Sexual diversity in Africa

Politics, theory, citizenship

Bibliographic Data

ID6022302
AuthorsJoanne Davis (Film Independent, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume114
Issue456
Pages479-481
Publication date2015-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAfrican Affairs (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0001-9909 • E-ISSN: 1468-2621
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/afraf/adv031
OpenAlexW2102636619
LanguageEN
Citations received11

It is hard to imagine that polities are still shaped by homophobic constructions of sexuality. But, whether in Africa or the diaspora, that is the subject to which this book returns in each chapter. Here, African academics expose the extreme violence which accompanies the state-sanctioned conditioning of homo- and heterosexual bodies into heteronormative behaviours. This happens particularly in religious states, whether Christian or Muslim, which proscribe all sexual behaviours but heterosexual, but even, inconceivably, in South Africa, where ‘80 percent’ (p. 113) of civilians are openly homophobic, despite its reputation as a world-leading non-discriminative state. Between the globally advocated proof of athlete Caster Semenya's gender (Dworkin, Lock Swarr, and Cooky, Chapter 7) and the somewhat ironic depictions of government officials in Cameroonian broadsheet cartoons as homosexual to infer their corruption, as discussed by Nyeck (Chapter 8), there is nothing but murder and state coercion in ‘patriotic heterosexuality’ (p. 55). This book is divided into three sections, with the first highlighting human rights issues in relation to sexualities, the second dedicated to South African treatment of homosexuality during and after apartheid, and the third providing further focus on same-sex experiences in Cameroon and Ghana. The introduction explains the scope and limitations of the research written without ‘genuflection’ to discursive forebears Michel Foucault and Judith Butler in an attempt to avoid redundancy and keep the discussions fresh. It works. The high standard of scholarship grounded in the testimony of interviewees, alongside gaps where invisible informants fear open identification, indeed allows fresh insights.

Citizenship · Diaspora · Homosexuality · Human sexuality · Lesbian · Political science · Politics · Reactionary · Scholarship · Sociology · State (computer science) · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Gender Studies · Law

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