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Critical Sexuality Studies is an emerging field of academic enquiry linked to an international network of advocacy agencies, activists, and political issues. This paper reports on the development of an advanced short course in sexuality theory and research, drawing on Critical Sexuality Studies and aiming directly at academics in developing countries working in sexuality issues. Over a three-year period, a new curriculum was developed by an international team. The course was piloted in two continents, refined, revised, and released globally under a Creative Commons licence in 2010 on a dedicated website. This paper documents the project and its progress to date. (Contains 5 figures and 8 notes.)

An essentialist, "traditional", Maasai gender ideology that poorly reflects the day-to-day gender realities of residents is being reproduced and dominating in the modern schooling setting of a Maasai community in Southern Kenya. Through an ethnographic analysis based on long-term fieldwork and mixed-method approaches, this paper explores the construction of this gender ideology as reflected in schooling aspirations of parents, teachers, and students, in students' own constructions of masculinity and femininity, and in school culture. This ideology functions to promote education as a means of cultural preservation and livelihood protection by drawing schooling into the Maasai's unique age-set system and warrior tradition, which is heavily imbued with particular gender constructions. While, arguably, maintaining this traditional ideology may conflict with broader goals of empowerment and social equity for Maasai women, it may serve to facilitate schooling for young girls, off-set increasing and burdensome responsibilities, and provide them with an attainable femininity.

Copyright of Critical African Studies is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article argues that the role of education within the gender-poverty debate needs to be reconceptualised. It stresses the importance of conceptualising the gender-education-poverty nexus as a cluster of complex interactive combinations and bonds in which education outcomes are shaped by, and shape, both poverty and gender. The aim of the paper is to contribute towards a greater understanding of this set of interrelations. It does so by drawing on findings from research in Kenya in which a sample of 24 young people (brothers and sisters aged 16-25) living in 18 poor households were interviewed. These young men and women with varying levels of formal schooling discussed the complex relationships they perceived between their education, gender relations in the community, and the adult lives they hoped to build. Young men wished to build a life in the community whilst some of the young women were keen to marry and leave. Female and male youth were aware of gender changes in identities and roles and how they might challenge the respect associated with particular forms of masculinity. Although weakening of gender boundaries in employment was observed, these appeared to be more associated with young people's survival strategies than with gender equality promoted by schools. (Contains 9 notes and 1 figure.)

Ongoing global efforts to circumcise adolescent and adult males to reduce their risk of acquiring HIV constitute the largest public health prevention initiative, using surgical means, in human history. Voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) programs in Africa have significantly altered social norms related to male circumcision among previously non-circumcising groups and groups that have practiced traditional (non-medical) circumcision. One consequence of this change is the stigmatization of males who, for whatever reason, remain uncircumcised. This paper discusses the ethics of stigma with regard to uncircumcised adolescent males in global VMMC programs, particularly in certain recruitment, demand creation and social norm interventions. Grounded in our own experiences gained while conducting HIV-related ethics research with adolescents in Kenya, we argue that use of explicit or implicit stigma to increase the number of VMMC volunteers is unethical from a public health ethics perspective, particularly in campaigns that leverage social norms of masculinity. Ongoing global efforts to circumcise adolescent and adult males to reduce their risk of acquiring HIV constitute the largest public health prevention initiative, using surgical means, in human history. VMMC programs in Africa have significantly altered social norms related to male circumcision among previously non-circumcising groups and groups that have practiced traditional (non-medical) circumcision. One consequence of this change is the stigmatization of males who, for whatever reason, remain uncircumcised. This paper discusses the ethics of stigma with regard to uncircumcised adolescent males in global VMMC programs, particularly in certain recruitment, demand creation and social norm interventions. Grounded in our own experiences gained while conducting HIV-related ethics research with adolescents in Kenya, we argue that use of explicit or implicit stigma to increase the number of VMMC volunteers is unethical from a public health ethics perspective, particularly in campaigns that leverage social norms of masculinity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Addressing attitudes is central to achieving sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and Agenda 2030. We aimed to develop a comprehensive index to measure attitudinal support for SRHR, expanding opportunities for global trend analyses and tailored interventions. Methods: We designed a new module capturing attitudes towards different dimensions of SRHR, collected via the nationally representative World Values Survey in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Zimbabwe during 2020–2021 (n = 3,711). We used exploratory factor analysis of 58 items to identify sub-scales and an overall index. Adjusted regression models were used to evaluate the index according to sociodemographic characteristics, stratified by country and sex. Results: A 23-item, five-factor