Author: Marc Epprecht
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 0821442988
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 246
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Book Description
Heterosexual Africa? The History of an Idea from the Age of Exploration to the Age of AIDS builds from Marc Epprecht’s previous book, Hungochani (which focuses explicitly 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. In telling 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 women’s 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 “homosexual-free zone” 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.
Author: Marc Epprecht
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1780323840
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 202
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Book Description
The persecution of people in Africa on the basis of their assumed or perceived homosexual orientation has received considerable coverage in the popular media in recent years. Gay-bashing by political and religious figures in Zimbabwe and Gambia; draconian new laws against lesbians and gays and their supporters in Malawi, Nigeria and Uganda; and the imprisonment and extortion of gay men in Senegal and Cameroon have all rightly sparked international condemnation. However, much of the analysis has been highly critical of African leadership and culture without considering local nuances, historical factors and external influences that are contributing to the problem. Such commentary also overlooks grounds for optimism in the struggle for sexual rights and justice in Africa, not just for sexual minorities but for the majority population as well. Based on pioneering research on the history of homosexualities and engagement with current lgbti and HIV/AIDS activism, Marc Epprecht provides a sympathetic overview of the issues at play and a hopeful outlook on the potential of sexual rights for all.
Author: Marc Epprecht
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 9780773527515
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 346
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Book Description
Challenging the stereotypes of African heterosexuality - from the precolonial era to the present.
Author: Marc Epprecht
Publisher: Galz
ISBN: 9780797434837
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 247
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Book Description
Homosexuality. Lesbians. Gay rights. Homophobia. These terms have come up quite a bit in recent years in Africa to the shock, embarrassment and even anger of many people. This book is about that, and about the coming out (into public view) of individuals who in the past tended to keep a low pro?le. What does the history of homosexuality and the reactions against it tell us about African history in general? And how might this knowledge help us in struggles against HIV/AIDS, gender violence and other social inequalities in contemporary Africa? Based on Marc Epprecht's award-winning monograph Hungochani: the history of a dissident sexuality in southern Africa, along with creative contributions from other pioneering scholars in the field Unspoken Facts offers a sympathetic portrayal of the lives of people who do not conform to society's dominant expectations in terms of love and marriage. Additional material includes several fictionalised accounts of same-sex relationships in southern Africa.
Author: Melissa Hackman
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 147800231X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216
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Book Description
In postapartheid Cape Town—Africa's gay capital—many Pentecostal men turned to "ex-gay" ministries in hopes of “curing” their homosexuality in order to conform to conservative Christian values and African social norms. In Desire Work Melissa Hackman traces the experiences of predominantly white ex-gay men as they attempt to forge a heterosexual masculinity and enter into heterosexual marriage through emotional, bodily, and religious work. These men subjected themselves to daily self-surveillance and followed prescribed behaviors such as changing how they talked and walked. Ex-gay men also saw themselves as participating in the redemption of the nation, because South African society was perceived as suffering from a crisis of masculinity in which the country lacked enough moral heterosexual men. By tying the experience of ex-gay men to the convergence of social movements and public debates surrounding race, violence, religion, and masculinity in South Africa, Hackman offers insights into the construction of personal identities in the context of sexuality and spirituality.
Author: Zethu Matebeni
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315406721
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206
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Book Description
African sexualities are dynamic, multi-faceted and resilient. However, people with non-heterosexual sexualities and gender variant identities are often involved in struggles for survival, self-definition, and erotic rights. Queer in Africa forms an entry point for understanding the vulnerabilities of queer Africans as shaped by social, cultural and political processes, aiming to provide innovative insights about contentious disagreements over their lives. The volume mediates Southern and Northern scholarship, directing attention toward African-centred beliefs made accessible to a wide audience. Key concerns such as identity construction and the intersections between different social forces (such as nationalist traditionalism and sexualities) are addressed via engaging chapters; some empirically based and others providing critical cultural analysis. Highly interdisciplinary in nature, Queer in Africa provides a key resource for students, academics, and activists concerned with the international support of sex and gender diversity. It will appeal to those interested in fields such as anthropology, film studies, literary studies, political science, public health, sociology, and socio-legal studies.
Author: Sylvia Tamale
Publisher: Fahamu/Pambazuka
ISBN: 0857490168
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 674
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Book Description
A groundbreaking book, accessible but scholarly, by African activists. It uses research, life stories, and artistic expression--including essays, case studies, poetry, news clips, songs, fiction, memoirs, letters, interviews, short film scripts, and photographs--to examine dominant and deviant sexualities and investigate the intersections between sex, power, masculinities, and femininities. It also opens a space, particularly for young people, to think about African sexualities in different ways.
Author: Dieter K. Koch-Weser
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 330
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Book Description
Author: April Sizemore-Barber
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472132059
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 195
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Book Description
At his 1994 inauguration, South African president Nelson Mandela announced the “Rainbow Nation, at peace with itself and the world.” This national rainbow notably extended beyond the bounds of racial coexistence and reconciliation to include “sexual orientation” as a protected category in the Bill of Rights. Yet despite the promise of equality and dignity, the new government’s alliance with neoliberal interests and the devastation of the AIDS epidemic left South Africa an increasingly unequal society. Prismatic Performances focuses on the queer embodiments that both reveal and animate the gaps between South Africa’s self-image and its lived realities. It argues that performance has become a key location where contradictions inherent to South Africa’s post-apartheid identity are negotiated. The book spans 30 years of cultural production and numerous social locations and includes: a team of black lesbian soccer players who reveal and redefine the gendered and sexed limitations of racialized “Africanness;” white gay performers who use drag and gender subversion to work through questions of racial and societal transformation; black artists across the arts who have developed aesthetics that place on display their audiences’ complicity in the problem of sexual violence; and a primarily heterosexual panAfrican online soap opera fandom community who, by combining new virtual spaces with old melodramatic tropes allow for extended deliberation and new paradigms through which African same-sex relationships are acceptable. Prismatic Performances contends that when explicitly queer bodies emerge onto public stages, audiences are made intimately aware of their own bodies’ identifications and desires. As the sheen of the New South Africa began to fade, these performances revealed the inadequacy and, indeed, the violence, of the Rainbow Nation as an aspirational metaphor. Simultaneously they created space for imagining new radical configurations of belonging.
Author: Galz
Publisher: Galz
ISBN: 9780797434073
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
Homosexuality. Lesbians. Gay rights. Homophobia. These terms have surfaced in recent years in Africa to the shock, embarrassment, and even anger of many people. This collection discusses these issues and the coming out (into public view) of individuals who in the past tended to keep a low profile. What does the history of homosexuality and the reactions to it tell us about African history in general? And how might this knowledge help us in struggles against HIV/AIDS, gender violence, and other social problems in contemporary Africa? Based on Marc Epprecht's award-winning work Hungochani; The History of a Dissident Sexuality in Southern Africa, along with creative contributions from other pioneering scholars in the field, and including several fictionalized accounts of same-sex relationships in southern Africa, this study compiled by GALZ offers a sympathetic portrayal of the lives of people who do not conform to society's dominant expectations in terms of love and marriage. GALZ was formed in 1990 to provide gay men and lesbians in Zimbabwe with a network to facilitate communication with the gay community.
