Queer Agency in Kenya’s Digital Media

Abstract

Abstract:Although scholars have noted the rising potentials for democracy in Africa as a result of increased use of digital media and mobile technologies, there seems to be a disregard or disavowal of queerness as part of that growing democratic space, as well as a related tendency to regard African culture solely in terms of mainstream writing and journalism. This article seeks to bridge this gap in the scholarship by means of a discourse analysis of comments about queer identities that can be found in the digital media (Facebook, chat rooms, blogs, YouTube comments, and online newspaper feedback) in contemporary Kenya. Following work on queer arts and “low” theory, the article explores the possibilities offered by the Internet to challenge homophobia in Kenya. While acknowledging that digital-media venues contain more homophobia than mainstream media (books, television, newspapers) in terms of intensity and quantity, the article demonstrates that they also offer a unique platform in which gay people can respond to homophobic representations of their experiences and desires.

Queer slacktivism as silent activism? The contested politics of queer subjectivities on GhanaWeb

“…Oh and no more aid from the west you stupid mother fucker.Author: Gay Arse Licker and Fucker UKComment to Gay Community fights Government attackThese responses to homophobic statements demonstrate how the internet creates a counterpublic for voices that deconstruct hegemonic heteronormative ideologies that inform ideas about homosexuality. A litany of studies on cyberspaces in Africa emphasize how the internet at once creates opportunities that collide and collude with the various sociopolitical and cultural environments in which they are established (Christensen, 2011; Jensen, 2000; Mwangi, 2014; Nyamnjoh, 2005). To be clear, GhanaWeb is a virtual terrain where the fixity of heterosexual ideology, the foundation for illusion of heterosexual citizenship gets paradoxically challenged and reinforced.…”

“…The apparent paradox engendered by GhanaWeb, reiterates Evan Mwangi’s observation in Kenya thatwhile evidence shows that the relatively lawless realm of digital social media has in fact enabled the spread of homophobia more than mainstream media like television and newspapers, it also demonstrates that the new media have offered a unique platform in which gay individuals in Kenya can respond to homophobic representations of their experiences and desires. (Mwangi, 2014: 94)Ultimately, queer populations in Ghana, their allies, and those who seek to police their non-normative sexual subjectivity use the internet to create rival geographies while dismantling or reinforcing regulatory heteronormative ideals simultaneously. GhanaWeb is constitutively one contested sphere in which queer subjects, together with readers who support LGBTI rights, despite the oppositions they face, define and assert their humanity through a complicated prism and exercise of slacktivism.…”

“…How, then, to engender slacktivism? How is slacktivism symptomatic of what Evan Mwangi (2014: 94) acknowledges as “the correlation between the growth of democracy globally and developments in science and technology”?…”

The Organizational-Level Communication of African LGBT Refugee Ngos on Social Media

“…This study performed a comparative analysis of social media use from two organizations based in two different social environments.Various media and communication scholars [14]have relied upon qualitative methodologies to explore organizational usage of social media tools. This research quantitatively examined the rate at which two organizations "communicated on three prominent social media: Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.…”

Queer(ing) popular culture: homo-erotic provocations from Kinshasa

“…For other examples of the making of queer spaces in African (online) media, see for instanceMwangi (2014) orTsika (2014).…”