Canadian Journal of African Studies Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines

Volume 43 Number 1 / Numéro 1 2009 Canadian Journal of African Studies Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines

Volume 43 Number 1 / Numéro 1 2009 Special Issue / Numéro spécial New Perspectives on Sexualities in Africa / Les sexualités africaines dans leurs nouvelles perspectives

Contents / Sommaire

New Perspectives on Sexualities in Africa: Introduction Marc Epprecht 1

Les sexualités africaines dans leurs nouvelles perspectives: Introduction Charles Gueboguo 8

The Widow, the Will, and Widow-inheritance in Kampala: Revisiting Victimisation Arguments Stella Nyanzi, Margaret Emodu-Walakira, and Wilberforce Serwaniko 12

Faith in God, But Not in Condoms: Churches and Competing Visions of HIV Prevention in Namibia Nicole Rigillo 34

Sur les rétributions des pratiques homosexuelles à Bamako Christophe Broqua 60

Deaf, Gay, HIV Positive, and Proud: Narrating an Alternative Identity in Post-Apartheid South Africa Karin Willemse and Ruth Morgan with John Meletse 84

“Mombasa Morans”: Embodiment, Sexual Morality, and Samburu Men in Kenya George Paul Meiu 106

ii Research Note / Note de recherche

Penser les “droits” des homosexuels/les en Afrique: du sens et de la puissance de l’action associative militante au Cameroun Charles Gueboguo 130

Review Articles / Études bibliographiques

African Feminists on Sexualities Signe Arnfred 152

Sexualities, Pleasure, and Politics in Southern Africa Bodil Folke Frederiksen 161

Southern African Homosexualities and Denials Stephen O. Murray 168

Contre l’homophobie en Afrique Patrick Awondo 174

African Perspectives on Female Circumcision Amy Kaler 179

Same-Sex Sexuality Issues in Some African Popular Media Unoma Azuah 185

Book Reviews / Comptes rendus

Sévérin Cécile Abéga. Violence Sexuelle et l’Etat au Cameroun. Sybille N. Nyeck 188

Julian B. Carter. The Heart of Whiteness: Normal Sexuality and Race in America, 1880-1940. Barrington Walker 190

Catherine Cole, Takyiwaa Manuh and Stephan Miescher, eds. Africa After Gender? Brigitte Bagnol 192

Cary Alan Johnson. Off the Map: How HIV/AIDS Programming Is Failing Same-Sex Practicing People in Africa. Amanda Lock Swarr 195

iii Eleanor Maticka-Tyndale, Richmond Tiemoko and Paulina Makinwa-Adebusoye, eds. Human Sexuality in Africa: Beyond Reproduction. Robert Morrell 198

Ruth Morgan and Saskia Wieringa, eds. Tommy Boys, Lesbian Men and Ancestral Wives: Female Same-Sex Practices in Africa. Sam Bullington 201

Nicoli Nattrass. Mortal Combat: AIDS Denialism and the Struggle for Antiretrovirals in South Africa. Mary Caesar 204

Stephanie Newell. The Forger’s Tale: The Search for Odeziaku. Taiwo Oloruntoba-Oju 206

Alexander Rödlach. Witches, Westerners and HIV: AIDS and Cultures of Blame in Africa. Allison Goebel 208

Tamara Shefer, Kopano Ratele, A. Strebel, N. Shabalala and R. Buikema, eds. From Boys to Men: Social Constructions of Masculinity in Contemporary Society. Mikki van Zyl 211

Works Cited / Ouvrages cités 215 Contributors / Collaborateurs 235

iv New Perspectives on Sexualities in Africa: Introduction

Marc Epprecht

To study sexuality is to study everything: power, culture, science, discourse, psychology, colonialism, political economy, health, tourism, among other phenomena. Indeed, sexuality, meaning simply the ways that we feel, understand, express, and represent ourselves as physiologically sexual beings, lies at the core of human being-ness. It shapes and is shaped by gender, race, class, ethnicity, religion, nationality, and almost any other social identities and relationships one can imagine. Sexuality can be spectacularly creative, joyful and affirming. It can be powerfully subversive of the oppressive lines and categories that societies often draw. Yet it is also often a vector for some of the worst and most intractable forms of violence in the world. Efforts to constrain naturally rambunctious sexuality within an ideologi - cal framework of “normal” or “respectable” have historically exacted a high toll in lives and health. Sexually transmitted infec - tions, for example, are often exacerbated in scope and morbidity by heteronormative definitions and policing of appropriate desire that create the space for secrets and eroticize risk. Pressure to conform to heterosexual norms also exposes young people world-wide to unsafe sex as safer alternatives are disparaged or actively discour - aged. In much of Africa today, the harmful impacts of such pres - sures and unspoken assumptions about diverse non-normative practices are glaringly evident in the devastating prevalence of HIV/AIDS and gender-based violence, including rape, homophobia, and men’s recalcitrance to match condom use with multiple concurrent sexual partners (see among many others to make this point, Becker et al 1999; Kalipeni et al 2004; Abdool-Karim and Abdool-Karim 2005; Steyn and van Zyl 2009). Given the centrality of sexuality to the human experience, its

