How does one address homophobia without threatening majority rule democracy and freedoms of speech and faith? How does one "Africanize" sexuality research, empirically and theoretically, in an environment that is not necessarily welcoming to African scholars? In Sexual Diversity in Africa, contributors critically engage with current debates about sexuality and gender identity, as well as with contentious issues relating to methodology, epistemology, ethics, and pedagogy. They present a tapestry of issues that testify to the complex nature of sexuality, sexual practices, and gender performance in Africa. Essays examine topics such as the well-established same-sex networks in Accra and Bamako, African "traditions" defined by European observers, and the bizarre mix of faith, pharmaceuticals, and pseudo-science used to "cure" homosexual men. Their evidence also demonstrates the indefensibility of over-simplified constructions of homosexuality versus heterosexuality, modern versus traditional, Africa versus the West, and progress from the African closet towards Western models of out politics, all of which have tainted research on same-sex practices and scientific studies of HIV/AIDS. Asserting that the study of sexuality is intellectually and politically sustainable in Africa, Sexual Diversity in Africa contributes to the theorization of sexualities by presenting a more sensitive and knowledgeable study of African experiences and perspectives. Contributors include Olajide Akanji, Christophe Broqua, Cheryl Cooky, Serena Owusua Dankwa, Shari L. Dworkin, Marc Epprecht, Melissa Hackman, Notisha Massaquoi, Crystal Munthree, Kathleen O'Mara, Stella Nyanzi, S.N.Nyeck, Vasu Reddy, Amanda Lock Swarr, and Lisa Wiebesiek.

A comprehensive analysis of sexual diversity in Africa from a multidisciplinary perspective.

About the Author
S.N. Nyeck is assistant professor in political science at Clarkson University and a fellow at the Institute for Humane Studies. Marc Epprecht is professor in the Department of Global Development Studies at Queen's University and the author of Hungochani: The History of a Dissident Sexuality in Southern Africa.

Reviews
"This anthology gives us a rich, nuanced discussion of colonial legacies and comparative case studies that inform the reader of the fluidity and diversity of sexual discursive formations across the continent." Mechthild Nagel, Wagadu, A Journal of Transnational Women's and Gender Studies "[Sexual Diversity in Africa] sets out to investigate non-normative sexualities and gender variance in the African context, [with] authors representing a new generation of African scholars engaged in this topic. This important and well-timed book appears as one African country after the other tightens antigay laws: 38 out of 54 countries in Africa currently criminalize homosexuality." Journal of African Studies "The editors of this volume succeed in proving that work on nonnormative sexual practices and identities in Africa remains urgent, while at the same time they ask new questions to reshape and redirect these scholarly investigations. This is an extraordinary rich collection of essays, which are theoretically sophisticated and grounded in fine ethnographic detail. Sexual Diversity in Africa will be of interest to postgraduate students, as well as scholars of sexuality in Africa, and I would strongly recommend that activists and those involved in nongovernmental organizations (NGO) funding read it too. The book is an assertion of the complex politics of LGBTI communities on the continent, complexities too often ignored by international funders, occasionally to the peril of the very people they hope to assist. It is also a profound and important rejection of the unhelpful binary that "Western" scholars and scholarship are either dangerous or not useful to research on sexualities in Africa." - Sarah Duff, H-Net H-Histsex



Book Information
ISBN 9780773541887
Author S.N. Nyeck
Format Paperback
Page Count 312
Imprint McGill-Queen's University Press
Publisher McGill-Queen's University Press