persons accessing care and treatment go about their everyday lives in the ART clin…
Sexuality and subjectivity
Although the history of anthropology shows various shifts in the way sexuality has been theorised, studies of the relation between sexuality and bodily sensations have remained limited. In this article I explore the concept of body‐sensorial knowledge to understand the relation between the social significance of sexuality and erotic sensations. I argue that the sensual qualities of sexuality are mediators and shapers of social knowledge that help…
The idea of African men
In this paper, I reflect on the notion of 'African men' as it is employed in global health scholarship and disentangle the way the idea is used as a generative concept. I explore how this notion circulates and gets modified, adapted and reproduced by scholars, on the one hand, and by various groups of men in Africa, on the other. I argue that the use of the idea of African men as an a priori category in scholarly imagination and practice presents…
I am African, iko nini”
In Nairobi, young urban professionals self-confidently position themselves as Africans, while they are simultaneously reproached for being ‘un-African’. I explore this economy of claims and how it relates to the way the lifestyles of young professionals become the focus of generational conflict. I follow how various actors use the notions African, Western, modern and traditional as reified concepts that comprise a discursive field of practices. D…
Response to commentaries
Exploring the Middle Classes in Nairobi
This article explores the middle classes as cultural practice by focusing on the young professionals, or "yuppies," of Nairobi. Young professionals are particularly interesting to study because they are the population that has reaped the benefits of a historical development of socioeconomic opportunities. They also occupy an interesting position in the context of local preoccupations with being modern or "sophisticated" in Kenya and in terms of t…
Ambiguous Pleasures
Among both male and female young urban professionals in Nairobi, sexuality is a key to achieving a ‘modern’ identity. These young men and women see themselves as the avant garde of a new Africa, while they also express the recurring worry of how to combine an ‘African’ identity with the new lifestyles with which they are experimenting. By focusing on public debates and their preoccupations with issues of African heritage, gerontocratic power rela…
Sexular practice
In Europe today, the most heated identity politics revolve around matters of sexuality and religion. In the context of "integration" debates that occur in different forms in various countries, sexuality has gained a new form of normativity, and new sexual sensitivities have replaced former ones. So far, scholarly discussions deal with these sensitivities in a deconstructivist and critical manner, denaturalizing discourses on culture, identity, an…
Sex, Sexuality and Negotiating Africanness in Nairobi
This article presents two themes: how young professionals personally experience sexuality and issues of cultural belonging or identification; and how these issues are interrelated in their lives. I identify ways in which 'young professionals' as a social group are in the vanguard in respect of societal reconfigurations of gender, sexuality and culture. I argue that this group embodies post-colonial transformations concerning reconfigurations in g…
Exploring the Middle Classes in Nairobi
This article explores the middle classes as cultural practice by focusing on the young professionals, or "yuppies," of Nairobi. Young professionals are particularly interesting to study because they are the population that has reaped the benefits of a historical development of socioeconomic opportunities. They also occupy an interesting position in the context of local preoccupations with being modern or "sophisticated" in Kenya and in terms of t…
Sex, Sexuality and Negotiating Africanness in Nairobi
This article presents two themes: how young professionals personally experience sexuality and issues of cultural belonging or identification; and how these issues are interrelated in their lives. I identify ways in which 'young professionals' as a social group are in the vanguard in respect of societal reconfigurations of gender, sexuality and culture. I argue that this group embodies post-colonial transformations concerning reconfigurations in g…
Ethnicizing sexuality
Ethnicity is a frequently used measure in research into youth and sexuality in the Netherlands, a country known and admired for its favourable sexual health outcomes. This paper critically examines the production of knowledge about sexuality and ethnicity in the Netherlands. It traces the concept of ethnicity through four research practices (rationales of taking up ethnicity and compiling research populations; determining ethnicity; statistical c…
Frontiers and pioneers in (the study of) queer experiences in Africa Introduction
This part issue of the journalAfricabroadly explores the idea of frontiers and pioneers in the study of queer African lives. We envisage frontiers as exploring new openings in the study of sexuality by putting forward the practices and experiences of people across the African continent. We propose to study queerness as part of broader quotidian realities so as to further theorize the study of sexualities and queerness. We propose the term 'pionee…
Sexular practice
In Europe today, the most heated identity politics revolve around matters of sexuality and religion. In the context of "integration" debates that occur in different forms in various countries, sexuality has gained a new form of normativity, and new sexual sensitivities have replaced former ones. So far, scholarly discussions deal with these sensitivities in a deconstructivist and critical manner, denaturalizing discourses on culture, identity, an…
Labour of love
This paper examines the productive role of secrecy in the nexus of transnational mobility, kinship, and intimate relations among Ghanaian-Dutch and Somali-Dutch in the Netherlands. Whereas secrecy is typically understood as one person concealing knowledge from another, implying the latter's passivity, we argue that secrecy depends on mutually constitutive interactions. Secrecy is explored as the result of an interaction between those who obscure …
Structures, feelings andsavoir faire
