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There are a number of benefits to large‐scale, multi‐site, internationally funded urban research projects if they are operationalized in ways that acknowledge forms of knowledge incommensurability and allow for space to explore the commensurability of different forms of knowledge across different geographies. Such projects are especially important in the context of the precarity of research funding, as such projects can provide the space to explore new urban research avenues that may not have formed core components of the existing urban studies canon and may also bring with them significant and new funding possibilities. In this intervention I use the example of the GCRF‐funded PEAK Urban programme to consider how new urban research questions related to sexuality and health were brought to the fore during the life of the programme, which offer not only new research avenues, but also potential access to significant new funding sources. Programmes such as PEAK Urban therefore have the potential to build the long‐term resilience of urban research. Cutting funding to such programmes may therefore limit the efficacy of the programmes themselves and the long‐term sustainability of urban scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inclusion of Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) in global health policies has resulted in significant resource prioritisations in order to treat and prevent the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). MSM policy inclusions and health prioritisations, however, are primarily motivated by an epidemiological understanding of male same‐sex sexual behaviours, based on biological risks associated with HIV infection. Owing to South Africa's high HIV rates and MSM policy prioritisations, we aimed to examine experiences of engagement in urban MSM‐targeted HIV interventions. Qualitative interviews were conducted with participants (n = 20) who previously engaged in MSM‐HIV interventions, across a variety of historically marginalised "township" spaces in Cape Town, South Africa. Interviews were audio‐recorded with the consent of all participants, transcribed verbatim, and verified, and anonymised using alpha‐numeric codes. Data were analysed for core themes and in this paper we describe interactions between biological and social risks that shape city life for MSM in diverse township spaces. When positioned against the background of the Neuropolis, a recent sociological intervention by Des Fitzgerald, Nikolas Rose and Ilina Singh, our results portray urban life among MSM as a form of biological citizenship: (1) constructed by experiences that are constitutive of biosocial stressors, based on (2) health‐seeking attitudes and behaviours, and (3) reinforced through socio‐spatial engagements in peer‐led and community‐based HIV interventions. We conclude by offering critical insight into recent calls for the development of comprehensive and localised peer‐led health programmes as a current void in the geographies of health and sexualities in the global south. In this paper we describe Men who have Sex with Men and their urban experiences associated with HIV/AIDS interventions, and socio‐economic and spatial health inequalities in "townships" across Cape Town, South Africa. MSM's engagement in HIV interventions was examined as a form of urban citizenship that is: (1) constructed by biological and social interactions, (2) based on health‐seeking attitudes and behaviours, and (3) reinforced through peer‐led socio‐spatial relations. We offer critical insights into recent calls for comprehensive urban interventions in Africa as a current void in the geographies of health and sexualities in the global south. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much work has recently explored the remarkable legislative achievements that have benefited queer groups in South Africa. Less well understood has been an appreciation as to how the links between histories of racism and histories of sexuality deployed to legitimate such legal challenges may also have directly helped to entrench the ability of others to argue against queer rights. Drawing on the work of Stuart Hall, this article will explore how queer activist's association with an ideology of 'equality' (and the link between racism and sexuality-based discrimination) has not simply concluded discussion about the rights (or wrongs) of queer rights. Instead that association has helped align the issue of sexuality within a far broader debate as to what the 'New South Africa' should mean after a racist past. This may help us appreciate a so far little understood and yet key reason why homophobia remains such a pervasive problem in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are important opportunities to further consider how the framework presented by homonationalism can apply beyond relationships connected to the US or the Middle East where it is traditionally applied. From a southern perspective and focusing on post-apartheid South Africa, this article examines how homonationalism's framings may help us understand the subjectification of diverse sexualities in the country through their connection to national and regional politics. It begins by exploring the historical connections between biopolitics and necropolitics in South Africa's HIV/AIDS epidemic, to highlight how different contemporary sexual subjectivities are imbricated with different types of biopolitical population regulation. It then argues that such differences