Edifying and unsettling
African Sexualities: A Reader edited by Sylvia Tamale, Pambazuka Press, 2011.
African Sexualities: A Reader brings together 66 contributions on African sexualities, ranging from critical essays, life stories, fiction and poems, to diary entries, conversations and interviews.
The book is divided into nine sections, each addressing particular issues related to the topic of African sexualities. Framing essays by writers such as Sylvia Tamale, Jane Bennett, Desiree Lewis, Nkiru Nzegwu, Beth Maina Ahlberg and Asli Kulane, Kopano Ratele, Stella Nyanzi, Chimaraoke O. Izugbara, and Mensah Prah introduce each section respectively. These framing essays are so seminal or provocative that each calls for its own review/discussion. In fact, this is true for most of the contributions in the book, which is hefty reading at 656 pages.
From the outset, the title of the Reader establishes sexualities as pluralised, thus dismantling the dominant ideology of heterosexuality. It also captures the complexity of the topic at hand, for the concept of African sexualities encompasses a variety of sexual orientations.
This is one of the things that makes the Reader alluring: it does not present a homogeneous, monolithic position on sexualities. Its contributors belong to different sexual and philosophical orientations: some, like the editor, are heterosexual and happily married; others are gay, lesbian, transsexual, and transgender.
This is as it should be, for as the World Health Organisation puts it in a report entitled Defining Sexual Health, sexuality is experienced and expressed in different forms – “thoughts, fantasies, desires, beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviours, practices, roles and relationships” — that are influenced by “the interaction of biological, psychological, social, economic, political, cultural, ethical, legal, historical, religious and spiritual factors” (WHO, quoted in chapter 59, Reader).
At the launch of the book at The Book Lounge in Cape Town on 11 October 2011, the editor, Professor Sylvia Tamale, revealed that the title is meant to “tantalise, stir and awaken, to take you to another level of awareness where you start thinking about sexuality and asking yourself: Is there such a thing as ‘African Sexuality’, let alone ‘Sexualities’?”
Professor Sylvia Tamale
I certainly found the book to be “tantalising” in the sense that it kept me in a state of expectancy from beginning to end. By the time I reached page 656, I could only take a breath and gaze at the Reader with a sigh: “What a book you are! You are both edifying and unsettling.”
The Reader is edifying because there is so much to learn from it, what with the many theoretical perspectives, research findings, and polemical stances it contains. But it is also unsettling because some of the issues brought to light are frighteningly brave. I will give an example. In a life story that I wish were fiction, Everjoice J. Win gets rid of the uterus that she finds bothersome and enslaving. Entitled “Ode to my Uterus,” she gives us a first-person account after the deed:
So here you are. Lying all dead and shrivelled in a jar of formaldehyde. [. . .] We have had a long 41 years together, you and I. I no longer want to be defined by your presence. [. . .] So, dear uterus, rest in peace. I can’t say I am going to miss you, because I definitely will not. I look forward to living out the rest of my days without being reminded of your presence every month. More than anything, I am now a free agent. The rest of my body belongs to me. Nobody is going to get a cut from you, my little reproductive machine. (375-376)
I find this conception of freedom disturbing. Perhaps it is her poetic style that makes me feel so sorry for her helpless uterus: by giving it human attributes of hearing and understanding as her addressee, Everjoice’s “revolutionary” act strikes me as wanton, especially when we remember that there are several other ways the “little productive machine” could have been stopped from reproducing. But Everjoice is an emancipated subject with absolute freedom over her body; so uterus, rest in peace.
The book is revolutionary in many ways, but perhaps most importantly it lifts the shroud on the deity called sexuality. Unveiled, sexuality is presented to the gaze of the reader without any qualms about blasphemy. In a sense, the book makes das Unheimliche of sexuality become das Heimliche. That which has been hidden, or discussed in whispers, is exposed and demystified.
