Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR) Collections

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http://10.29.1.53:4000/handle/10570/187

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Browsing Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR) Collections by Subject "Anti-Homosexuality Bill"
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    Dismantling reified African culture through localised homosexualities in Uganda.
    (Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2013) Nyanzi, Stella
    Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009 aimed at protecting the cherished culture of the people against emergent threats to the traditional heterosexual family. The Bill's justification, however, lay in myopic imaginings of a homogenous African-ness and pedestrian oblivion to pluralities within African sexualities. This paper revisits the debate that homosexuality is ‘un-African’. Rhetoric analysis of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill exposes how dominant discourses of law, medicine, religion, geography and culture reinforce the view that homosexuality is foreign to Africa. Based on ethnography in contemporary Uganda, I explore how self-identified same-sex-loving individuals simultaneously claim their African-ness and their homosexuality. Their strategies include ethnic belonging, membership to kinship structures, making connections with pre-colonial histories of homosexuality, civic participation in democratic processes, national identity, organising of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and questioning support groups, language and nomenclature, visibility and voice in local communal activities, solidarity and adherence to cultural rituals. In present-day Uganda, same-sex-loving men, women and transgender people variously assert their African-ness.
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    Queer pride and protest: A reading of the bodies at Uganda's first gay beach pride.
    (The University of Chicago Press, 2014) Nyanzi, Stella
    How does one read the gendered bodies on display at a queer pride event in any context? In this article, I give my interpretation of the actions of celebrants and protesters who participated in Uganda’s first Beach Pride activities held in August 2012 at the botanical gardens on the shores of Lake Victoria. By briefly describing the commingling of gender conformers, gender benders, and gender blenders—from the protest to their arrest and eventual release—I read the meanings of this moment of queer protests in a danger zone. I juxtapose the beautiful, brazen bodies on colorful display during this carnivalesque queer spectacle with a discussion of Ugandan nationhood as it is cast in a visual bodily register that is widely imagined as a beautiful black, African heterosexual body. While the Beach Pride activities and the release of all marchers from the police station signify optimism for LGBTIQ rights in this African country, the context of criminalization that was encapsulated by the police raid and arrest of queer civilians, as well as the continued existence of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in our parliament—and the recent passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act (2014) by our members of parliament and the president—still pose significant challenges to the full actualization of this optimism. Clearly, more work needs to be done.