solution was identified and used to construct sub-indices reflecting support for: (1) sexual and reproductive rights, (2) neighborhood sexual safety, (3) gender-equitable relationships, (4) equitable masculinity norms, and (5) SRHR interventions. These five sub-indices performed well across countries and socioeconomic subgroups and were combined into a comprehensive "SRHR Support Index", standardized on a 1–100 scale (mean = 39.19, SD = 15.27, Cronbach's alpha = 0.80) with higher values indicating more support for SRHR. Mean values were highest in Kenya (45.48, SD = 16.78) followed by Ethiopia (40.2, SD = 13.63), and lowest in Zimbabwe (32.65, SD = 13.77), with no differences by sex. Higher education and being single were associated with more support, except in Ethiopia. Younger age and urban residence correlated with more support among males only. Conclusion: The SRHR Support Index has the potential to broaden SRHR attitude research from a comprehensive perspective – addressing the need for a common measure to track progress over time. Plain language summary: Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) are becoming increasingly polarized worldwide, but researchers have previously not been able to fully measure what people think about SRHR. More research about this topic is needed to address discriminatory norms and advance SRHR for all. In this study, we added new questions to the World Values Survey collected in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Zimbabwe during 2020–2021. We used statistical methods to develop an index capturing to what extent individuals' attitudes were supportive of SRHR. This index, which we call the SRHR Support Index, included 23 survey questions reflecting support for five related dimensions of SRHR. Those dimensions were (1) sexual and reproductive rights, (2) neighborhood sexual safety, (3) gender-equitable relationships, (4) equitable masculinity norms, and (5) SRHR interventions. We found that individuals in Kenya were more supportive of SRHR, followed by Ethiopia and then Zimbabwe. There were no differences in support of SRHR between men and women, but individuals who were single and those with higher education were more supportive of SRHR, except in Ethiopia. Younger men living in urban areas were also more supportive. Our SRHR Support Index enables researchers, policymakers, and others to measure attitudes to SRHR in countries across the world and over time, based on new data from the World Values Survey that are readily available online. If combined with other sources of data, researchers can also investigate how people's support of SRHR is linked to, for example, health and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peter Kimani's Dance of the Jakaranda (2017a) is constructed around two structures, the Kenya-Uganda Railway and the Jakaranda Hotel. In this article, I argue that the narration of these structures and their survival in independent Kenya enable a revisiting of the histories of the country's entry into global modernity, post-independent reconfigurations of imperial power, alongside the decolonial impulses they engender. Beginning with the railroad as a metaphor of mobility and arrival, I contend that as the railroad moves towards the interior, the novel invites a reading of the country's 'journeying' into global modernity alongside the attendant socioeconomic and political entanglements and disruptions. In addition, the railroad is also read alongside the present-day Standard Gauge Railway in an attempt to account for the genealogies of power and domination across time. Further, while drawing in other trenchant representations of colonial houses in Kenyan fiction, I analyse the Jakaranda Hotel as a space that represents colonial masculinities' attempts at domesticity and domestication of both their 'spouses' and the colonial nation, and as a space that showcases their excesses and undoing. Ultimately, my focus on colonial infrastructure and its postcolonial afterlives is an attempt to problematise 'development' and 'progress' narratives that accompany infrastructure projects in Kenyan public discourses by showing how they have historically atomised and racialised well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A gender perspective in refugee studies usually conjures up images of refugee women. Such images are an outcome of the association of vulnerability with women and children. Yet, it is not only refugee women who face monumental challenges in the country of asylum; refugee men also encounter a wide range of problems. Exile comes with obstacles for refugee men's quest to conform to culturally defined masculinity. This paper presents the nature of the challenges young refugee men predominantly from the Great Lakes region face in exile and the struggles they engage in as they seek to maintain and live up to their pre-flight notions of masculinity. The paper also shows how the men create alternative masculinities that are sustainable in a context that is largely characterized by existential uncertainties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I reflect on the notion of 'African men' as it is employed in global health scholarship and disentangle the way the idea is used as a generative concept. I explore how this notion circulates and gets modified, adapted and reproduced by scholars, on the one hand, and by various groups of men in Africa, on the other. I argue that the use of the idea of African men as an a priori category in scholarly imagination and practice presents us with stereotypes that impede much research. I then briefly connect with what has been analysed as the hegemonic discourse on Africa as the paradigm of difference, and the history of local modes of self-presentation as Africans. In Kenya, among both men and women, the use of the phrase African men as a natural category of sexual agents has been used to explain or justify men's multiple sexual relations. Yet if we look more closely at men's experiences, it becomes clear how men are caught up in conflicting discourses of masculinity. I conclude that we need to analyse gender as a performative quality that is both constructed and meaningful.