One of the strongest points of the Reader is the intensity and profundity of theorising, especially in the framing essays. Sylvia Tamale, for instance, gives a deep analysis of research on sexuality in Africa, showing how it has been approached by different interest groups — missionaries, colonialists, imperialists, patriarchal governments, etc. Jane Bennett does a related analysis in the area of activists’ subversion of and resistance to monolithic sexual regimes. Desiree Lewis uses postcolonial discourse to demonstrate how western/Eurocentric/US-centric conceptions of Africa are not only sometimes misleading but also racist.
In a startling analysis of African erotic sexuality (which she calls “osunality” after the Yoruba goddess of erotic pleasure and fertility), Nkiru Nzegwu turns phallocentrism on its head by demonstrating that the phallus is not a symbol of man’s power; on the contrary, it is evidence of his helplessness, for it is devoured by the vagina. “After the semen’s extraction,” she writes, “the depleted male is physically and emotionally drained, while females are powered to continue.” And shortly after: “Because of its importance in the continuation of birth and the expansion of families, the vagina becomes the seat of women’s power” (264).
Another area that is re-theorised, is the issue of female genital mutilation (FGM). It turns out that FGM is not always and already a mutilation or a patriarchal imposition on women. On the contrary, some of the practices that have been lumped together in the category “FGM” are modifications, not mutilations, and they are sometimes voluntarily undertaken by some women to enhance their sexual pleasure or that of their partners.
In an insightful essay that anti-FGM crusaders need to read carefully, Brigitte Bagnol and Esmeralda Mariano write: “Some women modify the diameter of the vagina, its temperature, lubrication, humidity and consistency through steam baths, smokes and application or ingestion of various preparations” (271). In an endnote, they report something that will surprise many white South Africans: “Anecdotal accounts suggest that some white South African women are getting in on the act [of manually elongating the inner folds of the labia minora to create the culturally approved organ modification, which is deemed sensuous and critical for enhanced sexual pleasure] in order to keep their men from crossing racial lines” (267). Clearly, the Reader challenges us to discover issues that might seem too “archaic” to interest modern and postmodern people, some of them carrying Master’s and Doctoral degrees.
There are also some humorous (albeit serious) chapters in the Reader. One of them is entitled “Ob/Gyn Experiences – Life Stories”. It is a list of twelve experiences compiled by the editor, Tamale. “In more ways than one, the relation between gynaecologists and their women patients is quintessentially one of power,” she writes in her introduction to this chapter. The first of these stories presents us with a lady called Mumbi (not her real name) whom a male doctor asks while at his job, “Did you know that you have grey hair?” Imagine that!
“How old did you say you were again?” another male doctor asks Ndanatsei, who has spread out her legs as much as she can, making her wonder if the question has been raised because she “looked older or younger down there”.
The Reader is encyclopaedic in its coverage of African sexualities, and the range of issues raised is admirable, with very insightful contributions from different parts of the continent. Karim Mahmoud Tartoussieh gives us an illuminating essay on “clean cinema” in Egypt – a genre that requires “a reconfiguration of the cinematic bodies of artists (especially female artists) to fit within a normative religio-ethical project” (218).
From Uganda, we have the experience of Julius Kaggwa, Director of Support Initiative for People with atypical Sex Development, who lived the first 17 years of his life as a woman, having been “born with an atypical body anatomy close to 40 years ago” that made her/him “a victim of emotional blackmail” — a story that reminds the reader of Herculine Barbin, the 19th century French intersexual who eventually committed suicide.
Sally Gross, a South African Jew born intersexed, gives a chronicle of her life, specifically the legal activism in which she has been involved. She observes that the public needs to be educated about intersex as “part of the fabric of human diversity and not a threat, a rights issue and not pathology” (236). Indeed, the definition of the term “intersex” given in the Oxford Dictionary of English (2010) as “the abnormal condition of being intermediate between male and female; hermaphroditism”, indicates the extent to which intersex is still inscribed as an abnormality.
