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

Abstract

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 afforded by kinship – in both its inclusive and exclusive capacities – to create accommodation and acceptance. Capturing the complexities and paradoxes of social life, the ethnographic study of kinship practices in everyday life shows how homophobia and accommodation can co‐exist. Furthermore, the embeddedness of same‐sex relationships in kinship structures and the subscription of same‐sex couples to the same norms held by cross‐sex couples clearly indicates the difficulty of construing these forms of relatedness as essentially different from other kinship formations. Thus ‘queering queer Africa’ requires not only taking a broader perspective and looking beyond what is usually classified as ‘queer’ but also un‐queering what at first appears as queer and thus ‘queerying’ the barriers and the range of possibilities that characterize the lives and subjectivities of people with same‐sex desires.