Sexuality, Africa, History

Prior to the 1980s, historians of Africa rarely paid explicit attention to sexuality, a topic generally presumed to belong more appropriately to anthropology or psychology. Moreover, when the topic did come up, authors across the disciplines commonly assumed or asserted an African (“native,” customary, tribal, or premodern) sexuality, in the singular and in implicit timelessness. With the advent of HIV/AIDS, however, and following trends in international scholarship that saw a proliferation of close empirical case studies that employed (and extended) Foucauldian and postcolonial theory, this began to change dramatically. Much of the thinking about HIV/AIDS since the 1990s, notably, has stressed the long-term impacts of colonialism, racism, and male migrant labor that underpin the pandemic and that help to explain striking regional disparities. Indeed, the new scholarship argues that ahistorical readings of scientific data, let alone of ethnography or the other social sciences, have actually contributed to the HIV/AIDS crisis by unwittingly promoting colonial-era stereotypes, simplifications, and calumnies against African cultures. Medical anthropologists thus now routinely acknowledge the importance of historical change, context, and specificity to their research on sexual health.1 Several problems remain, however, that are quickly apparent both in studies about African sexualities and in the ways that Africa is represented or engaged (or not) in global sexuality studies. Comparative, and even national, histories of HIV/AIDS remain rare. Same-sex sexuality is still largely overlooked in these, and even in texts aimed directly at sexual healthcare professionals. Attempts to counter that blind spot have tended to rely heavily on the exhumation of colonial ethnographies, forensic evidence, and missionary diatribes, with limited effectiveness. The evident fact that so many of the leading researchers in the field are non-African also introduces concerns, most obviously about language, epistemology, and cultural-insider secrets. In some cases, this has provoked sharply defensive reactions from African leaders and intellectuals. The latter have been particularly galled when Western researchers' emphasis on culture distracts from the far more significant drivers of sexual ill-health on the continent: economic crisis and the collapse of healthcare systems. That this crisis—and the related collapse of tertiary education and independent African research capacities—was exacerbated by neoliberal policies promoted by the West since the 1970s makes Western “advice” about sexual health and sexuality research even harder to accept. Accusations of racism or Western feminist and gay imperialism consequently continue to dampen the more controversial aspects of historical sexuality research in many African countries.2 Ostensibly global queer theory and histories of sexuality, for their part, commonly disregard or tokenize African evidence and scholarship. For example, in nearly two decades, the Journal of the History of Sexuality published but three articles and two book reviews on Africa south of the Sahara; Leila J. Rupp mentions Africa once in passing in her call for a global history of same-sex sexuality. In other cases, attempts to include Africa involve extrapolation from local cultures in specific historical contexts to the whole of the continent over vast swaths of time. Gilbert Herdt, for an influential example, sketches a general outline of same-sex sexuality in Africa with reference to four studies from across the continent extending from precolonial to contemporary periods. Such ambition may feed into the stereotype of Africa as a country, rather than an extremely diverse region that arguably encompasses large parts of the Americas.3 The ongoing devastation wrought in Africa by postcolonial interventions and habits of thinking and consumption in the global North is meanwhile typically unacknowledged as pertinent to global sexuality theory. As Ghanaian scholar/activist Takyiwaa Manuh cogently argues, “abstract, surreal and narcissistic theorizings on dreams, bodies and other individualistic projects,” coming out of the United States in particular, often appear oblivious to the relationships between wealth (and sexual pleasure) in the global North and immiseration (and sexual ill-health) in Africa. For some African critics, even the concept of “gender” is an insidious form of Western imperialism linked to ideas about modernity and progress. Not only do gendered binaries and related ideas about individual sexual identity and desire misrepresent African societies, in this view, but they shore up primitivist or pathologized constructions of Africanness in the West. Feminist, queer, and postcolonial discourses that do not radically challenge such constructions are hence colonizing in their effects, however much they may protest otherwise.4 These problems are potentially paralyzing, and indeed, relative to other regions of the world, historical research on sexualities in Africa is clearly underdeveloped. Nevertheless, the research climate is improving, as can be seen in the increasing volume and sophistication of the scholarship. In part this improvement is a response to the simple observation that lack of research and excessive timidity are more problematic than occasional academic missteps or unintentionally colonizing overstatements. Timidity, whether in the form of polite euphemisms or self-censorship in deference to local taboos, has demonstrably failed to reverse the spread of HIV or