Hostile Witnesses and Queer Life in Kenyan Prison Writing

Prison same-sex sexualities in the context of politicized homophobia in Malawi

“…In addition, this essay attempts to advance a dialogue about prison sex within African queer and sexuality studies by analyzing the invisibility of prison sex during a time of heightened scrutiny of same-sex sexualities. Although some queer African studies researchers have initiated a scholarly conversation about prison sexual cultures in analyses of African prison memoirs and fiction (Munro, 2012;Osinubi, 2014Osinubi, , 2018, there is a pressing need to document and theorize African same-sex sexualities in all the spaces they emerge, including in prisons. This research is especially urgent considering that incarcerated same-sexpracticing men are at increased risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections.…”

“…Despite the invisibility of prison sex in the social construction of same-sex sexualities, prison is an ‘important, and vexed, imaginary space for the production of ideas about homosexuality, masculinity, and nation’ in African societies (Munro, 2012: 48–49; see also Osinubi, 2014). In other words, sex, whether it is pleasurable or coercive, is part of prison social structures.…”

“…In contrast with dominant perceptions that same-sex sexualities are un-African and absent from African societies (Msibi, 2011), there is widespread understanding that sex occurs in African prisons (Egelund, 2014; Osinubi, 2014). Malawian poet Jack Mapanje (1997: 36), who was a political prisoner during Banda’s regime, acknowledged how he and other former inmates all had ‘stories of the homosexuality that used to be rampant’ in prisons.…”

“…Until recently, prison sex has remained decoupled from popular and scholarly conceptions of same-sex sexualities (Kunzel, 2010). Although research documents prison sex and rape in African societies (Agboola, 2015;Egelund, 2014;Gear, 2007;Moolman, 2015), queer and sexuality studies scholars seem reluctant to explore the links between prison sexualities and same-sex sexualities, with a few exceptions (Achmat, 1993;Munro, 2012;Osinubi, 2014Osinubi, , 2018. Despite scholars' interest in documenting state regulation of nonheteronormative, nonprocreative sex and queer communities and practices in the global South (Alexander, 2005;Puri, 2016), this research has not made much room for the case of prison sex, isolating this practice within prison spaces.…”