are reflected through and furthered by the way South Africa has projected ideas of its sexual exceptionalism within the wider region, a process that itself relies on South African-specific homonormativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any analysis of South African gendered performances, identities and inequalities confront past and present experiences of and struggles with race, colonialism, post-colonial development and sexuality. These tensions shape gendered geographical work, highlighting the importance of histories of race, class, and sexuality, as well as the ways in which gender itself can be approached as an analytical category and epistemic framing in South Africa. In this paper we focus on two avenues that have engaged scholars since the end of apartheid, namely: gender and development; and gender and geographies of sexualities. The former articulates the particular ways that the historical spatially exclusionary trajectory of the country has impacted especially on women and their ability to engage with state and national building projects post-apartheid. The latter explores how South African geographies (despite the country's progressive post-apartheid constitution with regard to LGBT rights) continue to reflect and (at times) enable spatial segregation and inequalities related to gender. A key strength of research in South African gender scholarship is that it complicates and challenges how we might approach gender and gender-based inequalities, and the diverse ways in which gender categories and framings can be imagined, deployed and troubled in post-colonial states and cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender identity plays a potentially important role contributing to HIV risk among MSM in South Africa. Where studies have included a focus on gender identity, MSM reporting gender non-conformity have been found to have a higher risk of being HIV positive than other MSM. This article examines HIV risk among gender non-conforming MSM in a sample of 316 MSM in Cape Town, South Africa. Reporting gender non-conformity was associated with higher HIV prevalence and increased HIV risk behaviour. Gender non-conformity was also associated with a higher likelihood of being unemployed and reporting low household incomes. These findings highlight the importance of gender-identity as a factor affecting access to HIV treatment, care, and prevention in South Africa and this is an issue that needs to be addressed in interventions targeting MSM populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research reveals how homophobia and stigma link closely to HIV among men who have sex with men in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper considers the varying impact of homophobic stigma on HIV prevention programmes among men who have sex with men in South Africa. It explores how a community-based HIV prevention programme based in the peri-urban townships of Cape Town was ‘translated’ to peri-urban Johannesburg. Drawing on interviews with volunteers and programme facilitators in Johannesburg, it argues that an altered homophobic environment to that found in Cape Town gave different opportunities to engage both with other men who have sex with men and the broader community. It also argues that programme facilitators should be mindful of how varying degrees of homophobic stigma may relate to broader theoretical debates about sexual binary relationships, which can help us understand why particular programmes choose to focus on certain activities rather than others. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While research now highlights that men who have sex with men (MSM) in places such as South Africa are at particular risk of HIV infection, left relatively unexplored are potential relationships between one of the most pressing social issues affecting peri-urban MSM – namely homophobic stigma – and sexual risk-taking behaviour. Drawing on research from theUkwazanabaseline study of 316 township MSM in Cape Town we examine how homophobic stigma relates to psychosocial factors such as depression and self-efficacy and the risk activity of unprotected anal intercourse (UAI). By deploying cross-sectional association models, we examine a series of relationships between these variables and offer evidence to suggest that HIV prevention programmes aimed at sexual minority groups should be mindful of potentially complex relationships between social stigmas such as homophobia and sexual risk-taking behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much work has recently explored the remarkable legislative achievements that have benefited queer groups in South Africa. Less well understood has been an appreciation as to how the links between histories of racism and histories of sexuality deployed to legitimate such legal challenges may also have directly helped to entrench the ability of others to argue against queer rights. Drawing on the work of Stuart Hall, this article will explore how queer activist's association with an ideology of 'equality' (and the link between racism and sexuality-based discrimination) has not simply concluded discussion about the rights (or wrongs) of queer rights. Instead that association has helped align the issue of sexuality within a far broader debate as to what the 'New South Africa' should mean after a racist past. This may help us appreciate a so far little understood and yet key reason why homophobia remains such a pervasive problem in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]