to deter gender-based violence, including homophobia. The latter actually appears to be on the rise in many African countries, as vocal independent women and sexual minorities become scapegoats for a variety of social and political ills. A consensus is thus emerging across academic disciplines and in the policy and activist spheres that sensitive and encompassing histories of sexualities in Africa both need to be done and can be done, even in places where official rhetoric often seems implacably hostile.5 All of this makes it a propitious moment to review the history of writing about sexuality in Africa, and the changing ways that sexuality has been treated in the historiography. It is possible for historical research to be “decolonized” of ideas and practices inherited from the past, and a transnational approach to history can help to achieve that goal. Indeed, with mass migrations, imposed, often arbitrary colonial and subsequently national borders, common experiences of the invention and manipulation of tribal identities and racial capitalism from beyond those borders, the diffusion of world and millennialist religions, pan-Africanist and “African socialist” political ideals, and intellectual cultures nourished in and often beholden to disparate imperial or neocolonial centers, African history would seem ill-suited to anything other than a transnational approach. Such an approach needs to be flexible, as Margot Canaday argues in her introduction to this forum, eschewing artificial borders and academic or linguistic silos created by different colonial/national conventions, yet respecting (and interrogating) borders where they have in fact acquired cultural meaning. Transnational historical research on sexuality could in that way offer insights into hidden struggles, tensions, and interconnections between local spirituality and world religions such as Islam and Pentecostalism; national, ethnic, and diasporic identities; class formation; and even the many aspects of globalization as currently manifest in Africa. This would be of immediate interest to Africans and Africanists, particularly where it strengthens the effectiveness of the various education and other interventions in the struggles against sexual ill-health and gender-based violence. But it could also contribute to enriching global sexuality studies more broadly. It could, for example, encourage scholars worldwide to reflect upon and address hidden assumptions about Africa and Africanness or race and modernity that are discreetly embedded in their analysis or research choices. As such, it could counter lingering tendencies of Eurocentrism or “Westo-centrism” in the field, and temper a seeming naïveté or disinterest in the role of global inequalities in the construction of sexualities worldwide. Writing about sexuality in Africa south of the Sahara first appeared in the fourteenth century with the scandalized observations of Malian mores by the Muslim traveler Ibn Batutta. Thereafter, a steadily growing number of non-Africans (including slavers, explorers, missionaries, and colonial officials) gave their accounts. Through to the mid-twentieth century, this writing was overwhelmingly dominated by white male authors who tended to characterize Africans as essentially heterosexual and promiscuous, either portraying this essence as deeply pathological and dangerous (for example, “Black Peril”) or, conversely, extolling its virtues in opposition to various other Others (such as prudish Europeans and decadent Arabs). They accounted for the posited differences between Africans and other peoples in the world through structural functionalist explanations or exotic influences that denied desire, creativity, or complex emotions to ostensibly primitive, taboo-encrusted, or close-to-nature Africans. And they understated or outright ignored African women's agency in sexual decision-making. History was generally left out of the discussion unless it involved interaction with Europeans, usually as either edifying or corrupting influences upon Africans.6 Taken together, this literature amounted to a compelling moral argument in favor of Islamic conquest/holy war (jihad) or European colonialism, that is, the use of violence to impose idealized outside values upon Africans. For example, moral arguments in favor of education for women and their protection from exploitation by men underpinned the jihads that swept across the Sahel in the early nineteenth century.7 Many subsequent accounts by European authors stressed what they perceived as African women's subservience and easy sexual availability to men (prima facie evidence: polygyny, as well as pre- and extramarital sexuality), African men's cruel intolerance of female autonomy and pleasure (“female circumcision”), and Africans' lack of sexual modesty and guilt (naked breasts, writhing dances). African men's “indolence”—a commonly used in this from their to and exploitation of female sexuality. way to the men to for Europeans in for was to from the sexual moral by by and by as The moral argument was by the use of that the colonizing including the of in the to of writing as to the the most part and sexuality as a topic of History involved the for and those in African leaders so that their was the of the in the early nineteenth in the historians used to for and with other sexuality, first in an and in or case was that of the of the from to cruel and arbitrary was on to by As for the of female in the of from the to the nineteenth as well as the of only a for the of an in women's explanations of the the role of as a to heterosexual Africans who began to in with Western of scholarship to with and by their often missionary by the and African authors to by Europeans about African sexual In the early this commonly the form of and struggles also gave rise to a of in a yet heterosexual in opposition to the colonial African about African sexuality often upon Western authors for for promoted by the United an of and on the of largely by reference to the of the continent over by the outside of Africa in the and the for feminist scholars to such or of in the scholarship. this research was largely by Western scholars and in reference to Western and between Western and African in this Much of their through the 1970s was (and in many ways as a African women as historical from the male A to was that to or African and sexuality to colonial and to transnational and policy across (and vast colonial in much of this was by far the most of changing sexualities colonialism, including by the men who of also about the colonial and both of and of African women's or of Muslim women on the for example, a striking between of female to men and female sexual and In the of by structural racism and some of actually a The stereotype of African also from feminist for an example, used the of to Africans in colonial was as to African it was into over of and by white against Africans' or These in large part out of the to the of migrant such as the for example, to local African men from to with for also often a of sexual between men and women over related to and the of much over was the spread of to the such and But the also and the health and social for their political was thus in ways that interventions that the sexual health of not of through racial and on women's In a of such of by the to by African women to The of of to example, contributed to the of of of female to Africans could also or between and on such As has in her studies of colonialism, Africans colonial about and in to sexual mores in with their in the changing of the mid-twentieth hidden struggles for African women in the of an or female also sensitive studies aimed at African women's and with about the of feminist interventions in of the to from this research is that an assumed has in fact been over time. of the of in in the 1980s, for example, to the often in of their and of policies by the to that economic crisis to a with a or by including of and female sexual and also colonial and missionary to African to for for its for their in or controversial feminist and other social historians rarely stereotype about sexuality in Africa. All of the research from the that was not a significant The topic began to into the discussion only in the as historians to their of colonialism, and the with the argument that sexuality and in the of colonial been and by the from as early as the and In subsequent in as from the created by racial The analysis and a new way to the A in in this in with the by of a of relationships in linked relationships to the history of male to migrant labor and however, the of and the of heterosexual relationships thus not a of Africanness and heterosexual as many of they a and way for to with the new ideas about sexuality and to for their and at by in or with Western about sexual and gay identity by other studies of the migrant labor in Africa that and notably, upon a that against since the in the These often (and often by the men to with women in the That is, the men to and potentially relationships with female hence to be to as over The of the in could be linked to in the political of the region in the including the rise of African and and women's to the These academic studies with a of writing and by and about and in Africa. this coming out in and was a response to gay in the West and to the by It also a to the rise of often in the with in her for when on an white in rarely much in than and for example, has but a on the and is with the The first significant to African in the more involved or of African women scholars also the in the 1980s, often from Western and their with the and As with African the more of African or an and of the colonial African women's sexual identity was typically in this literature in of and often in from linguistic of historical or argument some defensive notably, African for to in Africa to their political was with her as a cultural it to Western from the Indeed, more than a an challenge to the was In that women they in such a that they to in a of practices for a moment their That African did against or by white scholars such as and who evidence of desire African men or gave it a functionalist in their of a new of African scholars to be in evidence of the of desire, creativity, and Africans in the Several African also for research that would challenge and about female sexuality. The has been to but a may have come in That saw the of a of of women who have with women in and Africa. they are in history is in the women's accounts. for example, that by the or over the more the rise of political in in the also an intellectual to a growing field in the men's or gendered writing on men in Africa. The analysis was often can the of men in the past, can ways to those aspects of that sexual ill-health or violence in the studies linked specific constructions of sexuality to of They for example, gendered relationships in of heterosexual and to European and male that in and The men in studies are rarely the they are commonly by sexual from economic or structural or has also been linked to women's a of that as in the or for example, men and are in their sexual