Of Gay Struggle and Resistance in Africa: Contesting Queer Politics in Kenya and Uganda

Abstract

End of cold war in Africa and the widening of freedom of media, press, rise of international and local NGOs, increasingly sophiscated tourism industry, widespread use of the internet and social media as well as trade liberalisation has produced a globalisation in Africa which in turn has accelerated internationalisation of the sexual rights and identities, resuscitated women's movement, and increased demands for basic equality, and above all escalated new sexual orientation in many urban areas of Africa. Interestingly, in tune to these changes, the African urban youth have in turn deployed music and clothing styles in order to form new subcultural youth identities which are seen as acts of resistance against a dominant culture. Today, sexual relationships are being socially constructed as an appropriate expression of intimacy, but also as a statement about a particular kind of modern identity. In this paper, we intend to view globalisation as one of the most powerful forces shaping the modern world and a key idea explaining the transition of the human society into the third millennium. People consider globalisation a tidal wave sweeping over the world. Consequently, today one can talk differently on what it means to be male and female in modern African contexts; because there are different ways in which sexualities have been constructed, performed, resisted, transformed and transgressed; thereby producing tensions between traditions and modernities.