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“It's a Silent Trade”: Female Same-Sex Intimacies in Post-Colonial Ghana.
- Source :
- NORA: Nordic Journal of Women's Studies; Sep2009, Vol. 17 Issue 3, p192-205, 14p
- Publication Year :
- 2009
-
Abstract
- While in many places same-sex cultures revolve around politically charged subcultural understandings, this paper explores conceptualizations of female same-sex desire beyond constructions of lesbian identity. It looks at a set of practices forged by women who are involved in intimate same-sex relationships in southern Ghana and examines how their self-understandings resist and intersect with the derogatory media representations that frame them. A key term to these representations is the term supi. It implies a close friendship between two adolescent girls, whether or not their relationship has a sexual dimension. In spite of rising tides of homophobia that impact such female intimacies, two factors still allow for the creation of niches for same-sex intimacy: first, southern Ghanaian cultures draw on norms of verbal indirection and discretion, which allow for the concealment of non-normative sexual conduct. Secondly, homosocial spaces of intimacy provide an environment in which female same-sex bonds are expressed through a language of allusion rather than a specialist, subcultural vocabulary. Erotic context is formed through practice and performance and is not discursively named or understood as a social identity. Rather, these understandings of female same-sex passions revolve around the notion of secrecy and are based on tacit but vibrant forms of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- SAME-sex communication
GENDER
LESBIANISM
GENDER identity
HOMOPHOBIA
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 08038740
- Volume :
- 17
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- NORA: Nordic Journal of Women's Studies
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 44014599
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740903117208