1 2 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 study in scientific and other disciplined scholarly terms is a rela - tively recent development. Pioneers in theorizing the diversity and mutability of human sexuality, such as Karsch-Haack, Krafft- Ebbing, Ellis, and Freud, wrote in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Anthropology played a key role in this emerg - ing field of study by adding an ever-growing catalogue of specific cultural manifestations to the general theories. This included, however, many highly dubious claims by cultural outsiders to expertise on the topic, with pure speculation and second-hand anecdotes often passed off as scientific fact (see Bleys 1995; Lyons and Lyons 2004, notably; but also Epprecht 2008). Indeed, not until a research team led by Alfred Kinsey six decades ago did scholars first enumerate sexual practices in a methodologically disciplined manner. The work of Kinsey, Pomeroy and Martin (1948, 1953) fundamentally challenged popular understanding of actually-exist - ing American society and stimulated both furious public debates and an explosion of new empirical research. Historians only began substantitvely to engage with the issues in the 1970s, with Michel Foucault (1978) playing a similar inspirational role (Canaday 2009). African and Africanist scholars were relatively slow to take up this line of enquiry. To research African sexuality was to revisit painful racist stereotypes of Black Peril or loose women accummu - lated from the colonial era. Indeed, since the baseline of sexuality research in Africa had been laid down by ethnographers often with close ties (and sometimes active support) of colonial regimes, even scholars of gender generally steered clear of the topic for fear of association. When they did broach it, it was often in defensive or romantic terms that promoted misleading counter-myths about a singular African sexuality (Kenyatta [1938] 1961, as an important early example). In other cases, sexuality research was brushed aside by the presumption that there were more pressing things to do (such as fight colonialism and apartheid, understand poverty, and develop or build national consciousness) The advent of HIV/AIDS shattered that sense of priorities and the etiquette of avoiding talk about sexuality in Africa. HIV/AIDS exposed as false the presumption that sexuality was marginal to the big development debates. In the urgency to do something and to produce scholarship that might be useful in the struggle against HIV/AIDS, however, many clumsy mistakes were made. Early Epprecht: New Perspectives on Sexualities in Africa 3 epidemiological studies often unwittingly reiterated colonial stereotypes about a singular “African sexuality,” including such erroneous notions as homosexuality and bisexuality not existing in Africa south of the Sahara except where introduced by foreign influences. More careful and theoretically-informed research has steadily chipped away at those stereotypes, showing, for example, the historical, contingent, and plural nature of homosexualities in different contexts and in relation to the wider political economy (Gay 1985; Achmat 1993; Moodie with Ndatshe 1994; Gevisser and Cameron 1994; Murray and Roscoe 1998 must be counted among the pioneers in this respect; but see also new contributions by African activists in Morgan and Wieringa 2005; GALZ 2008). A similar trajectory can be discerned in scholarship that has moved from simplistic narratives of women’s and girls’ victimization by such practices as female genital cutting to unravelling complex motivations, struggles, and even “empowerment” within specific historical and cultural circumstances (such as Nypan 1991; Dellotenberg 2004; Boddy 2007). The need further to challenge blindspots and essentialisms around sexuality in Africa with meticulous research is evident, and has produced a growing number of calls to re-think even the most basic received knowledge (Arnfred 2004, notably, in addition to many of the books and special issues of journals reviewed in this volume). As a result, there is now a wealth of remarkably insight - ful and sensitive research that sheds light not just on hidden strug - gles in Africa, and on the multiplicity and protean nature of sexualities there. The new research also holds potential to invigo - rate scholarship and analytic models or concepts coming out of eurocentric Freudian or Foucaudian traditions on a global scale. This special issue of the Canadian Journal of African Studies aims to engage the new research and to interpret both theoretical debates and empirical evidence for an audience that otherwise may not be attuned. It has its origins in Dakar in February 2007 at a workshop to brainstorm the creation of an African arm of the International Resources Network (IRN). The IRN was established out of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the City University of New York to bridge the gap between academic research and activist or grassroots organizing around sexual rights and sexual health. While sexuality was understood broadly, a 4 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 specific interest lay in challenging heterosexist and homophobic cultures by promoting new and applied research into subaltern or non-normative sexualities (http://www.irnweb.org/index.cfm? contentID=2 39). For me, as a consultant, it was an exciting moment and an honour to participate. Three problems emerged over the course of the workshop, however, which from my perspective threatened to derail the project. First, there was a strong parochialism of the South African participants, whose self-confidence in their own successful struggles to put gay rights on the national agenda and whose certainty about the overwhelming importance of race in shaping identities and research questions was at times alienating to those (the majority) on the outside of the privileged categories. Second, there was an obvious undertheorization of sexuality among the West Africans who, for many reasons, often seemed unfamiliar with international scholarship that problematized assumptions about heterosexuality and nature. Third, while respectable efforts were made to bridge the two solitudes between francophone and anglophone Africa, the dominance of the latter remained (no lusophones or Arabophones attended at all). The Canadian Association of African Studies / l’Association canadienne des études africaines provided the first opportunity to address these challenges in a North American venue. George-Paul Mieu invited me to chair a panel at the 2007 annual conference at the University of Toronto. Supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, I in turn brought IRN colleague Charles Gueboguo from l’Université de Yaoundé to participate in what quickly became two panels. The papers were of such high quality, and the discussion that they generated in French and English so lively that a special issue of the Canadian Journal of African Studies / la Revue Canadienne des études africaines almost proposed itself. Charles and I put out a call for other contrib - utors through our personal networks. The result here is by no means a systematic survey of the state of the field. It is highly uneven by geography, with no substantive contributions from several of the largest countries on the conti - nent. Readers will also be struck by a bias toward “abnormal,” alternative, or marginal sexualities. This is not to suggest lack of interest in the sexuality of the majority population. On the Epprecht: New Perspectives on Sexualities in Africa 5 contrary, à la Marx and Gramsci, we hold that the view from the margins helps to penetrate the inversions and fog of hegemonic culture that is so particularly thick around heteronormative sexu - ality. Moreover, we challenge the very idea of normalcy. As several of the articles and books reviewed make clear, “normal” is frequently only achieved by rigorous denial, secrecy, and misrepre - sentation of majority practice. Several themes run through the articles. Stella Nyanzi, Margaret Emodu and Wilberforce Seranwika set the tone with a critique of exoticizing tendencies in Western scholarship and media on “African sexuality” and HIV/AIDS. Their specific concern is the common trope in those media whereby some obscure aspect of African culture is held up to explain high rates of HIV infection (and titillate or absolve Western readers in the process). In this case, the authors conducted an empirical study based primarily on the testimony of Bagandan widows. Does the custom of widow inheritance really disempower women and contribute to the high rates of HIV/AIDS in Uganda? If not, what does the persistence of that explanation in mainstream HIV/AIDS discourse tell us about the latter? Nicole Rigollo also focuses on HIV/AIDS, taking up a question that bedevils prevention and education campaigns around the continent. Why is it so difficult to sell the scientifically sound recommendation that men should wear condoms during sexual intercourse as a means to protect themselves and their partners from sexually transmitted infection? It turns out that it is not simply the illogic, selfishness, and stubbornness of African men, as often rued. A radical reconceptualization of the C part of ABC campaigns is in order, not least of which would involve tackling scientific-sounding anti-condom ideas propagated by Christian leaders and North American missionaries. Another theme running through the articles is the relationship between sexuality and identity, both individual and collective. The former is the main focus of Ruth Morgan and Karin Willemse. They use life history methods to tease out the very complex interplay of factors that led a multiply disadvantaged person (deaf, gay, HIV+, black, poor, young) — John Meletse — to emerge, and to take pride in himself, as a community leader. A similarly compelling analysis of the construction of collective identity in relation to sexuality is 6 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

