Advancements and future directions in queer African studies, Seminar 1

The African languages, literatures and cultures network (@AfCultures),  Queer Intersections Oxford (@QIO) and Intersectional Humanities are delighted to invite you to two online research seminars on weeks 6 and 7 on Advancements and future directions in queer African studies  

Session 1: week 6, Thursday 22 February 2024 - 5pm

Online event

The seminar is open to all and free to attend, but registration is compulsory

Register via Eventbrite

For online registration closes 15 minutes before the start of the event. You will be sent the joining link within 48 hours of the event, on the day and once again 10 minutes before the event starts.

Organised by @AfOx visiting fellow, Gibson Ncube

The two discussion will be chaired by Gibson Ncube and @AfCultures co-convenor Dorothée Boulanger

This seminar series provides a dynamic platform for postgraduate students and early-career scholars working in the field of Queer African Studies. This two-part series aims to showcase groundbreaking work and seeks to foster interdisciplinary discussions and promote critical reflections on the multifaceted intersections of queer identities, activism, and narratives in African context. Panelists will explore emerging research, share insights, and collaboratively contribute to understanding and shaping the complex and diverse landscape of queer experiences in Africa. 

Watch here: 

Abstracts: 

“You trample me, I crush you”: humiliation, honour and violence in Senegalese queer women’s lives

Loes Oudenhuijsen, Leiden University (The Netherlands)

In Senegal, the tight-knit networks that queer women have developed as a necessary means to navigate economic precarity and rising anti-queer sentiments sometimes explode. When they do, women may turn to a particular form of violence that they call wàcce. Wàcce refers to the, often violent, exposure of a lover who has humiliated your status. Deliberately involving the other’s family or neighbourhood, the aim is to turn the tables and shift feelings of victimhood into power, and humiliation into honour, however temporary. Despite self-exposure and the possible consequences for women who perform wàcce in a context of strong anti-queer sentiments, wàcce violence is not only destructive. Emerging from a position of vulnerability, it paradoxically is a form of agency for some women in a context in which discretion and secrecy around same-sex relationships are otherwise so important. Wàcce thus invites us to rethink conceptualisations of agency and sociality.

“Ndingu Boet/Sissy”: Songs on black queer love, joy, and resistance in Majola’s Boet/Sissy 

Melusi Mntungwa, University of South Africa (South Africa)

This paper explores the debut album of South African musician Majola, Boet/Sissy, to establish how he uses his music in isiXhosa to communicate the intricacies of same-sex desire, love and being Black and gay in South Africa. Framed by quare theory, an oral literary musical text analysis was conducted of the 17-track album. The analysis of Boet/Sissy reveals themes of radical self-love, same-sex love, and joy, belonging, community and kinship, as well as oppression and resistance. From this reading, this paper addresses how the isiXhosa language well captures and communicates the multifaceted experiences of black, queer love and desire in South Africa. Hence, by using isiXhosa as a language of expression Majola dismantles the belief that indigenous languages are unintelligible and incapable of capturing the essence of queer subjectivities in South Africa, and casts further apprehension on the fallacy that queerness is unAfrican. 

Biographies:

Loes Oudenhuijsen is a PhD candidate at the African Studies Centre at Leiden University, the Netherlands. She has conducted research in Senegal on the social positioning of “wicked” women – queer women, sex workers and feminist activists. She is furthermore board member and editor at LOVA, the Netherlands association for feminist anthropology and gender studies.

Melusi Mntungwa is an emerging scholar and PhD candidate at the Department of Communication Science at the University of South Africa, where he teaches and supervises at the postgraduate level. Their multi-disciplinary research interests include the sonic productions and writings of black queer musicians and creatives in South Africa, the expressions of black queer visibility and identity and the media representations of queerness in Africa.

African Languages, Literatures and Cultures Network, Intersectional Humanities, Queer Intersections Oxford Network, TORCH Research Hubs, TORCH Networks, AfOx - TORCH Visiting Fellowships