Psychosocial support groups offer an important space for people living with HIV to pursue greater wellbeing as they learn how to accept and live with their HIV status. They are critical for the cultivation of responsible and adherent patients. Occasionally, support groups provide spaces where members are encouraged to discuss sexual struggles related to being HIV-positive, including sexual performance issues, sexual relationships, fertility desires and communicating with sexual partners. This paper examines an HIV-positive men's sex therapy support group at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, where HIV-positive men access information about HIV and treatment, while getting tips on restoring sexual functioning and improving sexual gratification from medical experts, peer counsellors and fellow group members. In the group setting, members worked to rediscover and reconstruct masculinity under the guidance of a range of experts, while focusing on regaining or improving sexual prowess.

Introduction: Traditional male circumcision (TMC) inculcates masculine-dominance norms in young men. Early infant male circumcision (EIMC) and medical male circumcision (MMC) can potentially minimise these adverse gender norms. We explored the perceptions about EIMC and MMC among communities practising TMC in Kenya. Method: We conducted focus group discussions with men and women and councils of elders, and key informant interviews with traditional circumcisers. Data were analysed using NVivo 10. Results: Most participants described MC as a rite of passage into adulthood, with the preferred age for MC to occur at 10 to 15 years old. Interestingly, awareness of the advantages of EIMC, especially among younger men and women, was high. Participants acknowledged that TMC reinforces hegemonic masculinity that undermines gender equality. Except among traditional circumcisers and some members of councils of elders, MMC and female providers were largely deemed acceptable. Conclusion: EIMC and MMC are slowly gaining acceptance, providing important tools to challenge adverse gender norms associated with TMC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crime and violence are serious issues in informal settlements around the world. To date, there is a dearth of evidence about the causes of and effective strategies for reducing and preventing violence and crime in informal settlements in cities in the Global South. Additionally, women's voices are often absent from research focused on violence and crime prevention and reduction in informal settlements. The purpose of this study, therefore, was (1) to identify potential causes of violence and crime in informal settlements, as perceived by women living in Mathare informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya and (2) to highlight residents' strategies for response and prevention. Fifty-five in-depth and walk-along interviews were conducted with women living in Mathare in 2015-2016. A modified grounded theory approach was used to guide data collection and analysis. The most common contributor to violence and crime identified by women in Mathare was idle youth, but leadership and government challenges, corruption and/or inadequacy of police, community barriers, tribalism, and lack of protective infrastructure also emerged as contributing factors. Despite facing many economic, environmental, and day-to-day challenges, women in Mathare identified violence and crime as predominant issues; thus, developing effective response and prevention strategies to these issues is paramount. Women discussed many strategies and initiatives to reduce and prevent violence and crime in informal settlements, but also identified barriers to implementing them. Findings suggest there is a need for trust-building between formal and informal sectors of the community, systems of accountability, and long-term investment to foster sustainable and effective violence and crime response and prevention in these settlements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth and adolescence are times when young men negotiate their identity in relation to social and cultural expectations of being a man, with enduring implications for sexual health and wellbeing. This study explored how boys aged 10–14 years living in Korogocho slum in Nairobi, Kenya conceptualised masculinity, their perceptions of how masculinities are performed, and the linkage between conceptualisations of masculinity and sexual development. Three bases of gender socialisation were identified: (1) verbal messaging (mainly from parents and teachers); (2) observing the behaviours of older men in the community; and (3) information received from mainstream and social media. Masculinity conceptualisations focussed on financial stability, family life and responsibility, physical attributes, character and religion. Two contrasting portrayals of masculinity emerged in the form of idealised and dominant masculinities. A close linkage was found between masculinity conceptualisations and sexual development. Findings are important for programmes that aim to transform harmful gender norms and signal the need for longitudinal research exploring how gender beliefs may change over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Parents play a critical role in the formal education of their children. However, a limited body of scientific knowledge exists on fathers' involvement in the formal education of their children with disabilities, particularly in Global South settings. This study sought to understand how father