Queer Pan-Africanism in contemporary Africa

Abstract

Adriaan van KlinkenThis chapter focuses on pan-Africanist discourses in contemporary Africa specifically in relation to the politics of sexual and gender diversity. It begins by examining the populist use of pan-Africanist rhetoric in narratives mobilizing against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) identities and rights. It then proceeds by discussing an emerging counter-narratives employed by LGBTI activists, communities, and allies, in which pan-Africanist thought is used to reimagine Africa from queer perspective. 1 Finally, it examines the strategic invocation of transatlantic black memory and black traditions of thought within these pan-Africanist queer counter-narratives and explores their political significance. Thus, this chapter foregrounds and explores how, in the words of Hakima Abbas and Amina Mama, 'Pan-Africanism as theory and praxis is in constant dialectic with other African political and intellectual thought including socialism, Black consciousness, Black nationalism, African queer thought and activism, as well as in polemic counter-position with present-day manifestations of imperialism.' 2

African Studies Keywords: Queer

“…Long before the term “queer” had been coined in English, African languages had words for expressions of sexual and gender ambiguity and fluidity—and even if they did not have words for it, these expressions were tolerated, if not quietly celebrated as sacred, in traditional “cultures of discretion” (Epprecht 2004). Moreover, contemporary queer African activists, artists, and thinkers creatively reclaim some of these histories, while taking inspiration from other socio-political struggles for dignity, freedom, and life on the continent and its diaspora, thus inspiring an emerging discourse of queer pan-Africanism (van Klinken 2020). As Zethu Matebeni and Jabu Pereira (2014:7) put it, this is a matter of creating “our own version of Afrika—a space that cuts across the rigid borders and boundaries that have for so many years made us feel disconnected and fractured.”…”