Despite these strengths there are a few shortcomings in the book. Firstly, heterosexuality seems to be marginalised in favour of other sexualities. This is understandable, given that one of the aims of the book is to dismantle what Adrienne Rich called “compulsory heterosexuality”. However, it does make the book seem activism-oriented. Of course there is nothing wrong with this, except that it gives the feeling that heterosexuality is “guilty” of something – of suppressing other sexualities, if you like.
Secondly, there are cases where some contributors are blatantly biased. In the ob/gyn experiences I have referred to above, all twelve experiences portray “bad”, unethical male gyns. Surely there must be accounts of “a few good men” out there?
Finally, the Reader does not provide a note on the contributors that would have helped readers to follow up on the work (and biography) of their favourite contributors.
These shortcomings are of course nothing when compared to the wealth of information presented in the Reader, and I commend Tamale for enriching the African library with a book that is destined to change the way we talk about and teach sexualities in Africa. Indeed, the last section of the Reader offers pedagogical approaches to the teaching of sexualities both at school and in communities. The book will certainly change the way some people experience sexuality, for instance by encouraging those in “hiding” to open up and embrace their sexuality the way contributor Kipkemboi [Jeffrey Moses] did.
In 2003, the readers of Uganda’s leading daily, New Vision, named Sylvia Tamale, at that time an associate professor of law at Makerere University, “the Worst Woman of the Year” for suggesting to the then proposed Equal Opportunities Commission, in her status as a lawyer, that the term “minorities” should cover lesbian and gay citizens of Uganda. Reading African Sexualities: A Reader, it becomes clear that the woman they vilified as a moral degenerate is a great humanist who is using her scholarly talent and calling as a lawyer to give hope to the millions of people on the continent who are being oppressed for embracing who and what they are, sexually.
FEATURES
If Sexuality were a human being ...
Introduction to 'African Sexualities: A Reader'
Sylvia Tamale
2011-05-11, Issue 529
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73150
Printer friendly version
‘African Sexualities’ is a groundbreaking new volume, forthcoming from Pambazuka Press. As well as using popular culture to help address the ‘what, why, how, when and where’ questions, the book’s contributors provide a critical mapping of African sexualities that informs readers about the plurality and complexities of sexualities on the continent – desires, practices, fantasies, identities, taboos, abuses, violations, stigmas, transgressions and sanctions. At the same time, the contributors pose gender-sensitive and politically aware questions that challenge the reader to interrogate assumptions and hegemonic sexuality discourses, thereby unmapping the intricate and complex terrain of African sexualities.
The following article by ‘African Sexualities’ editor Sylvia Tamale comprises the book’s introduction.
If Sexuality were a human being and she made a grand entrance (l’entrée grande) into the African Union conference centre, the honourable delegates would stand up and bow in honour. But the acknowledgement of and respect for Sexuality would no doubt be tinged with overtones of parody and irony, even sadness, because although Sexuality might represent notions of pleasure and the continuity of humanity itself, the term conjures up discussions about sources of oppression and violence. In fact, once Sexuality got to the podium and opened her mouth, the multiple complexities associated with her presence would echo around the conference room.