The concept of 'middle class' in African societies has been recognized recently but at the same time it resists clear-cut definition. Rather than seeking clearer classification, I propose to embrace its contested nature as productive, seeing 'middle class' not as a category that we can find 'out there' and measure, but as a classification-in-the-making. Middle-class status, or a particular idea of the good life, is a position people strive toward…
Africa’s Legends
Africa’s Legends is a mobile application developed by the Ghanaian game development company Leti Arts in 2012. The app consists of one game and two comics about eight ‘African’ superheroes. This article aims to give insight into the intersection of digital technologies and social class; it contributes to theorizing digital technologies as a means to express middle-class aesthetics, aspirations and senses of being in the world. It does so by showi…
I am African, iko nini”
In Nairobi, young urban professionals self-confidently position themselves as Africans, while they are simultaneously reproached for being ‘un-African’. I explore this economy of claims and how it relates to the way the lifestyles of young professionals become the focus of generational conflict. I follow how various actors use the notions African, Western, modern and traditional as reified concepts that comprise a discursive field of practices. D…
Big data see through you
On Douyin, China's domestic version of TikTok, straight users are being recommended queer content, and videos created by straight men are being recommended to queer viewers. As Douyin recommends videos based on users' online activities (e.g., liking, sharing, or spending time watching a video) and networks (e.g., connections made on the platform), sexuality comes to be algorithmically interpreted and defined. This process differs from an understa…
Family matters
Guided by social justice and sexual health concerns, scholars of same-sex sexualities in Africa have mainly examined related conflicts and inequities, generating an unbalanced emphasis on homophobia. Following Stella Nyanzi's plea for a broader exploration of queer sexuality in Africa, we move beyond the strictly sexual sphere to study the kinship arrangements of same-sex couples in Kenya. These couples rely on the different possibilities afforde…
Life is queer
Response to commentaries
Female sexuality in Nairobi
Studies of female sexuality in Africa tend to adopt an instrumental approach, many times problematizing sexual conduct in relation to HIV infection and/or reproduction. This study aimed to explore sexuality as a relational concept. Using interviews and participant observation, the paper shows how sexuality becomes a point of self-identification for young professional women in Nairobi between 20 and 30 years-old. These women form a group who impli…
Sex, Sexuality and Negotiating Africanness in Nairobi
This article presents two themes: how young professionals personally experience sexuality and issues of cultural belonging or identification; and how these issues are interrelated in their lives. I identify ways in which 'young professionals' as a social group are in the vanguard in respect of societal reconfigurations of gender, sexuality and culture. I argue that this group embodies post-colonial transformations concerning reconfigurations in g…
Sexular practice
In Europe today, the most heated identity politics revolve around matters of sexuality and religion. In the context of "integration" debates that occur in different forms in various countries, sexuality has gained a new form of normativity, and new sexual sensitivities have replaced former ones. So far, scholarly discussions deal with these sensitivities in a deconstructivist and critical manner, denaturalizing discourses on culture, identity, an…
Ambiguous Pleasures
Among both male and female young urban professionals in Nairobi, sexuality is a key to achieving a ‘modern’ identity. These young men and women see themselves as the avant garde of a new Africa, while they also express the recurring worry of how to combine an ‘African’ identity with the new lifestyles with which they are experimenting. By focusing on public debates and their preoccupations with issues of African heritage, gerontocratic power rela…
Sexuality and subjectivity
Although the history of anthropology shows various shifts in the way sexuality has been theorised, studies of the relation between sexuality and bodily sensations have remained limited. In this article I explore the concept of body‐sensorial knowledge to understand the relation between the social significance of sexuality and erotic sensations. I argue that the sensual qualities of sexuality are mediators and shapers of social knowledge that help…
The idea of African men
In this paper, I reflect on the notion of 'African men' as it is employed in global health scholarship and disentangle the way the idea is used as a generative concept. I explore how this notion circulates and gets modified, adapted and reproduced by scholars, on the one hand, and by various groups of men in Africa, on the other. I argue that the use of the idea of African men as an a priori category in scholarly imagination and practice presents…
I am African, iko nini”
In Nairobi, young urban professionals self-confidently position themselves as Africans, while they are simultaneously reproached for being ‘un-African’. I explore this economy of claims and how it relates to the way the lifestyles of young professionals become the focus of generational conflict. I follow how various actors use the notions African, Western, modern and traditional as reified concepts that comprise a discursive field of practices. D…
Response to commentaries
Exploring the Middle Classes in Nairobi
This article explores the middle classes as cultural practice by focusing on the young professionals, or "yuppies," of Nairobi. Young professionals are particularly interesting to study because they are the population that has reaped the benefits of a historical development of socioeconomic opportunities. They also occupy an interesting position in the context of local preoccupations with being modern or "sophisticated" in Kenya and in terms of t…
When the clinic becomes a home. Successful VCT and ART services in a stressful environment
