Decolonizing the law: LGBT organizing in Namibia and South Africa
Special Issue Social Movements/Legal Possibilities
ISBN: 978-0-85724-825-1, eISBN: 978-0-85724-826-8
Publication date: 22 February 2011
Abstract
This chapter considers how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activists in Namibia and South Africa appropriate discourses of decolonization associated with African national liberation movements. I examine the legal, cultural, and political possibilities associated with LGBT activists’ framing of law reform as a decolonization project. LGBT activists identified laws governing gender and sexual nonconformity as in particular need of reform. Using data from daily ethnographic observation of LGBT movement organizations, in-depth qualitative interviews with LGBT activists, and newspaper articles about political homophobia, I elucidate how Namibian and South African LGBT activists conceptualize movement challenges to antigay laws as decolonization.
Citation
Currier, A. (2011), "Decolonizing the law: LGBT organizing in Namibia and South Africa", Sarat, A. (Ed.) Special Issue Social Movements/Legal Possibilities (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 54), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 17-44. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-4337(2011)0000054005
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2011, Emerald Group Publishing Limited