Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T12:24:35.712Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sex, Sexuality and Negotiating Africanness in Nairobi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2011

Rachel Spronk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article presents two themes: how young professionals personally experience sexuality and issues of cultural belonging or identification; and how these issues are interrelated in their lives. I identify ways in which ‘young professionals’ as a social group are in the vanguard in respect of societal reconfigurations of gender, sexuality and culture. I argue that this group embodies post-colonial transformations concerning reconfigurations in gender, sexuality and culture. I work out the complexities of sexuality and culture by focusing on public debates about African heritage, gerontocratic power relations and conventional morality, on the one hand, and personal sexual relationships, intimacy and self-definitions on the other. Finally, I explore how sexuality has become central to self-expression and how cultural self-identification is an ambiguous concern for young professionals.

Cet article présente deux thèmes: la manière dont les jeunes professionnels vivent leur sexualité et les questions d'appartenance ou d'identification culturelle, d'une part, et la manière dont celles-ci s'articulent dans leur existence, d'autre part. Il identifie en quoi les « jeunes professionnels », en tant que groupe social, sont à l'avant-garde en matière de reconfiguration sociétale du genre, de la sexualité et de la culture. Il soutient que ce groupe incarne des transformations postcoloniales concernant la reconfiguration du genre, de la sexualité et de la culture. Il étudie les complexités de la sexualité et de la culture en s'intéressant aux débats publics sur l'héritage africain, les relations de pouvoir gérontocratiques et la moralité conventionnelle, d'une part, et les relations sexuelles personnelles, l'intimité et la définition de soi, d'autre part. Enfin, il explore la place centrale qu'a pris la sexualité dans l'expression de soi et la préoccupation ambiguë que constitue l'auto-identification culturelle pour les jeunes professionnels.

Type
Research Articles
Information
Africa , Volume 79 , Issue 4 , November 2009 , pp. 500 - 519
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abramson, P., Berk, R. and Okami, P. (1995) ‘Sexual activities as told in surveys’ in Abramson, P. and Pinkerton, S. (eds), Sexual Nature, Sexual Culture. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ahlberg, B. (1994) ‘Is there a distinct African sexuality? A critical response to Caldwell et al.’, Africa 64 (2): 220–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Bayart, J.-F. (2000) ‘Africa in the world: a history of extraversion’, African Affairs 99 (395): 217–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chege, J. (1993) ‘Politics of Gender and Fertility Regulation in Kenya: a case study of the Igembe’. PhD dissertation, Lancaster University.Google Scholar
Ferguson, J. (1999) Expectations of Modernity: myths and meanings of urban life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1990 [1976]) The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: an introduction. New York NY: Vintage Books (translator Robert Hurley).Google Scholar
Geissler, P. and Prince, R. (2007) ‘Life seen: touch and vision in the making of sex in western Kenya’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 1 (1): 123–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirsch, J. and Wardlow, H. (2006) Modern Loves: the anthropology of romantic courtship and companionate marriage. Ann Arbor MI: The University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kanogo, T. (2005) African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900–50. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Kenyatta, J. (1995 [1938]) Facing Mount Kenya: the tribal life of the Gikuyu. Nairobi: Kenway Publications.Google Scholar
Meyer, B. (2004) ‘“Praise the Lord”: popular cinema and Pentecostal style in Ghana's new public sphere’, American Ethnologist 31 (1): 92–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mutongi, K. (2000) ‘“Dear Dolly's” advice: representations of youth, courtship, and sexualities in Africa, 1960–1980’, International Journal of African Historical Studies 33 (1): 1–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mutongi, K. (2007) Worries of the Heart: widows, family, and community in Kenya. Chicago IL: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyairo, J. (2005) ‘“Modify”: Jua Kali as a metaphor for Africa's urban ethnicities and cultures’, Mary Kingsley Zochonis Lecture, AEGIS (Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies) Conference, London.Google Scholar
Nyamnjoh, F. B. and Page, B. (2002) ‘Whiteman Kontri and the enduring allure of modernity among Cameroonian youth’, African Affairs 101 (405): 607–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nzioka, C. (2000) ‘Gendered sexuality, asymmetrical power relations and problems of condom use in Nairobi’, Self, Agency and Society 3 (1): 120–46.Google Scholar
Ochomo, K. L. (2001) ‘How to prevent spread of AIDS’, Daily Nation, 8 November, p. 7.Google Scholar
Odhiambo, T. (2003) ‘Troubled love and marriage as work in Kenyan popular fiction’, Social Identities 9 (3): 423–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oludhe-Magoye, M. (1996) Moral Issues in Kenya: a personal view. Nairobi: Uzima Press.Google Scholar
Oriang', L. (2001) ‘Trust mama to bring senses back to politics’, Daily Nation, 27 June, p. 6.Google Scholar
Parker, R. (1991) Bodies, Pleasures and Passions: sexual culture in contemporary Brazil. Boston MA: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Reid, G. (2003) ‘“It's just a fashion!” Linking homosexuality and “modernity” in South Africa’, Etnofoor 16 (2): 7–23.Google Scholar
Robertson, C. (1997) Trouble Showed the Way: women, men and trade in the Nairobi area, 1890–1990. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Sahlins, M. D. (1985) Islands of History. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Spronk, R. (2006) ‘Ambiguous Pleasures: sexuality and new self-definitions in Nairobi’. PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Spronk, R. (2007) ‘Beyond pain, towards pleasure in the study of sexuality in Africa’, Sexuality in Africa Magazine 4: 6–14.Google Scholar
Spronk, R. (2009) ‘Media and the therapeutic ethos of romantic love in middle-class Nairobi’ in Cole, J. and Thomas, L. (eds), Love in Africa. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Stichter, S. (1987) ‘The middle class family in Kenya: changes in gender relations’ in Parpart, J. and Stichter, S. (eds), Patriarchy and Class: African women in the home and the workforce. Boulder CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Wainaina, B. (2003) Discovering Home. Nairobi: @Binyawanga Wainaina.Google Scholar
Weeks, J. (1985) Sexuality and Its Discontents: meanings, myths and modern sexualities. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Weeks, J. (2003) Sexuality, second edition. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wekker, G. (2006) The Politics of Passion. New York NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Werbner, R. (2002) Postcolonial Subjectivities in Africa. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
White, L. (1990) The Comforts of Home: prostitution in colonial Nairobi. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar