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Ready Rhetorics: Political Homophobia and Activist Discourses in Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda

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Abstract

Since the late 1990s political leaders in several African countries have pursued legislation to expand criminal penalties for same-sex sex. Yet, much of the research on efforts to expand criminalization of same-sex sexualities in Africa has focused on individual country cases, neglecting the role of national and transnational sociopolitical contexts and economic flows. Focusing on discourses present in news media data from 2000 to 2014 in three African countries pursuing regressive policies targeting homosexuality—Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda—we examine: 1) the different antihomosexual discourses and constellations of actors that emerge over time; 2) the linkages among antihomosexual discourses and other social or cultural logics that allow individuals and collective actors to make sense of antihomosexual discourses in a particular historical moment; and 3) the relationships among discourses vying for power in a given discursive field. In these data we observe episodic public debates around homosexuality that engage different arguments and constellations of actors over time. The intensity of public debates has increased since the mid-2000s in each country, and debates reflect strong linkages among transnational and national actors. Ultimately, we contend that the particular debates occurring around the regulation of same-sex sex in Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda reflect larger conflicts over social change, political power, and global status hierarchies. We conclude with implications for the study of homophobia and LGBT movements in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Victor Arredondo and Jennifer Ng who assisted with data collection and coding and Rachel Robinson, Karen Hardee, Mike Bader, Matty Lichtenstein, Sayeh Nikpay, Andrew Goodman-Bacon, and participants at the Center on Health, Risk and Society (American University) weekly seminar series for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. We would also like to specifically thank the anonymous reviewers, the Special Issue Editors Manisha Desai and Rachel Rinaldo, and QS Editor-in-Chief David Smilde for their guidance in developing the article. We also benefited from comments and discussion on earlier versions of this article that were presented at the 2015 Annual Meetings of the Population Association of America (PAA) and the American Sociological Association (ASA). While conducting this research, the first author was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholars Program at the University of California, Berkeley.

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  1. Center for Medicine, Health and Society (MHS), Vanderbilt University College of Arts and Science, 300 Calhoun Hall PMB-351665, 2301 Vanderbilt Place, Nashville, TN, 37235-1665, USA

    Tara McKay

  2. Department of Sociology, American University, Washington, DC, USA

    Nicole Angotti

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Correspondence to Tara McKay.

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McKay, T., Angotti, N. Ready Rhetorics: Political Homophobia and Activist Discourses in Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda. Qual Sociol 39, 397–420 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-016-9342-7

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