George-Paul Mieu’s study of sex tourism in Kenya. He shows how the chickens of colonial ethnographies that eroticized an archetype of Maasai masculinity are coming home to roost through female sex tourism. Mostly elderly western European women travel to Kenya to consume the product of that fantasy, to which young men (often not Maasai at all, but Samburu) opportunistically cater. The impact on ethnic and class formation under conditions of economic structural adjustment are sometimes surprising and disturbing to Kenyans. Cash plays a big role in these behaviours and new social forma - tions. The final substantive article asks a provocative question about transactional sex in Mali. Why is it that homosexual rela - tionships are often described as mercenary or prostitution when even respectable heterosexual relationships typically have very similar or even more pronounced exchanges of cash and gifts between sexual partners. Christophe Broqua shows that same-sex relationships exist (in fact are likely widespread) in Mali, that they commonly co-exist with heterosexual relationships including marriage, that they are generally more complicated and flexible than popular (and even academic) wisdom holds, and that they are often less “corrupted” by strictly monetary concerns than hetero - sexual relations. Again, this strongly suggests that some funda - mental assumptions with mainstream approaches to sexuality education, sexual rights, and women’s empowerment need to be re- assessed. Sexual rights — how to define them and how to achieve them — is another prickly question in much of Africa (as indeed, let us not forget, it still is elsewhere in the world including Canada). Not only is there a problem of perception, whereby leading advocates of broad definitions of sexual rights in Africa or female empowerment are coming from the West, often with a missionary or colonizing tone in their voices that alienates potential African allies. There is also the problem that even narrow definitions of sexual rights pose profound challenges to hegemonic, heteropatriarchal culture. Should girls and boys be taught the health benefits of masturbation, for example, and at what age? How far should the state go to coach wives on their right to refuse husbands’ sexual demands? Should prostitution be legalized (and prostitutes unionized), and so on? A large social, cultural, and political edifice stands to crumble when Epprecht: New Perspectives on Sexualities in Africa 7 such specific rights are recognized, as conservative African leaders intuit all too well. The African Union has explicitly supported the principles of full and frank sex education and the eradication of cultural prac - tices that disempower or stereotype people in sex and gender roles (see Protocol on the rights of women (July 2003), Article 2, www.africa-union.org/home/Welcome.htm) Yet in practice on the ground it is often extremely difficult to achieve these goals. Attempting to promote knowledge about and respect for homosex - ualities is particularly fraught with danger, as witnessed in the state-backed homophobic reaction that has been a notable feature of the struggle for sexual rights all across the continent since the 1990s (Human Rights Watch 2003). Charles Gueboguo’s contribu - tion here, a revised version of his Fraser Taylor prize-winning paper at the CAAS / ACEA conference (2007), provides reflection on an important work in progress on that topic. It shows how a nascent “gay rights” association has tried to avert homophobic reaction from the state by establishing its bona fides in the wider society through alignment with the struggle against HIV/AIDS in the majority population. This has enabled a strong taboo to be broken (and indeed, presents a bold challenge to a repressive and corrupt political establishment), almost by stealth, with important impli - cations for the whole society. Finally, in addition to the articles, this volume includes several review essays and book reviews that offer new empirical studies or assess new contributions to the theorization of sexualities in Africa. Certain continuing pitfalls in the practice of sexuality research are apparent in some of those studies. But promising new ways of asking questions about sexuality and new perspectives on the data so gathered are also highlighted in the process. Les sexualités africaines dans leurs nouvelles perspectives: Introduction

Charles Gueboguo

C’est un truisme d’affirmer que les sexualités sont de véritables révélateurs sociaux. Aussi leur étude permet-elle de saisir un pan important de la vie des groupes dans lesquels elles agissent. La fabrique sociale des normes et l’invention de nouvelles postures à l’écart des normalités et de l’hétéro-normativité par des catégories socio-sexuelles sont ainsi mises en relief. En Afrique, peut être plus que partout ailleurs, il devient urgent de repenser et de re-problé - matiser les sexualités et les représentations du corps face à ses sexualités. La lecture des vécus sexuels singuliers de certains groupes africains, que ces vécus soient identitaires ou non, permet de postuler l’hypothèse foucaldienne des sexualités africaines conçues comme position stratégique. A partir de cette position il est possible d’entreprendre et de créer de nouvelles formes de rapport à soi-même et aux autres. Cela passe par une réappropria - tion des représentations du corps et l’incorporation de ces représen - tations dans un processus multicontextuel. Autrement dit les sexualités en Afrique peuvent devenir des lieux de rupture libidi - nale dans la société, des points d’émergence de l’énergie révolu - tionnaire désirante dont le militantisme classique restera déconnecté (Guattari 1977). Pour paraphraser Eribon, les sexualités africaines pourront être légitimement perçues comme les transfor - mations d’une situation à l’ordre dominant, et avec parfois des relents néo-colonialistes, en un processus de subjectivation choisie. Il s’agit de la constitution de l’individu comme sujet responsable de ses propres choix et de son devenir, par le moyen de l’érotisation généralisée et orientée du corps suivant des aspira - tions subjectives. C’est le plaisir qui annihile l’oppression, c’est le corps revendiqué qui annule le corps soumis à l’ordre social et

8 Gueboguo: Les sexualités africaines 9 permet à une nouvelle subjectivité d’émerger (Eribon 2001, 113). L’expression par excellence de cette subjectivité reste carac - térisée par les vécus sexuels construits autour de l’ homo . C’est ce qui peut expliquer pourquoi la moitié des articles présentés dans ce numéro spécial porte sur les homosexualités. En effet, il s’agit de positions jugées marginales à partir desquelles il devient possible de saisir la multiplicité des trajectoires pour repenser les liens entre les comportements sexuels, le corps, les identités, la construction du genre, la race, le rapport au politique, les statuts sociaux, la reli - gion, les mouvements associatifs et les logiques d’action qui les sous-tendent. Les thèmes abordés par les différents auteurs sont variés, mais ce numéro spécial n’a pas de prétention à une général - isation et à un épuisement de toutes les sexualités africaines. Tout au plus, s’agit-il des spécificités propres à des individus ou à des groupes dans des aires tout aussi précises qui permettent de s’ap - proprier un pan de la multiplicité des trajectoires socio-sexuelles, cela, à la suite de plusieurs auteurs du passé ou contemporains. Stella Nyanzi, Margaret Emodu et Wilberforce Serwaniko donnent le ton dans un article qui se propose de revisiter les argu - ments de victimisation qui positionne les veuves comme étant assujetties aux diktats patriarcaux. Ce qui va par la suite leur permettre d’examiner la place des “gardiens du lévirat,” omukuza, dans la vie sexuelle des veuves de Kampala en Ouganda, au temps du SIDA. Nicole Rigillo, à partir de la problématique du SIDA, met en exergue la difficile cohabitation de la religion et des modes de communication préventifs en Namibie. Elle souligne comment les leaders religieux se positionnent dans l’espace publique, notam - ment à travers les média, pour défier les discours et les campagnes de communication dans la lutte contre le SIDA par l’usage savant des données scientifiques, surtout quand celles-ci établissent les limites de la protection par le condom. Ruth Morgan et Karen Willemse essaient d’établir la relation entre la sexualité et les identités, notamment à travers le récit biographique d’un Sud-africain, John Meletse. Bien qu’il soit à lui seul tout un programme: sourd, homosexuel, séropositif au VIH, sans emploi, pauvre, noir et jeune, les auteurs montrent comment il articule et négocie ses trajectoires dans le processus qu‘il a mis en oeuvre pour accepter son homosexualité. Les auteurs montrent que 10 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 ce processus interagit avec les autres identités et est promulgué dans des contextes spécifiques, dans le temps et en relation avec les gens qui évoluent autour de lui. Paul Meiu analyse les effets des relations qui s’établissent entre les jeunes hommes Masaï et Samburu de Mombassa: ce sont les “Mombassa morans” (les guerriers) du Kenya et les femmes blanches âgées, touristes sexuelles. Dès lors il pose l’hypothèse de la re-situation de la masculinité des Samburu dans une nouvelle esthétique du corps et une incorporation des imaginaires néo-colo - niaux comme processus politiquement informés. Son effort va consister à essayer de théoriser autour de ces configurations et reconfigurations des incorporations locales, des identités et des imaginaires qui vont faire face à la critique, de ces nouveaux types de rapports à l’autre économiquement bénéfiques, en termes de sexualité morale chez les autres jeunes de même classe d’âge qui n’arrivent pas à imposer leur corps dans ce jeu. Christophe Broqua quant à lui pose la problématique des pratiques homosexuelles au Mali et de leur rapport avec l’argent. C’est ce qu’il appelle la sexualité transactionnelle: sexualité rétribuée qui se distingue de la prostitution classique. Elle établit un continuum entre éechange économico-sexuel et jeux amoureux. L’homosexualité en Afrique est-elle une source d’en - richissement, comme les gens du commun et parfois les homo - sexuels eux-mêmes le pensent? L’auteur n’essaie pas d’infirmer cette hypothèse mais propose plutôt de relever les logiques sociales que camouflent cette position. Il démontre en filigrane que la réalité des (homo) sexualités transactionnelles au Mali ne peut se comprendre enfin de compte qu’en relation avec l’ensem - ble de toutes les logiques des échanges hétérosexuels qui s’opèrent en Afrique contemporaine. Ma contribution, qui est une version révisée d’une communi - cation présentée à la conférence annuelle de l’ACEA en 2007 à Toronto et qui a reçu le Prix Taylor Frazer, essaie d’analyser comment des individus victimes de stigmatisation et d’exclusion construisent une communauté de stigmatisés qui affichent de manière positive leur identité sexuelle: à partir de ce que j’appelle le “prétexte SIDA.” Le mouvement gay associatif au Cameroun va ainsi rassembler des stigmatisés relativement privilégiés, du point de vue du capital culturel. Ce qui constitue un avantage consid - Gueboguo: Les sexualités africaines 11

érable dans les luttes de positions symboliques comme le souligne Bourdieu (1998, 134). En plus de ces six contributions, plusieurs comptes-rendus critiques de livres récents qui explorent les sexualités africaines dans une perspective théorique et/ou empirique sont proposés aux lecteurs. In fine les sexualités africaines, dans leurs nouvelles perspectives, restent des champs d’études en friche qui ne deman - dent qu’à être largement explorées, construites, déconstruites et reconstruites au cours du temps. The Widow, the Will, and Widow-inheritance in Kampala: Revisiting Victimisation Arguments

Stella Nyanzi, Margaret Emodu-Walakira, and Wilberforce Serwaniko

Résumé Dans les analyses des héritages des veuves, elles sont souvent représen - tées comme les victimes des préceptes sexuels patriarcaux. Notre étude a exploré les expériences du veuvage à Kampala. Le travail ethnographique sur le terrain a mêlé les observations des participants, les entrevues indi - viduelles semi-structurées et les discussions de groupes. Les veuves sont de nature hétérogènes. De nombreux maris sont morts intestat. Les maris excluent communément leurs femmes de la rédaction de leur testament. Un des rites funèbres d’un Muganda est la purification de sa veuve. Les veuves obtiennent un omukuza — levirate- gardien. Nos données contes - tent la sexualisation déclarée des relations levirate entre les veuves et leurs gardiens. Le coût de l’échange et de la possibilité de nouvelles perspectives est au ccntre même de la sexualisation des processus chez les veuves. La signification que l’on donne au veuvage a des propriétés trans - formatrices. Loin d’être un concept rigide, la sexualité des veuves se trans - forme peu à peu du fait du HIV/SIDA, des mariages mixtes, des synchronisations religieuses, des morts fréquentes et de la pauvreté. Si certaines veuves sont les victimes de circonstances menant à des activités sexuelles avec leurs levirate-gardiens, en revanche, beaucoup d’autres ont défié la sexualisation de la relation avec leurs gardiens. En revanche, quelques-unes ont tiré des avantages de leurs relations avec leurs levirate-

Research was supported by the Social Science Research Council’s fellow - ship on HIV/AIDS and public health policy research in Africa. Dr. Joseph Nyanzi, the Director of Mengo Hospital, provided administrative support and critical comments about the study design. We are grateful to study participants for sharing their stories.

12 Nyanzi, Emodu-Walakira and Serwaniko : The Widow 13 gardiens. La victimisation n’est qu’une des nombreuses significations liées au veuvage.

Abstract Widows are often presented as victims of patriarchal sexual dictates in analyses of widow-inheritance. Our study explored experiences of widow - hood in Kampala. Ethnographic fieldwork combined participant observa - tion, semi-structured individual interviews, and focus group discussions. Widows are heterogeneous. Many husbands died intestate. Husbands commonly exclude their wives from will-writing. A Muganda man’s last funeral rites include widow-cleansing. Widows get omukuza — levirate- guardian. Our data contest overt sexualisation of levirate relationships. Exchange and opportunity cost are crucial to sexualising of processes within widowhood. Meanings associated with widowhood are transform - ing. Rather than a frozen construct, sexuality of widows is changing because of HIV/AIDS, intermarriages, religious synchronisations, recur - rent deaths, and poverty. While some widows felt victims of circum - stances leading to sexual activities with levirate-guardians, many others challenged sexualising the levirate relationship. A few benefited from sexually engaging with levirate-guardians. Victimisation is only one of many meanings interloped within widowhood.

Introduction Widow inheritance is among the cultural practices that are blamed for furthering the sexual transmission of HIV in patriarchal soci - eties in sub-Saharan Africa (for example, Asiimwe, Kibombo and Neema 2003; Malungo 1999, 2001; Ntozi 1997; Okeyo and Allen 1994). Variously portrayed as backward, primitive, immoral, commoditisation, abusive violation of the sexual and human rights of powerless, victimised women (for example Izumi 2007; Limann 2003; Sossou 2002; UN / DAW / DESA 2001), widow inheritance has largely come under the attack of human rights activists, inter - national health policy makers, and feminist scholars; many of whom are outsiders from the Western world or the local urban core. This study is based on the Baganda 1 — one of the African societies reported to practice widow-inheritance in the literature (see Ntozi and Nakayiwa 1999, 157, 159; Mukiza-Gapere and Ntozi 1995, 198). This article revisits, explores, and problematises the model that positions widows as victims of patriarchal dictates imbued with the exploitation of their personhood, property, progeny, and 14 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 private rights, as suggested by Uche Ewelukwa: The study of widows reveals the painful position of women as both the defenders and victims of culture. This position reveals their agency in perpetuating practices dehumanising to them and in overturning entrenched customary and religious prac - tices. More importantly, the paradoxical position of women calls for deep introspection into how we perceive, understand and ultimately ascribe value to practices embedded in cultures outside our own. Perhaps an understanding of the minds and lives of these “other” women would lead to more meaningful public dialogues, resulting in more constructive approaches to improving women’s rights in the Third World (2002, 430).

The Study Nyanzi and Emodu-Walakira (2008) discuss the research methods in detail. Briefly, fieldwork was conducted in 2006-07 in Kasubi- Kawaala — a peri-urban slum on the margins of Kampala city. Using snowball, purposive, and theoretical sampling techniques, thirty-five widows and nine widowers were recruited into the study by a team comprising an anthropologist (SN), a public-health nurse (ME), a social worker (WS), and a community-health nurse. 2 All the participants were Baganda by ethnicity. Data collection triangulated ethnographic participant observation, semi-struc - tured interviews, and focus group discussions. All formal inter - views were conducted in Luganda, recorded on audio-cassette, transcribed verbatim, translated into English, and entered into computer for thematic analysis using Atlas.ti (Scientific Software Development, Berlin). Demographic details of participants were collected using a mini-questionnaire and subjected to descriptive statistical analysis with Epi Info (CDC, Atlanta). Pseudonyms are used in this paper to protect the identity of participants.

The Heterogeneity of Widowhood Contrary to common homogenous projections of widowed individ - uals as marginalised, weak, powerless individuals, the range of expressions and enactments of personhood available among our study participants revealed immense diversities even among this small sample size (see also Buitelaar 1995; Potash 1986; Moore and Stratton 2003). Differences were evident in age, gender, education Nyanzi, Emodu-Walakira and Serwaniko : The Widow 15 attainment, social class, income levels, health status, evidence of access to wealth, and number of dependants, — all of which factors differently interplayed with and thereby impacted upon their expe - riences of widowhood. The questionnaire data revealed a range of demographic char - acteristics. The narratives of these thirty-five widows and nine widowers confirmed that gender differentiated how men and women go through the challenges and opportunities that come with widowhood. Generally widows reported that they faced more restrictions, and endured the most humiliating rituals in relation to dressing codes, eating food, personal hygiene, sexual activity, ritual seclusion, isolation, discrimination, and oppression than widowers (Sossou 2002, 202; Ewelukwa 2002, 427). Religion was variously played out on specific components of the widowhood experience, including burial procedures, mourning rites, funeral rituals, inheritance processes and outcomes, and the post-funeral existence of differently widowed and orphaned indi - viduals (Amadiume 1987; Sossou 2002). Seventeen of the forty-four participants were Roman Catholic, thirteen belonged to Protestant Church of Uganda, eight were Muslims, six were Born Again — two of whom reported that they were originally Roman Catholic and converted after losing their spouse. The religious leaders and ethos of each family played a central role in the processes of disposal of the corpse, closure for family members, and offering differing levels of support to the survivors. For example, funeral masses with appropriate scriptural readings, prayer recitals, funeral songs sung by church choirs or commercial gospel bands, Dua Islamic prayers, special services with benedictions such as anointing oils or holy water sprinkled by priests into the grave and upon survivors, giving the heir a bible or rosary or some other religious paraphernalia were variously reported by participants. These performances high - lighted the roles of religious affiliation in facilitating processes of dealing with death among individual and collectives of believers. Apparently, each specific formal faith provided some structure to the performances of the final rituals of closure with the dead. However, they were always negotiated in the light of customary scripts dictated and mandated by clan structures, kinship cleaving, and responsibilities to culture, precedence, or ancestors. There were varying degrees of dependence on the institutions in the reli - 16 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 gious affiliations, among the participants. While some totally and solely appropriated the available religious provisions, others synchronised these with customary provisions, or secular support networks. This echoes Marie-Antoinette Sossou’s description of another setting: It is also important to note that African peoples carried substantial elements of their cultural practices, including widowhood into the New World’s religions that they embrace. The result is that widowhood practices in West Africa today are a bewildering and confusing mixture of traditional African practices and practices borrowed from Christianity and Islam (2002, 203). While widowhood is associated with older age in developed countries (Moore and Stratton 2003), in sub-Saharan Africa, there is evidence of growing numbers of widowed younger people espe - cially due to epidemics including HIV/AIDS, natural disasters, famines, war, and civil unrest (Potash 1986; Ntozi 1997; Mukiza- Gapere and Ntozi 1995). The age range of our participants was twenty-six to eighty years, with a mean age of slightly over thirty- nine years. Two people were less than thirty years, twelve were equal to or less than forty years, thirteen were equal to or less than fifty years, eleven were equal or less than sixty years, four were equal or less than seventy years, one was seventy-one years, and one was eighty years old. Position on the generational hierarchy affected what, why, and how individuals negotiated their widow - hood experiences. For example, younger widows often faced the challenge of fending for young dependant orphans and fighting off (mostly unsolicited) sexual advances from both in-laws and other males; some even had to challenge older co-wives about claims over property inheritance. Many older widows reported that they no longer had sexual appeal, and thus underwent neglect or isola - tion by their in-laws who felt they had nothing to gain from them. Some older widows and widowers reported that they sought support from their adult children. A few reported that even though they were elderly, it was them who were taking care of ill adult chil - dren suffering from terminal conditions including HIV/AIDS, and some of these children had left orphaned grand-children for the older widows. While remarriage was an alternative strategy for survival for younger widows, some older widows returned to their Nyanzi, Emodu-Walakira and Serwaniko : The Widow 17 natal homes, or otherwise remained in the deceased husband’s home and became pillars of support for others within their commu - nities. Education attainment is supposed to enhance opportunities for earning an income. Among our sample of forty-four, twenty-four had attained some primary school education, fourteen stopped at O level, one had A level qualifications, and three had post-secondary education. Two reported that they had no education at all. We compared these data with information about employment. Twelve of forty-four reported that they had no formal sources of income. In keeping with the social economic terrain of this geographical space, sixteen of forty-four were involved in petty commercial trade in the neighbourhood market area, offering services as cooked-food vendors, retail shopkeepers, roadside stall sellers, or middlemen who bought cheaply in bulk and informally re-distrib - uted domestic wares to local stalls, kiosks, shops, or individuals using both barter and monetary exchange. There were two commercial drivers, one taxi-guide, three traditional birth atten - dants, three lay brick-makers, two subsistence poultry farmers, and one social worker. Invariably, because the men attained higher levels of education, they were engaged in better paying jobs than the women. The three participants with post-secondary education were all widowers. The unemployed were all widows. Because gender division of labour within this context prescribes men as providers and women as nurturers, at the death of a spouse, the widow lost her companion’s provision, and the widower lost his wife’s nurturance abilities. Given the massive levels of lack and poverty within Kasubi- Kawaala, most of the widows often lamented their struggles to make ends meet, and the challenges of adequately providing for their orphans and other dependants using small incomes which they often supplemented with returns from the sales of subsistence produce, occasional gifts, and hand-outs from friends or charity organisations. Some of the widows belonged to rotating savings and credit organisations (ROSCAs), micro-credit lending institutions, or local women’s groups. Many others reported that they feared joining these local financial institutions because the women lacked the security or prerequisite collateral to get meaningful sizeable cash amounts that were necessary to return profits when invested, 18 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 they dreaded the eventuality of having their meagre property confiscated if they failed to refund the borrowed monies in time, or they abhorred the public shame and social ostracisation that followed failure to meet repayment obligations. Therefore, they struggled on their own, and in isolation, often failing to cater for the unending multiple needs of their households (see also Owen 1996). The widowers, on the other hand, reported a different challenge — namely, taking care of their orphans. The routine of housework, the chores of childcare, the obligations of providing love, security and emotional nurturance to children were particularly challenging for younger widowers. Older ones reported loneliness, and struggling to find meaning in life after the loss of a wife (see also Moore and Stratton 2003). There were variations in the reported number of children supported at the time of interview. While sixteen participants reported having at most four children, twenty-six participants were supporting between five and nine children, and two had at least ten or more children. Adoption of orphaned children, or those whose parents were too ill or poor to take care, was common. Some widows were raising the children of co-wives who were either deceased, estranged from their progeny, or remarried elsewhere and thus unwilling or unable to further support them. In many cases, control over the inheritance brought with it the responsibility of supporting all the deceased husband’s children — including those conceived in other sexual unions. Some participants had lost the charge of their children who were either in the care of in-laws, the natal family, adult siblings or co-wives. Some others had been thrown off the husband’s property, along with their children. In discussions about the challenges of widowhood, the question of raising children was most commonly mentioned.

