Research Catalog

Title

Boy-wives and female husbands : studies in African homosexualities / edited by Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe ; with a new foreword by Marc Epprecht.

Publication

Albany : State University of New York Press, [2021]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Murray, Stephen O.
• Roscoe, Will
• Epprecht, Marc

Description

xxxvi, 337 pages : illustrations, maps; 24 cm

Summary

• "Homosexuality in traditional and contemporary African societies to be rooted in colonialist ideologies"--
• "A significant contribution to anthropology, history, and gender studies that reveals the denials of homosexuality in traditional and contemporary African societies to be rooted in colonialist ideologies. Among the many myths created about Africa, the claim that homosexuality and gender diversity are absent or incidental is one of the oldest and most enduring. Historians, anthropologists, and many contemporary Africans alike have denied or overlooked African same-sex patterns or claimed that such patterns were introduced by Europeans or Arabs. In fact, same-sex love and nonbinary genders were and are widespread in Africa. Boy-Wives and Female Husbands documents the presence of this diversity in some fifty societies in every region of the continent south of the Sahara. Essays by scholars from a variety of disciplines explore institutionalized marriages between women, same-sex relations between men and boys in colonial work settings, mixed gender roles in east and west Africa, and the emergence of LGBTQ activism in South Africa, which became the first nation in the world to constitutionally ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. Also included are oral histories, folklore, and translations of early ethnographic reports by German and French observers. Boy-Wives and Female Husbands was the first serious study of same-sex sexuality and gender diversity in Africa, and this edition includes a new foreword by Marc Epprecht that underscores the significance of the book for a new generation of African scholars, as well as reflections on the book's genesis by the late Stephen O. Murray." --

Subject

• Homosexuality > Africa > History
• Homosexuality > Africa > Public opinion
• Gay men > Africa > Identity
• Lesbians > Africa > Identity
• Homosexuality in literature
• Homophobia in literature
• Homophobia in anthropology
• Public opinion > Africa
• Gay men > Identity
• Homosexuality
• Homosexuality > Public opinion
• Lesbians > Identity
• Public opinion
• Africa

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-329) and index.

Contents

New foreword / Marc Epprecht -- The genesis of Boy-wives and female husbands / Stephen O. Murray -- Preface: "All very confusing" -- Africa and African homosexualities : an introduction -- Part I: Horn of Africa, Sudan, and East Africa -- "A feeling within me" : Kamau, a 25 year-old Kikuyu / Stephen O. Murray -- Occurrences of contrary-sex among the Negro population of Zanzibar (1899) / M. Haberlandt, translated by Bradley Rose -- Mashoga, Mabasha, and Magei : "homosexuality" on the East African coast / Deborah P. Amory -- Part II: West Africa -- A 1958 visit to a Dakar boy brothel / Michael Davidson -- Male lesbians and other queer notions in Hausa / Rudolf P. Gaudio -- West African homoeroticism : West African men who have sex with men / Nii Ajen -- Part III: Central Africa -- Homosexuality among the Negroes of Cameroon and a Pangwe tale (1921, 1911) / Günther Tessmann, translated by Bradley Rose -- Ganga-Ya-Chibanda (1687) / Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi, translated by Will Roscoe -- Same-sex life among a few Negro tribes of Angola (1923) / Kurt Falk, translated by Bradley Rose -- Part IV: Southern Africa -- Homosexuality among the natives of Southwest Africa (1925-1926) / Kurt Falk, translated by Bradley Rose and Will Roscoe -- "Good God almighty, what's this!" : homosexual "crime" in early colonial Zimbabwe / Marc Epprecht -- "When a woman loves a woman" in Lesotho : love, sex, and the (Western) construction of homophobia / Kendall -- Sexual politics in contemporary Southern Africa / Stephen O. Murray -- Part V: Conclusions -- Woman-woman marriage in Africa / Joseph M. Carrier and Stephen O. Murray -- Diversity and identity : the challenge of African homosexualities -- Appendix 1: African groups with same-sex patterns -- Appendix 2: Organizations of homosexuality and other social structures in Sub-Saharan Africa / Stephen O. Murray.

Call Number

Sc E 21-419

ISBN

• 9781438484099
• 1438484097

LCCN

2020034064

OCLC

1182020839

Title

Boy-wives and female husbands : studies in African homosexualities / edited by Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe ; with a new foreword by Marc Epprecht.

Publisher

Albany : State University of New York Press, [2021]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-329) and index.

Added Author

Murray, Stephen O., editor.

Roscoe, Will, editor.

Epprecht, Marc, writer of foreword.

Research Call Number

Sc E 21-419