Search

This article outlines why there exist important opportunities to think through what research on African urban sexualities—and specifically non-heteronormative sexualities—may mean moving forward. By looking back at the text Queer Visibilities that largely focused on articulating some of the relationships between the urban and sexuality over a decade ago in Cape Town, this article suggests at least three key opportunities in which future scholarship may wish to explore African urban sexualities in the current moment. These opportunities circulate around new theoretical insights that emerge from the South that may speak to but are not beholden to theories from the North, the urgent need for further empirical work on the ways sexuality interfaces with urbanisation dynamics on the continent, and to think through and give space to broader approaches to document the relationship between sexuality and the urban that include but also extend beyond more 'traditional' social science methods. This article then explores these opportunities in relation to the interventions that follow in this special issue. [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]

While much has been written concerning the effect of the post-apartheid transition upon gay communities in predominantly more affluent parts of South Africa, little is still known about how this transition affected black African residents in the former townships. This article therefore examines the impact that the political transition had on groups in the former townships through an exploration that highlights first the way it helped create delineated sexual binary relationships. It will then go on to explore how the social expression of these binary relationships has a unique geography within the former townships which in turn also allows us to see how an historically very Westerncentric term of identification ‘gay’ has been appropriated in unique ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within and beyond geography, there has been a growing concern in understanding how and why exclusion can occur within ‘gay spaces’, with a specific focus on Western Europe and North America. Heidi Nast's (2002 Queer patriarchies, queer racisms, international Antipode 34 874–909) work on the ‘white queer patriarch’ has taken this work further by exploring the multiple, interrelated, historical and contemporary factors that can lead to exclusion and exploitation. Despite growing interest surrounding South Africa's new liberal queer agenda, issues of contemporary exclusion among queer groups as a direct result of race and racism have remained relatively unexplored. By incorporating elements of Nast's schema, this article will examine the power that exists in the creation and framing of essentialistic ‘white’ and ‘coloured’ queer male subjects in Cape Town's gay village. These subjects will be shown to simultaneously draw on historical inequalities while also re-imagining them in contemporary settings to re-inscribe perceptions of classed and gendered difference. The creation of such inequitable subjects helps us understand how exclusion can become real and normalised within a space such as Cape Town's gay village in a way that draws on a history of material inequalities and discursive perceptions of race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]