Fears and Superstitions about Writing a Will In an attempt to establish whether husbands played any role in determining the course of the sexual lives of their wives after the death of the husband, we asked participants about the will of their deceased spouse. “Did your spouse leave a will?” This was followed by a number of probe questions dependent on the answers provided by participants. For example: If so, did you participate in its writ - ing? Did you know about it? Who kept it? Did he mention anyone Nyanzi, Emodu-Walakira and Serwaniko : The Widow 19 to take care of you after he died? If not, why did he not leave a will? And how did people know how he wanted his property distributed? How was the heir chosen? None of the widowers reported any of their wives leaving a will. Four widows reported that their spouses wrote a will before dying. Six widows claimed that they did not know for sure whether or not he wrote a will. The rest were sure that their husbands did not leave a written will. These findings reveal that will-making is highly gendered within this setting. Men are more likely to write wills than women. However, there is a general tendency not to write a will by the time of death. Data from the interviews and discussions highlight the preva - lence of taboos, fear, and superstitions concerning will-making while one was still healthy. There was consensus that most people put off the act of writing a will because of the notion that it brought death nearer. In their discussions they often used cautionary excla - mations such as, “May God forbid it to happen, but ...“ and “To talk about it is not to bring it.” There were superstitions that when one talked so directly about death, they were possibly inviting him. 3 This confirms the findings of other scholars. According to Uche Ewelukwa, ... the belief that making of wills hastens the death of a testator makes wills an unpopular mode for the disposition of property. A woman who persuades her husband to make a will is suspected of plotting his death and is in danger of being accused of murder in the event of her husband’s death (2002, 434). Furthermore, Mukiza-Gapere and Ntozi state: In the past, death was feared, unexpected even by the sick and never planned for. Anyone who tried to plan for their own death or that of relatives was referred to as enkunguzi (prophet of doom) and never tolerated by the society (1995, 197). Most participants reported that they did not discuss wills when their spouses were still living because in addition to the taboo against personalising the possibility of death, bringing up the subject had connotations of greed or interest in the inheritance, property, wealth, and other possessions of the partner. It was partic - ularly more difficult for women to raise the topic because of deeply entrenched gender asymmetries of property ownership (see also Ewelukwa 2002). In marital unions, men generally owned more 20 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 material wealth, land, financial capital, and investments that were passed on as part of the inheritance than women. Many widows therefore reasoned that initiating conversations about the husband’s will had potential to incite suspicions of the wife’s inter - est in his early death. It was similar to articulating a prophesy of doom upon one’s own spouse. In discussions it was presented as vile, evil, wicked, calculating, or greedy. Namugga: As a woman, how do you start talking about the man’s will? He will think that you are interested in his riches. Ah, it is difficult. Nantume: Yes. In fact when people are asking about the will it is better to pretend not to know about it because they might think that you influenced his death. Silvia: And if they believe in witchcraft, it is even worse. They will say that you bewitched him to die because you wanted to take his property. Meeme: Also if you have children in a home where there are other wives, and your child is made the heir, it is better that you keep quiet about the will. People can say that you killed the man so that your child can become the heir and you start enjoy - ing his wealth. Many widows reported they preferred not to know a priori who among the sons was chosen to be heir, in case it was not their child, as this knowledge could lead one into dangerous acts such as mali - ciously plotting the death of the heir, poisoning him, or smearing his reputation before his father in order to influence a change in the selection of another child as heir. In the few instances where a will was present, none of the deceased husbands had made any pronouncements about the fate of their wives regarding choosing a new marital spouse for them. In conversations however, some husbands had mentioned a friend or relative to whom the widow could turn for financial help, advice and support in the eventuality of death. Most of these conversa - tions were private and only known to the wife. In a few cases, the widows reported that their husband had actually formalised this connection by appealing to these individuals to “take care of the family if I die before you.” Instead of a written will (ekiraamo / eddaame), participants’ narratives highlighted the importance of the “spoken will” Nyanzi, Emodu-Walakira and Serwaniko : The Widow 21

(yalaama mukwogera) which the deceased husband’s relatives commonly solicited, assessed, confirmed, and acted upon to decide about his inheritance, widow(s), and orphans. Similar to the writ - ten will, the spoken will was always confirmed by at least two or three witnesses who were not the wife or children of the dead man. In the absence of either form of will, the clan leaders or lineage heads in conjunction with the adult children (usually exclusively daughters) 4 made decisions about the heir, distribution of the prop - erty, and settlement of debts.

