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Guided by social justice and sexual health concerns, scholars of same‐sex sexualities in Africa have mainly examined related conflicts and inequities, generating an unbalanced emphasis on homophobia. Following Stella Nyanzi's plea for a broader exploration of queer sexuality in Africa, we move beyond the strictly sexual sphere to study the kinship arrangements of same‐sex couples in Kenya. These couples rely on the different possibilities afforded by kinship – in both its inclusive and exclusive capacities – to create accommodation and acceptance. Capturing the complexities and paradoxes of social life, the ethnographic study of kinship practices in everyday life shows how homophobia and accommodation can co‐exist. Furthermore, the embeddedness of same‐sex relationships in kinship structures and the subscription of same‐sex couples to the same norms held by cross‐sex couples clearly indicates the difficulty of construing these forms of relatedness as essentially different from other kinship formations. Thus 'queering queer Africa' requires not only taking a broader perspective and looking beyond what is usually classified as 'queer' but also un‐queering what at first appears as queer and thus 'queerying' the barriers and the range of possibilities that characterize the lives and subjectivities of people with same‐sex desires. [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 ana prioricategory 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the history of anthropology shows various shifts in the way sexuality has been theorised, studies of the relation between sexuality and bodily sensations have remained limited. In this article I explore the concept of body-sensorial knowledge to understand the relation between the social significance of sexuality and erotic sensations. I argue that the sensual qualities of sexuality are mediators and shapers of social knowledge that help to understand how causal relations, such as the reconfiguration of culture, gender and sexuality in postcolonial Kenyan society, are registered in people's self-perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Studies of female sexuality in Africa tend to adopt an instrumental approach, many times problematizing sexual conduct in relation to HIV infection and/or reproduction. This study aimed to explore sexuality as a relational concept. Using interviews and participant observation, the paper shows how sexuality becomes a point of self-identification for young professional women in Nairobi between 20 and 30 years-old. These women form a group who implicitly and explicitly criticize conventional gender roles through the overt pursuit of sexual pleasure as recognition of their womanhood. This aspect of the feminine sense of self is at odds with normative notions of femininity. To avoid criticism for being 'un-proper', women adopt a deferential attitude towards men. The focus on upwardly mobile professional women and their experiments with new types of heterosexual relations in dating provides insight into both sexuality and gender.