The Reader on African Sexualities (hereafter referred to as the Reader) intends to translate these echoes into comprehensible notions and concepts, carefully examining their different wavelengths and the terms of their power and laying bare the theoretical, political and historical aspects of African sexualities. The term ‘African sexualities’ immediately provokes the questions: who/what is African? What is sexuality? Who determines what qualifies as African sexualities? Among other things, the Reader attempts to address these deeply complex questions through the lenses of history, feminism, law, sociology, anthropology, spirituality, poetry, fiction, life stories, rhetoric, song, art and public health. In this way the Reader offers a rare opportunity to theorise sexuality through various modes. The idea is to deconstruct, debunk, expose, contextualise and problematise concepts associated with African sexualities in order to avoid essentialism, stereotyping and othering. The material in this Reader has been carefully selected to surface the complexities associated with what has been pandered as African and the issues surrounding sexuality that have been taken for granted. One of the main challenges for contributors to the Reader was to refuse to perpetuate colonial reification of ‘African’ as a homogenous entity. Hence, the title’s reference to African sexualities is not because we are unaware of the richness and diversity of African peoples’ heritage and experiences. Jane Bennett’s essay in Chapter 6 addresses this issue at great length. Any reference to the term ‘African’ in this volume is used advisedly to highlight those aspects of cultural ideology – the ethos of community, solidarity and ubuntu[1] – that are widely shared among the vast majority of people within the geographical entity baptised ‘Africa’ by the colonial map-makers. More importantly, the term is used politically to call attention to some of the commonalities and shared historical legacies inscribed in cultures and sexualities within the region by forces such as colonialism, capitalism, imperialism, globalisation and fundamentalism. Even as these commonalities are proposed, however, readers will find them challenged. Although diverse forces interrupted the shape of sexualities on the continent – redefining notions of morality, for example, and ‘freezing’ them into social and political spaces through both penal codification and complex alliances with political and religious authority – differences among continental spaces meant that such interruptions had diverse effects. Such forces further attempted to standardise global ideas about African sexualities, often erasing questions of diversities and complexities of sexual relations. As the material in Part 1 reveals, however, colonial methods of researching, theorising and engaging in sexualities in Africa left indelible and significant imprints on people’s sexual lives. This, however, is not to suggest that the continent became a hostage of its late colonial history. As the materials in this Reader clearly show, the continent is currently replete with vibrant movements, some seeking to reinforce sexual hegemonic powers and others challenging, subverting and resisting imposed modes of identity, morality and behaviour patterns. Some of the subversions have deep roots – Parts 2 and 3, titled ‘Sexuality, power and politics’ and ‘Mapping sexual representations and practices of identity’, respectively, offer expansions of these issues and excavate the political origins and social consequences of the politics of sexualities in Africa. We speak of sexualities in the plural in recognition of the complex structures within which sexuality is constructed and in recognition of its pluralist articulations. The notion of a homogeneous, unchanging sexuality for all Africans is out of touch not only with the realities of lives, experiences, identities and relationships but also with current activism and scholarship. Ideas about and experiences of African sexualities are shaped and defined by issues such as colonialism, globalisation, patriarchy, gender, class, religion, age, law and culture. Because these phenomena are at play elsewhere in the world, and because of the various historical links that connect Africa to the rest of humankind, some theoretical and conceptual approaches that have informed sexualities studies elsewhere have relevance to the way writers think through questions of African sexualities. Sexualities are often thought of as closely related to one of the most critical of biological processes, namely reproduction. But contemporary scholarship understands sexualities as socially constructed, in profound and troubling engagement with the biological, and therefore as heavily influenced by, and implicated within, social, cultural, political and economic forces. The study of sexualities therefore offers unending lessons about pleasure, creativity, subversion, violence, oppression and living. Attempts to define the term sexuality often end in frustration, and become in themselves exercises about writers’ own orientations, prioritisations and passions. As Oliver Phillips reminds us: ‘Sexuality can be defined by referring to a wide range of anatomical acts and physical behaviour involving one, two or more people. We can relate it to emotional expressions of love, intimacy and desire that can take an infinite variety of forms. Or it can be implicated in the reproduction of social structures and markers through rules and regulations that permit or prohibit specific relations and/or acts. In the end, it emerges that these definitions are far from exhaustive. None of them are adequate on their own but that when considered all together they reflect the multiple ways that sexuality is manifest and impacts on our lives, and that above all; these definitions all consistently involve relations of power.’ (Phillips 2011: 285) It is this question of power to which the materials in this Reader return time and again. As a continent, Africa has made significant progress in creating the space at policy level for discussion of sexual and reproductive health and rights. Since the International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo, Egypt in 1994, the African Union has adopted the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol),[2] the Plan of Action on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (Maputo Plan of Action),[3] and the Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA).[4] These continent-wide efforts have boosted the possibility of creating national policies on a wide variety of issues including gender-based violence, access to reproductive healthcare and a focus on sexualities education, among others. Although these policies are numerous, missing are the theoretical and practical sparks to ignite the commitment required from both state and non-state actors to implement them. Moreover, studies have revealed the direct link between the delivery of sexual and reproductive health services and sustainable development (UN Millenium Project 2006). Part 5 of this volume addresses the latter, with the opening essay by Beth Maina Ahlberg and Asli Kulane clearly framing the link between sexual and reproductive rights and issues of development. The law turns sexualities into a space through which instruments of state control and dominance can be deployed. For example, the criminal legal system in most African states attempts to regulate how, when and with whom we can have consensual sex. The offences of prostitution, abortion and adultery clearly curtail both women’s and men’s sexual autonomy (although as the Reader material suggests, it is women’s autonomy that is most severely under threat), and the criminalisation of homosexuality affects both men and women who do not conform to the dominant ideology of heterosexuality. The material in Part 6, titled ‘Sex and masculinities’, demonstrates this very well. Western scholars have thus far conducted the bulk of studies on sexualities and a big chunk of what has been published on the African continent emanates from South Africa.[5] This phenomenon has more to do with geopolitical power differentials than academic superiority. The dominance of Western theories and perspectives on sexuality studies and the fact that the main languages of academia are colonial have serious implications for rapidly growing sexualities scholarship on the continent. African feminists and other change agents are well aware of the dangers associated with the uncritical application of Western theories to non-Western contexts (Adomako Ampofo and Arnfred 2010). They constantly struggle to overcome the limitations and encumbrances that come with creating and disseminating cultural-specific knowledge in a foreign colonial language. They understand the capacity of language to confer power through naming and conveying meaning and nuance to sexuality concepts. Concepts such as silence, restraint, choice, gay, lesbian, coming out and drag queen, for example, all carry specific social meanings steeped in Western ideology and traditions. It is worth reiterating the point made earlier: as researchers and theorists of sexualities we must always take great care not to fall into the homogenising trap. One of the salient points made by various authors in this volume is to avoid homogenising and essentialising people’s sexualities (whether Africans, Europeans, Asians, Middle Eastern or Hispanics). Although many writers often hold romanticised notions of pre-colonial African sexualities as having been unrestricted and unbridled, the facts are quite different. As in all social organisations, African societies historically involved the organisation of gender, sexuality and reproduction – the diverse shapes, fluidities, the visible and invisible, the spiritual and the political and economic dynamics of those societies – which resulted in certain restraints. For instance, almost all societies on the continent would have treated sexual interaction with a child or between parent and offspring as abominations. Part 8 is titled ‘Sexuality, spirituality and the supernatural’, and provides a glimpse of some of the complexities that pervade African sexualities in light of traditional beliefs and practices. In the context of a resurgence of cultural, religious and economic fundamentalist movements, feminists and gender activists on the continent have forged global alliances in the struggle for women’s bodily integrity and sexual autonomy. After all, patterns of control seen in sexual and gender-based violence, marital rape, sex trafficking, teenage pregnancies, women’s sexual pleasure and so forth bear no national, religious or cultural stamp. But as feminists across the continents increase their global political activism for women’s reproductive health and sexual rights, so do they have to account more carefully for the differentials in culture and history. So, although it is important to pay attention to the intersections among nations regarding gender inequality, it is crucial that the strategies employed by African feminists be informed by the lived experiences of women and men on the continent and the specificities of what they hold as their culture, taking into account that there is not always agreement among people in the same locale about the nuances and meanings of culture. Part 7, titled ‘Who’s having sex and who’s not?’, surfaces some of the most common stereotypes and prejudices about sexualities and the lived experiences of marginal groups in our societies.