Choosing Omukuza at the Last Funeral Rites In customary practice, 5 a period of mourning and bereavement which followed the burial involved specific rites, taboos, and obser - vances for the widow. These include the widow neglecting her bodily hygiene — she refrains from combing or trimming her hair, bares her shoulders, ties a special belt made from banana stems around her waist, publicly wails and audibly laments her losses (see also Limann 2003; Kagwa 1934; Roscoe 1911). According to key informants from the Kasubi Tombs palace, a woman must wrap up herself as one in menstruation (okwesabika nga ali munsonga), in order to keep away the ghost of her dead husband, from the time of first knowing about his death, through his burial, and until the last funeral rites when she is cleansed okumwabyako olumbe (literally meaning “to burst the death off from her”). Participants reported that in the past, people honoured the need to spend a period of at least a year in mourning, that is, between the burial and the last funeral rites. During this time, a household head would process the announcement and approval to hold the last funeral rites — okutambuuza olumbe through the different clan hierarchies. However, with the drastic increases in death rates over the years, rises in the cost of living, widespread financial hardship, rural-urban migrations, breakdown in extended family ties and modernity, participants explained that the strict adherence to this custom decreased. Some people put off the last funeral rites cere - monies using excuses of lack of finances or the absence of a coordi - nator. Many others resorted to conducting the last funeral rites simultaneously with the burial, that is, on the night following the burial, family members and close kin performed some select appro - priate rites. The following day an heir was installed, together with 22 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 the appointment of omukuza (plural: bakuza ) — levirate guardian and his female counterpart — lubuga. In our study, while twenty- nine of the forty-four widowed participants reported finishing the last funeral rites ceremonies of their deceased spouses, thirteen reported that they had not yet, and surprisingly two claimed that they did not know whether these customary rituals were completed. In most cases, the omukuza was chosen at night by the husbands’ clan mates during a meeting which the widow(s) did not attend because they were not clan members. The choice was depen - dent on having enough wealth, being responsible, compassionate, or a close friend to the family. During fieldwork, it was often evident that many participants were not certain what the custom - ary role(s) of the omukuza and lubuga were. The majority of widowed individuals in the study reported that they never got any support from the bakuza who were chosen for them. Nakatudde: They gave us omukuza but it was just performing because people choose a mukuza at every last funeral rites cere - mony. But apart from hearing his name announced on that day, there has been nothing from him. He never returned to see us since 2003. He is useless, if you want to know. Interviewer: How did he become the mukuza? Nakatudde: The clan members chose him because he was the oldest person around. After giving out property, he left with the things he got, but never ever returned. Among the last funeral rites are rituals of purification and cleansing of all the orphans, widows, and the entire household — okufulumya olumbe. Sexual cleansing of widows during these ceremonies has been reported in other African contexts (Malungo 1999, 2001; Potash 1986). In our study, among those who under - went cleansing rites, three widows reported that they enacted symbolic forms of ritual sex with a male relative of the deceased husband who was not necessarily the appointed omukuza. Two of them reported that they sat on the floor, stretched their legs which were jumped over by the male in-law. The third widow reported that she tricked her brother-in-law by dropping her inner belt onto the floor at the entrance to her room so that the unsuspecting in- law stepped over it as he entered the room. Nyanzi, Emodu-Walakira and Serwaniko : The Widow 23

The Sexuality of Widows The data about the sexuality of these widowed people contained tensions between a dominant discourse which challenged the sexual activity of widows on one hand, and local perceptions of widows as potentially sexually loose such that it was risky for them to get close to men whether married or not. Generally, there was consensus that widowers were expected, even encouraged to renew their sexual activity or indeed remarry a short while after mourn - ing their dead spouses. However, the sexual choices of widows were relatively more restricted even when they were still of reproductive age. In order to pass as proper respectable women, widows had to spend longer times in mourning, and thus unattached to another man. Common desexualising stances claimed widows were asex - ual simply because of the normative positioning of proper sex only within the context of marital union. While discussing the custom - ary apparel prescribed to widows in mourning, Sossou (2002, 203) states: “many mourning customs therefore diminish a widow‘s attractiveness by desexualising her through dress codes and placing taboos on her participation in social activities” (see also van Os 1995). Sossou further explains: ... a widow who manifests interest in a member of the opposite sex is in danger of being regarded as a prostitute.... Hence the need of many widows for male companionships and sexual relationships is barely recognised except in negative terms (2002, 203; see also Muller 1986). However, in our study, some widows reported heightened vulnera - bility immediately after the death of a husband, so that it was easy to fall for charades of love and care from unscrupulous men mainly interested in the inheritance (see also Obbo 1986). Namwanje: Immediately after the death of the husband, when the wife is without support, it is very easy to get tempted and you fall into such acts hoping for much in the future. But it is not good to act early because you are still vulnerable. It is a strong violation against the marriage. It is Satanic and I do not want to hear about it because it is shaming. Concerning the initiation of sexual relationships with widows, many participants argued that it was the men who started. Some claimed that it was not cultural for women to initiate sexual rela - tionships unless they were prostitutes selling sex. Many discussed 24 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 the sexual relationship as an end product of processes of exchange with the man offering support, financial assistance, material gifts, help with raising the orphans, advice, or companionship to the grieving widow. Out of guilt of being a consistent receiver and in attempt to negate the possibility of coming across as an ungrateful parasite, the widow easily gave in to the sexual advances from the man. Other widows were reported to offer their sexual services as a means of maintaining this support from the man — reciprocating support. In most cases, the widows reported that they preferred to engage in sexual relationships with outsiders to their deceased husband’s family, clan, or lineage. Those few who were open about their sexual experiences after they were widowed stressed it was with other men who were not their in-laws; a few being remarried or cohabiting, and some having regular sexual partnerships with men who did not live with them. Unlike men who had no social restrictions against bring - ing a new sexual partner into the marital home, participants reported that widows were mostly unable to do the same because both in-laws and adult children would not permit this abuse (kive), despise (kujooga), or display of unruliness (fujjo) to the dead man. The majority of study participants opposed the practice of any sexual interactions between the widow and her in-laws, saying it was immoral (mawemukirano), ungodly, degenerate (bugwenyufu) not cultural for the Baganda, a sign of having a weak heart (bamitima minaffu) and over reliance on men to provide because of unwillingness to earn an income for oneself as a woman. For some, it was wrong based on a script in which monogamy was the norm. Thus, “they both know it is wrong because the man has his wife already.” A few reasoned in line with unequal power relationships between the widow as a woman and the levirate guardian as a man. Alice: It is a violation of her human rights since she expects help from the man asking for sex. If she says no, he may stop giving the help. It is not fair on her. Others argued that it was rather unfair for the women to rely on men in the hope of offering them sex. In focus group discussions there was debate over the possibility of younger widows seducing men, including wealthy brothers-in-law, as a strategy for survival since the men would support them if a sexual relationship were estab - lished. Nyanzi, Emodu-Walakira and Serwaniko : The Widow 25

