Amphibious Subjects: Sasso and the Contested Politics of Queer Self-Making in Neoliberal Ghana

Abstract

The book is structured in two parts. Part 1 covers the two chapters on the making of Huizhou consciousness and Huizhou identity. Part 2, in three chapters, addresses the reification of mercantile lineage culture, its engendered performance, and its symbolic representation in the local religious realm. Together, the two parts demonstrate the historical development of Huizhou from the mid-to the late Ming, while also revealing a discrepancy between name and substance. The success of Huizhou was predicated in large part upon this discrepancy.Chapter 1 highlights the localist endeavors of Cheng Minzheng (1444-1499), a prominent official working at the imperial center who, in 1478, self-identified with his ancestral fatherland of Huizhou (also known as Xin'an), thereby devoting his life to raising the status of both the region and his Cheng lineage. 14 He compiled two important genealogies, one for his home branch in Xiuning County and the other covering all of the Huizhou Chengs in his Composite Genealogy of the Xin' an Chengs (Xin'an Chengshi tongzong shipu), a new genre at the time. He was also in charge of compiling the gazetteer of Xiuning. His most important Huizhoufocused work was the massive Anthology of Xin' an Documents (Xin'an wenxian zhi), consisting of one hundred juan, which highlights Huizhou's natural beauty, historical glory, and kinship solidarity. Fundamentally shaping the contours of Huizhou history, the Anthology is at least as important as any local gazetteer with regard to its role in shaping regional consciousness in the mid-Ming. 15 Cheng Minzheng showed no conflict between commitment to locally focused endeavors and serving at the dynastic center. This dual outlook resonated with his philosophical predilections. He was an important thinker who helped transition from Zhu Xi's Learning of the Way to the populist moral-leveling thought of Wang Yangming (1472-1529), which tended on a metaphysical level to erase the distinctions between the imperial center and local society and between elites and commoners. Cheng Minzheng was not born in Huizhou, but he anchored himself there after his father moved back to the family's ancestral home in retirement. 16 As Minzheng often used his empire-wide connections to promote his localist endeavors, his identification with Huizhou had the potential to enhance his position in the central government. When he was dismissed from his central post, from 1488 to 1492, he stayed in his Huizhou home where he completed the compilation of some of his most important works, including Anthology of Xin' an Documents and two neo-Confucian philosophical collections. These works were partly motivated by his desire for political rehabilitation, in which he succeeded. 17 Indeed, Cheng

Family matters: same‐sex relations and kinship practices in Kenya

“…Ethnographic studies, on the other hand, prioritize people's experiences and practices and pay close attention to the ‘queer affordances’ of everyday life (Hendriks 2016) as well as the complexities and contradictions of social life. Unfortunately, there are only a handful of book‐length ethnographic studies where people's lives and experiences stand central (Dankwa 2021; Gaudio 2009; Otu 2022; Reid 2013), and these are often dissertations (e.g. Banks 2013; Peters 2014; Shio 2021) that remain unpublished if their authors do not manage to secure an academic job.…”

“…Their use of kin terms such as ‘mother’ and ‘daughter’ is indicative of the relations of interdependence yan daudu had formed and were embedded in as well as the hierarchies and expectations of care in these relationships, the gendered ways they perceived themselves and other yan daudu , and the lack of sexual intimacy among them (Gaudio 2009). On the meanings of the terms ‘sister’ and ‘auntie’ among sasso men in Ghana, see Otu (2022), and on the use of ‘ bibi ’ (grandmother) among gay men in Tanzania, see Shio (2021). The idiom of siblinghood in particular is common in other communities outside Africa.…”