Debates on sexual inequality represent the most fundamental challenge to struggles for global democracy. One of the biggest challenges of our times is how to confront the complexities of intersecting oppressions so that people identified as sexual minorities, for example sex workers, lesbians, gays, transgendered, intersexed, rape survivors and people living with HIV/AIDS, are able to stand with full status on the same podium such as those representing groups fighting dictatorships, corruption, social injustice, insecurity, discrimination against women, or people with disabilities. There are of course sexual minorities within each of these groups and often implicit among groups are concerns about sexualities. Until we close the gap between different voices demanding justice and equality, embracing the infinite possibilities of our sexual, social, economic and political beings, the African renaissance or the transformation that we are striving for will forever remain a mirage.
One important way of closing these gaps is by raising awareness through formal and informal education on sexualities. Part 9, titled ‘Pedagogical approaches’, demonstrates how this can be done in creative and effective ways. HOW TO USE THIS READER The key objective of this Reader is to amplify the voices of Africans on the topic of sexualities. This is achieved through a critical mapping and unmapping of African sexualities. The process of mapping is meant to inform readers about the plurality and complexities of African sexualities, including desires, practices, presentations, fantasies, identities, taboos, abuses, violations, stigmas, transgressions and sanctions. At the same time, it poses questions that challenge the reader to interrogate assumptions and hegemonic sexuality discourses, thereby unmapping the intricate and complex terrain of African sexualities. How is sexuality linked to gender and subordination? What is the ‘Africanness’ in sexualities? How has history shaped African sexualities? What explicit and implicit diversities exist within sexuality? The Reader exposes the hidden or subtle lines that link the various aspects of our lives and sexualities. Such exposure facilitates our understanding of the negative and positive factors associated with the complex phenomenon of sexuality, including how it is instrumentalised, commodified and politicised, as well as its reproductive, pleasurable and empowering aspects. Generally speaking, by the time we grow into adults many of us have done a great deal of learning, most of it rote (uncritical). Mechanical learning (cram, cram, cram, drill, drill, drill) is the norm for most of us as we move along the conveyor belt of examinations in post-colonial African education systems. The informal cultural systems of education that largely emphasise children’s unquestioning obedience to adults do not help either. Both formal and informal education in the main promote learning in dualisms and absolute truths, such as right and wrong, good and bad, moral and immoral, inclusion and exclusion and male and female. These do little to foster reflective and critical thinking. The end result is that our learning processes grossly neglect to instruct us in the important concept of unlearning. Without this skill, it is extremely difficult for us to think critically and to question unjust frameworks or challenge the established order. Most of us passively absorb the assumptions and perspectives of the dominant view and many of us have a visceral negative reaction to the concept of sexuality. Unlearning literally requires us to discard our old eyes and acquire a new set with which to see the world. It requires us to jettison assumptions and prejudices that are so deep-seated and internalised that they have become normal and appear to be natural. The critical process of transformative learning requires us to apply our intellect, unlearn deeply entrenched behaviour patterns and beliefs and relearn new ones. It requires us to acquire the vital skills to critically analyse internalised oppression and complicity with patriarchy and capitalism. It further requires us to step out of our familiar comfort zones and enter the world of discomfort and anxiety associated with change. Such processes, which call for a reorganisation of the old, are always fraught with difficulty, disequilibrium and stress. This Reader on African Sexualities calls on us to do exactly that. It challenges us to confront issues that society has clothed in taboos, inhibitions and silences, to unclothe them, quiz them and give them voice. It certainly requires us to unlearn and relearn many things that we take for granted about sexualities and may well leave us confused, shocked, offended, embarrassed, scared and even a little excited. Many of us, for instance, will be baffled by the fact that issues of sexuality and desire, which are viewed as apolitical and private, are in fact steeped in politics and power relations. But such realisations are part of transformational learning and are reflections of our intellectual and political growth and our personal development. To get maximum benefit from this Reader we need to pry our minds open to fresh ideas, absorb new knowledge and apply our intellect, knowledge and experience to develop a critical analysis of the issue at