by and also in sexual in a number of close studies. The to the of in is not to of African but rather to the often in Western or are to the of the precolonial are in much of Africa is history is heavily by or the of colonial values by African have been historical and other of African sexualities are also in from the with the in and the and the The of J. is in that not only for its historical and transnational the the United but also for its of the of scholarship represented by and A to in the research is that the from to historical studies of sexuality first in Africa, still to in the of and about African sexualities in Several have contributed to this regional and linguistic including the climate for researchers from North and the of new thinking about sexuality. of climate and political in and has many and scholars to in the United States and by they have tended to in The fact that of HIV/AIDS are so much in Africa than has to the research topic in that Moreover, Africa in particular, for the of structural still the and most on the with academic and research to sexuality however, the and linguistic can be to white and the of and to the This in a of to sexuality to the Indeed, for the manifest of African and racism, those created that the first for researchers to sexual from the of social history has also research linked to a of by or to such as the History in studies of sexuality by or scholars in West Africa in the 1970s tended to quickly into feminist and gay that saw the history of sexuality as a to the the regional is to change as a new of scholars in other parts of the continent up the research of or has to in from West and Africa, for example, where and largely It male hidden of heterosexual and in of men who have with men in and The of the Africa Sexuality in to researchers from the continent and has a of in Africa, and and the of the in have a to the of that and perceived to be or Much of this new research is or in however, histories are implicit of men who have with men are rather than intolerance has been exacerbated by influences such as structural and of the first to the topic in historical the latter the sexual in the early This is in such to the political rhetoric in that it a of cultural of from that has been in from the the of Africa, and North Africa some striking differences with the of the to analysis of for example, to and colonial in the did not the in much of the of Africa. it a and a the and their local But the new research has also to the that across the in that was the and of the of and on sexual in the into the early of the of the studies of assumptions about the or Africanness of the for example, have as a form of political to the of the and to the of of female sexuality. the of Islam and the of by local male migrant labor in The men who more to than those who at The to for sexual or of common in African also in discussion of a by it is migrant who by in sexual The history of writing about sexuality in Africa since the 1970s the of research with a of African enriching about across particularly history and and the of Western and African scholars in the of That however, from this can be particularly since the They include the in of and a to (or assumed to be more even and cultural that in than the colonial a growing literature and in and in the research by African scholars their with reference to other African for example, and have been in the including and Africa and south of the Sahara; and Africa and about the history of African sexualities have been possible in part of new and more sensitive research In the only as and more or often with white male over Africans for researchers are not African women and but also of sexual minorities to histories or to to such through more and through relationships between cultural and that Africans' presumed of or to about sexuality may have been in accounts. Indeed, new studies coming out of the against HIV/AIDS are such practices as and have also to such as to the in the and particularly as in the form of has also been for the ways that sexuality was and over time. most in often in close to class and national identity The new research many of the assumptions and of the It the that Africans not as about same-sex sexuality and practices as was once that can be out in a way such as gay or yet at the desire to and have that female desire and sexual autonomy even and that Africans' about sexual relationships be by and but also such as and including and that and historical need to be in Indeed, the new research has it for in the to use the “African or “African in the The new research also attention to an of and or may unintentionally moral about sexuality that to education or health of the is to that has been more scholarship. Moreover, remain, and potentially and other mass for example, remain largely for their to sexual or between sexual and sexual diasporic transnational and analysis of the history of sexualities do more than about African history in general and of in such specific problems as sexual ill-health and gender-based violence in Africa. It could also in as a to global feminist or queer theory that studies from Africa or that about Africa in from global and transnational or Indeed, the history of sexualities in Africa on inequalities in the global political underpin the of and desire far beyond the borders of Africa. and about African sexualities could have a on sexuality studies broadly. As global sexuality studies to acknowledge African scholarship more a more field can be

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