Paper/Proposal Title
Social Transformation and Africa’s Regressive Policies and Laws on LGBTQI+ Rights
Location
M2320
Start Date
11-2-2023 5:00 PM
End Date
11-2-2023 6:15 PM
Keywords
African LGBTQI+ people, decoloniality, neo-colonialism, activism, social movements, civil rights
Abstract
Most struggles for LGBTQI+ rights play out at the national level. However, the question of sexual and gender minorities’ rights periodically appears as a point of friction in international relations as well. This paper will first analyse the question of international efforts to defend LGBTQI+ rights in countries of the Global South, with a particular focus on Western countries’ endeavours in Africa. Combining policy analysis, critique and recommendations, it asks how and when international actors should and should not intervene. Furthermore, African countries have considerably different ways in which gender and sexuality are constructed, with postcolonial and neo-colonial relations, anti-racist struggles, local subjectivities, traditionalist patriarchies, and nationalist homophobias intertwining with human rights frameworks and activist interventions. This paper will focus on the African continent, whilst acknowledging the importance of scholarship about LGBTQI+ identities in the African diaspora. It will address the various ways in which LGBTQI+ Africans are dehumanised and persecuted, with a specific small section on intersex, as intersex people are often overlooked in discussions about LGBTQI+ in African contexts. Pan-African understandings of sexual and gender diversity can be enriched by focusing on decoloniality and various decolonial narratives on intersectionalities of oppression. Active hostility towards gender-diverse and non-heterosexual people in Africa is still pervasive, and deliberate, sustained stigmatising and prejudiced expressions are evident realities for the majority of African LGBTQI+ people. This paper will also explore the experiences of African LGBTQI+ people and how they negotiate their existence in through social and political activism and how social movements and civil rights movements are vital for the decolonial project when it comes to advocating for LGBTQI+ in Africa and the diaspora.
Author/Speaker Biographical Statement(s)
Nwabisa Sigaba is the Head of Research for Not in My Name International which is an international civil rights advocacy movement and organisation based in South Africa. She has also worked as a Lecturer in Political Sciences at the University of South Africa and as a Researcher for the Economic Freedom Fighters political party at the Gauteng Provincial Legislature. She is also a social and political activist and has written about various subjects on decoloniality and has been a part of the African Decoloniality Research Network which was founded by her supervisor Professor Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni.
Social Transformation and Africa’s Regressive Policies and Laws on LGBTQI+ Rights
M2320
Most struggles for LGBTQI+ rights play out at the national level. However, the question of sexual and gender minorities’ rights periodically appears as a point of friction in international relations as well. This paper will first analyse the question of international efforts to defend LGBTQI+ rights in countries of the Global South, with a particular focus on Western countries’ endeavours in Africa. Combining policy analysis, critique and recommendations, it asks how and when international actors should and should not intervene. Furthermore, African countries have considerably different ways in which gender and sexuality are constructed, with postcolonial and neo-colonial relations, anti-racist struggles, local subjectivities, traditionalist patriarchies, and nationalist homophobias intertwining with human rights frameworks and activist interventions. This paper will focus on the African continent, whilst acknowledging the importance of scholarship about LGBTQI+ identities in the African diaspora. It will address the various ways in which LGBTQI+ Africans are dehumanised and persecuted, with a specific small section on intersex, as intersex people are often overlooked in discussions about LGBTQI+ in African contexts. Pan-African understandings of sexual and gender diversity can be enriched by focusing on decoloniality and various decolonial narratives on intersectionalities of oppression. Active hostility towards gender-diverse and non-heterosexual people in Africa is still pervasive, and deliberate, sustained stigmatising and prejudiced expressions are evident realities for the majority of African LGBTQI+ people. This paper will also explore the experiences of African LGBTQI+ people and how they negotiate their existence in through social and political activism and how social movements and civil rights movements are vital for the decolonial project when it comes to advocating for LGBTQI+ in Africa and the diaspora.