With the upscaling of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in resource-poor countries, many HIV-positive persons in Ghana have been accessing treatment in hospitals. Prevalence is relatively low compared to other African countries, 1.30%. HIV/AIDS remains heavily stigmatised in Ghana, which influences the provision and use of ART. This article investigates how HIV-positive persons accessing care and treatment go about their everyday lives in the ART clin…
Africa’s Legends
Africa’s Legends is a mobile application developed by the Ghanaian game development company Leti Arts in 2012. The app consists of one game and two comics about eight ‘African’ superheroes. This article aims to give insight into the intersection of digital technologies and social class; it contributes to theorizing digital technologies as a means to express middle-class aesthetics, aspirations and senses of being in the world. It does so by showi…
Ethnicizing sexuality
Ethnicity is a frequently used measure in research into youth and sexuality in the Netherlands, a country known and admired for its favourable sexual health outcomes. This paper critically examines the production of knowledge about sexuality and ethnicity in the Netherlands. It traces the concept of ethnicity through four research practices (rationales of taking up ethnicity and compiling research populations; determining ethnicity; statistical c…
Invisible Desires in Ghana and Kenya
This article explores the tension between same-sex sexual practices and eroticism, on the one hand, and theoretical investigations on sexual diversity, on the other. The author’s analysis is based on research in Ghana and Kenya over the last two decades. A significant proportion of the people she met have (had) experience with same-sex sexual practices at some point in their life. Their choice to start and continue with it and in what form differ…
Response by the author
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Labour of love
This paper examines the productive role of secrecy in the nexus of transnational mobility, kinship, and intimate relations among Ghanaian-Dutch and Somali-Dutch in the Netherlands. Whereas secrecy is typically understood as one person concealing knowledge from another, implying the latter's passivity, we argue that secrecy depends on mutually constitutive interactions. Secrecy is explored as the result of an interaction between those who obscure …
Life is queer
Structures, feelings andsavoir faire
The concept of 'middle class' in African societies has been recognized recently but at the same time it resists clear-cut definition. Rather than seeking clearer classification, I propose to embrace its contested nature as productive, seeing 'middle class' not as a category that we can find 'out there' and measure, but as a classification-in-the-making. Middle-class status, or a particular idea of the good life, is a position people strive toward…
Frontiers and pioneers in (the study of) queer experiences in Africa Introduction
This part issue of the journalAfricabroadly explores the idea of frontiers and pioneers in the study of queer African lives. We envisage frontiers as exploring new openings in the study of sexuality by putting forward the practices and experiences of people across the African continent. We propose to study queerness as part of broader quotidian realities so as to further theorize the study of sexualities and queerness. We propose the term 'pionee…
Ambiguous Pleasures
Among both male and female young urban professionals in Nairobi, sexuality is a key to achieving a 'modern' identity. These young men and women see themselves as the avant garde of a new Africa, while they also express the recurring worry of how to combine an 'African' identity with the new lifestyles with which they are experimenting. By focusing on public debates and their preoccupations with issues of African heritage, gerontocratic power rela…
Doing Knowledge through Knowing Women
Why will Serena Dankwa's monograph on same-sex desiring women in Ghana become a classic? There are myriad reasons why it should, of course. It is about a group of women who hardly figure in academic research. It is captivating, describing women's lives and using them to open up scholarly discussions. It is eloquently written. Most important, it is based on exceptional research. People's experiences and lives are centered rather than “the textual …
Big data see through you
On Douyin, China's domestic version of TikTok, straight users are being recommended queer content, and videos created by straight men are being recommended to queer viewers. As Douyin recommends videos based on users' online activities (e.g., liking, sharing, or spending time watching a video) and networks (e.g., connections made on the platform), sexuality comes to be algorithmically interpreted and defined. This process differs from an understa…
Family matters
Guided by social justice and sexual health concerns, scholars of same-sex sexualities in Africa have mainly examined related conflicts and inequities, generating an unbalanced emphasis on homophobia. Following Stella Nyanzi's plea for a broader exploration of queer sexuality in Africa, we move beyond the strictly sexual sphere to study the kinship arrangements of same-sex couples in Kenya. These couples rely on the different possibilities afforde…
The defiance of multiplicity
Geschierian magic
This article traces the intellectual trajectory of the anthropologist and Africanist Peter Geschiere, which is deeply informed by a commitment to meticulous and long-term ethnographic fieldwork that prioritizes local ways of being and subjectivities. The article highlights some of the significant contributions Geschiere made to the fields of Anthropology and African Studies, including his insights into the politics and perils of belonging which h…
Thinking with Curiosity. The Anthropology of Sexuality and Gender
In this inaugural lecture, Spronk proposes to use curiosity as a guiding method to uncover moral evaluations – both in the worlds we study and in our own theorizing as scientists. As Saba Mahood has argued for over twenty years, feminist analysis is based on normative and ethnocentric ideas that emerge from modern notions of subjectivity. The chair proposes to study sex, sexuality and gender more empirically and to investigate the traditional, bu…
Sociology (24 obras) · Gender Studies (21 obras) · Political science (16 obras) · Human sexuality (15 obras) · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues (14 obras) · Gender Studies (14 obras) · Psychology (14 obras) · Social Psychology (10 obras) · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy (9 obras) · Law (8 obras)