hand. Opening our minds means to accept differences, to see the world through the eyes of others, to open our ears to diverse viewpoints and to venture beyond our familiar horizons. To appreciate the Reader we have to tap deep into our inner resources of respect, empathy, tolerance, self-reflexivity and courage. We have to let our minds drift beyond the box, to see with our hands, hear with our skin and taste with our mind’s eye. The Reader is divided into nine thematic parts, each containing essays that introduce the reader to the main concepts as well as key issues and debates in the area, thus providing a solid framework for analysis, review of knowledge and transformative action. There is an inevitable overlap of issues across the parts, which serves as a constant reminder of the intertwining nature of sexualities in every aspect of our lives and the web-like political effects. The structured divisions are forced for conceptual neatness and reading convenience more than anything else. In addition to the essays, the Reader unconventionally carries a wide variety of genres including poetry, fiction, life stories, songs and diary entries. The range of writings is meant not only to connect readers to everyday, real-life sexual experiences, but also to stimulate creative, interesting and critical thinking about the inter-linkages between sexuality, power, rights, (under)development and various structures of inequality. At the end of each thematic part, the reader will find a set of questions that acts as a guide for a systematic and critical approach to the key issues. Though this Reader attempts to use accessible language, analyses of African sexualities inevitably involve the use of complex and unfamiliar terms and concepts. For this reason, we have included a glossary at the end of book. A final note concerns the authorship of the material. Almost all of the authors can be described as African writers, if the term African is understood as a geopolitical space. All of them can be termed African in the sense that the passion driving their research and writing comes from engagement with the idea that serious global knowledge creation requires that the lives, experiences, ideas and imagination of people throughout the continent be considered critically important. The diversity of the authors defies categorisation: they are men, women, sex workers, intersexed and transgendered; they speak many languages and write, here, in English; they live in 16 of Africa’s 54 countries and in the diaspora; they have experienced multiple African realities; they live their own sexualities across diverse possibilities of desire, attraction, family creation, political activism and identity. When working with this Reader, it is also important to recognise that many of the authors represented here are prolific and previously published writers in addition to a crop of fresh and exciting new scholarship. BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS * Edited by Sylvia Tamale, ‘African Sexualities’ is a groundbreaking volume, coming soon from Pambazuka Press.* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News. NOTES [1] The African philosophy of ubuntu (humaneness) refers to understanding diversity and the belief in a universal bond and sharing (Ramose 1999). Justice Yvonne Mokgoro of the South African Constitutional Court elaborated this difficult-to-translate concept:
In its most fundamental sense it translates as personhood and ‘morality’. Metaphorically … [it describes] the significance of group solidarity on survival issues so central to the survival of communities. While it envelopes the key values of group solidarity, compassion, respect, human dignity, conformity to basic norms and collective unity, in its fundamental sense it denotes humanity and morality. Its spirit emphasizes a respect for human dignity, marking a shift from confrontation to conciliation. (Quoted in Sachs 2009: 106–107)
[2] Adopted in 2003 and brought into force in 2005, the Maputo Protocol addresses the health and reproductive rights of African women in Article 14.
[3] The Maputo Plan of Action was adopted in 2007 as a strategy to implement the continental policy framework for sexual and reproductive health and rights.
[4] Launched in 2009, CARMMA was meant to speed up the process of implementing the Maputo Plan of Action.
[5] These facts are clearly reflected by the dominance of Western theories as well as the over-representation of South African scholarship in this volume. REFERENCES Adomako Ampofo, A. and Arnfred, S. (eds) (2010) African Feminist Politics of Knowledge: Tensions, Challenges, Possibilities, Uppsala, The Nordic Africa Institute
Phillips, Oliver (2011) ‘Teaching sexuality and law in southern Africa: locating historical narratives and adopting appropriate conceptual frameworks’, in Tsanga, A. and Stewart, J. (eds) Women and Law: Innovative Approaches to Teaching, Research and Analysis, Harare, Weaver Press
Ramose, M. (1999) African Philosophy through Ubuntu, Harare, Mond Books
Sachs, Albie (2009) The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law, London, Oxford University Press
United Nations Millennium Project (2006) Public Choices, Private Decisions: Sexual and Reproductive Health and the Millennium Development Goals, New York, UN Millenium Project