involvement is constructed in the formal education of learners with intellectual disabilities in an African context. Methods: The study uses data from a broad qualitative case study of one special school in Kenya. Data were collected from eight fathers, six mothers, nine teachers and six children with disabilities using individual interviews, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. A document review was also conducted. The data were analysed thematically. Results: Two themes emerging from the data are presented, named using selected quotes from the participants thus: 'He's a monster, you're the one who gave birth to him' and 'The excuse that he has work to do'. Father involvement in the education of learners with intellectual disabilities is influenced by the need of the fathers to protect their identities as men in a society whose cultural norms and values associates manliness with strength and perfection, and disability with weakness and imperfection. Father involvement is also impacted by the teachers' perceptions of the fathers' masculinity. Additionally, father involvement is influenced by the ways fathers cope with the threats to their masculinity. Conclusion: Perceptions of masculinity and disability intersect to construct father involvement in the formal education of learners with intellectual disabilities in this African context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a growing interest in laws governing resources particularly land in reference to gender in Africa. Law reforms in relation to land have produced potentially useful regulations and espoused egalitarian land rights. However, the backdrop to these reforms contains a scene of land disputes, resistance to laws, violence against women and poor enforcement leading to injustices to women with a pervasive effect on families in vulnerable communities. Using focused ethnographic research methods, the writer investigated women’s land rights between November 2015 and August 2016. In-depth interviews, focus group discussions, review of archival records and observations were utilised. The study found that in contexts of prolonged livelihood vulnerabilities, as in the case of the Luo people of south-western Kenya, women seeking refuge from livelihood difficulties employ two strategies to anchor their security. They migrate from marital homes to fishing villages and also lay claim to marital land, which is held by men according to customary laws. These strategies produce social dilemmas and risky manoeuvering. Statutory land laws that are enacted to mitigate land related conflicts undermine the existing customary land laws that advantage men. Therefore, women’s land claims, and statutory land laws that espouse equality in land ownership, destabilise men’s sense of masculinity. By drawing on the experiences of women, I show the intersection between land laws, enduring injustices and gender relations in a context of strained livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on recent calls for more focus on street-level optimism about life and the world, we address the question of 'aspirational masculinities' among poor urban young men in Kenya. Our data and material come from ethnographic work with young men in two slum communities in the country's capital city, Nairobi. While acknowledging that, in their neighborhoods, 'proper' masculinity is constituted in traditional terms of marriage, hardiness, provisioning, breadwinning and self-reliance, youth in our study aspired to masculinities characterized by 'abler' breadwinnerhood, caring, positive emotions, relationality, and the rejection of violence. The masculinity aspirations of poor Nairobi youth are complex; fashioned at the crossroads of structural constraints and agentive projects for a good life, and simultaneously supportive and resistive of traditional hegemonic manliness ideals. These aspirations are limited by and reflect an objective condition of everyday and enduring inequality while also signifying a deep unmet yearning for positive social and livelihood changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greater male partner involvement in Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) and Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) is associated with improved outcomes. Perceived low social support for the mother can negatively impact the uptake of PMTCT/EID services. Most research relies on women's reports of the types and quality of male partner support received versus what is desired. This qualitative study examines Kenyan male partners' reported social support provision pre- and post-partum from their own perspective. The study was embedded within intervention development studies in Kenya designed to develop and pilot a PMTCT module of a web based system to improve EID. Focus groups were conducted with male partners of pregnant women with HIV and elicited feedback on male partner involvement in maternal and child care and factors affecting participation. Interviews were analyzed within a theoretical social support framework. Participants described providing tangible support (financial resources), informational support (appointment reminders) and emotional support (stress alleviation in the face of HIV-related adversity). African conceptualizations of masculinity and gender norms influenced the types of support provided. Challenges included economic hardship; insufficient social support from providers, peers and bosses; and HIV stigma. Collaboration among providers, mothers and partners; a community-based social support system; and recasting notions of traditional masculinity were identified as ways to foster male partner support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 90-90-90 strategy from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) to end the AIDS epidemic by 2020 includes, as its first goal, to have 90% of all people living with HIV to know their status. Achieving this goal will depend on effectively reaching high risk populations, which include mobile populations such as truck drivers. This study aimed to characterise a sample of 305 truck drivers recruited from 2 roadside wellness clinics in Kenya in terms of anticipated HIV stigma, self-efficacy, fatalism, gender equity, sensation seeking, and self-esteem, and then determine the association of these psychosocial characteristics with HIV testing behaviour. Greater general self-efficacy was associated with higher income and more years working as a truck driver. Greater fatalism was associated with non-Christian religion, being married, and having a lower income. Greater gender equity was associated with completing high school, being married, and having higher income. Greater sensation seeking was associated with lower income and fewer years employed as a truck driver. In multivariable logistic regression adjusted for demographic variables, anticipated HIV stigma was negatively associated with having ever tested for HIV (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 0.79; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.63-0.98; p = 0.034) and self-esteem was positively associated with testing (aOR = 1.06; 95% CI = 1.00-1.12; p = 0.038). Associations with HIV testing behaviour were not significant for self-efficacy, fatalism, gender equity, or sensation seeking. Public health interventions aiming to reduce anticipated stigma and increase self-esteem may potentially increase the uptake of HIV testing among truck drivers. Further research is needed to better understand the influence of these psychosocial characteristics on HIV testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

BackgroundPrevious research suggests that ethnic self-identity has little consequence for objective health outcomes compared to the structural dimensions of ethnicity. MethodsUsing qualitative data, we investigated perceptions of ethnicity in relation to health among Luo men in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. ResultsWhile recognizing the complicated cultural origin of poor health, responding Luo men stressed on gender and everyday livelihood situations as being more critical for their health than Luo customs. Recognition of the structural causes of ill-health among the men overlapped with lay notions derived from particular expressions of Luo culture in urban slum contexts. To some extent, respondents regarded the performance of their sense of ethnic identity as protective, though they also admitted to the health-damaging repercussions of some of the ways they enacted aspects of Luo culture. ConclusionEthnic beliefs that link particular enactments of local customs with health outcomes may motivate the performance of cultural identity in ways that can produce critical health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the decline of indigenous forms of wrestling under colonial rule in Kenya as well as contemporary attempts to revive the sport. Highlighting the role the colonial and post-colonial state played in marginalising ‘traditional' sports reveals a long history of hierarchical control of sport in Kenya. Local responses to this top-down approach also show how cultural lobbies and grass-roots organisations have tried to preserve, reinvent and market the sport as a moral symbol of masculine ethnic pride and cultural identity amidst a sometimes tense political landscape. With the current historiography of sport in Africa heavily imbalanced in favour of studies that highlight the adaptation of European sports within the continent, this article also serves as an initial examination of the historical roots and colonial decline of indigenous sporting traditions in Kenya. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What is frequently construed as women's special relationship to food has provided an important entry point for gender into studies of social memory. Although such studies offer important insights into the relationship of food, femininity, and memory in the Euro-American contexts upon which they often focus, masculine aspects of food-centered memory have received far less attention, despite their importance in many non-Western settings. Focusing here on Samburu pastoralists in northern Kenya, I examine how a shift from a diet oriented around livestock products to one dominated by purchased agricultural foods forms a potent arena of collective memory, particularly in contrasting present forms of masculinity with historically validated and remembered ones. Most importantly, the new-found emphasis on cooking presented by agricultural foods, “foods of the pot,” disrupts social boundaries that are fundamental to patterns of respect that define the most masculinized of Samburu men, the age-grade of bachelor-warriors. The iconic role these historically validated forms of masculinity hold for the cultural identity of Samburu of all age-gender sectors thus means that collective memory not only becomes oriented around disruptions in food-centered gender relationships, but moreover that Samburu social memory itself becomes in a sense disproportionately masculinized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]