Many participants reported that sexual relationships between a widow and her brother-in-law were a common occurrence, provid - ing anecdotal examples. They repeatedly stressed that it happened because the two individuals approved of each other, but not because it was a cultural practice. Some argued it was even advan - tageous because the inheritance was kept within one family. When it came to actually giving examples, only four participants knew of widows who had actually remarried their in-laws, and gone on to have children with them. Generally, participants knew about it happening elsewhere to someone else, but not to them. Saidat: That act of the omukuza and widow having sexual rela - tionships is common. But for me, Allah is good that I have never seen any of my dead husband’s relatives coming to me for those things. In fact they don’t even come just to visit. In most cases it is the men who initiate it. And since the women don’t have support, they give in. There were a few widows in the study who narrated experi - ences of their brothers-in-law attempting to sexualise their inter - actions, usually based on the men offering gifts and consequently supposing that this entitled them to sexual services from the widows. Rather than yield, these widows took various avenues to shield off the sexual advances. Most common was the claim to possibly be HIV-infected, thereby appealing to the man’s logic and notions of fear of contagion with an incurable virus. It was remark - able that some widows were challenged on these grounds by the men retorting that the availability of condoms meant protection from infection, while the growing availability of antiretroviral therapies meant that HIV and AIDS were no longer life-threatening conditions. A few other men were reported to deny the possibility that such a healthy-looking and beautiful woman was infected with the virulent virus. However, on the main, this reason put off some brothers-in-law and other men from further pursuing their sexual interest in particular widows. Other common strategies that widows appropriated against these often unsolicited sexual advances were moralising based on religious convictions, appealing to shaming the man by emphasising their widowhood or recalling memories of the dead husband, or indeed referring to the man’s marriage. A few widows said they threatened to report to social elders, or recourse to the law. 26 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

Because of commitments to supporting their children, and being good role models by setting an example of sexual abstinence or chastity, many widows reported that they chose to refrain from any more sexual activities. Among older ones, the decision was based upon “losing sexual appeal,” being “too old to bear anymore children and thus no longer attractive to many men who want chil - dren,” outgrowing the need for sexual engagement. Generally, many claimed that they felt society expected them to remain chaste as an honour to the dead husband. The tension between the expectations of chastity because of the death of a husband and the suspicions of uncontrollable sexu - ality of widows is captured by Marjo Buitelaar: The sexual experience of widows, on the contrary, renders them suspicious. While as a sexually experienced and therefore “real” woman the widow is less ambivalent than the virgin, in her case it is predominantly her unleashed sexuality that makes her an anomaly. The symbolism that surrounds the ambiguous position of widows is imbued with fear of uncon - trolled female sexuality. This makes the widow a powerful symbol of disorder and destructive potential (1995, 8-9). Furthermore, Buitelaar narrates: A Moroccan proverb says: “A woman without a man is like a public bath (hammam) without water,” meaning that she will get hotter and hotter while there is no sperm to cool her off. This proverb aptly illustrates the image of the widow found in different societies as a woman who, having tasted the sweet - ness of sexual pleasure, is not willing to resign herself to chastity, but develops powerful sexual propensities and needs (1995, 3-9).

Discussion Mapping the varied terrain of the everyday lives of the widowed participants in our study strongly points to the diversities of expe - riences that different individuals encounter when they lose a spouse. Widows and widowers are not a homogenous group. Their experiences are influenced by an interplay of several complex factors including age, gender, type of marital union, number of chil - dren, location, education level, employment status, individual ingenuity, access to resources, availability of support networks, Nyanzi, Emodu-Walakira and Serwaniko : The Widow 27 health status, and number of dependants. Within our study context, there were examples of powerless, marginalised, disad - vantaged widowed individuals, directly juxtaposed with resource - ful, powerful, successful over-comers who were also widowed. And within these categorisations, nothing was static because, for exam - ple, even among the seemingly more disadvantaged individuals there were also stories of success, progress, and achievement. Likewise the more advantaged participants also shared narratives about their struggles with lack, unfair systems, ill-health, or lone - liness. This study disrupts the neat binary supposition that rural dwelling necessarily means lack of access to, while urbanity means access to power and better negotiating leeway out of abusive exploitative cultural dictates. According to Ewelukwa, ... the educated, urban women may have the option of escaping to the city and thereby avoiding the harsh demands of the custom.... Particularly for rural women far removed from the modern centres of power, legal recourse does not exist as a viable option ( 2002, 440). Rather than providing a simplistic polarised portrait of widow - hood, the data here highlight the heterogeneity of this sub-popula - tion group. This diversity is a strength that can be built upon to bring widowed people together to provide and draw support from one another in their own associations. Those with successes can share their stories and strategies with others going through similar challenges. Those with setbacks can seek counsel, information, and support from a network of others who have gone through simi - lar experiences. These associations would give better visibility to the widowed, provide a forum for them to launch their issues, and a platform bridging them to policymakers, advocates, legislators, programme developers, and projects aiming at intervening in their plight. Giving visibility to this diversity also has the potential to facilitate de-stigmatisation of widowhood, by bringing to the fore the various dimensions to this status; not everybody is widowed because of HIV/AIDS. Similar to other contexts (Ewelukwa 2002; Sossou 2002; Mukiza-Gapere and Ntozi 1995), the participants’ narratives revealed that will-making was not common practice, even when the eventuality of death was brought closer by terminal illness. Because many husbands died intestate, it was impossible to lay 28 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 claims over their wishes concerning the demands they made of their wives, family members, or wider kin group members. The husbands of these widows did not leave any mandates for them to have sexual intercourse, or provide sexual services to any of their kinsmen, clansmen, or male agnates. This finding begins to disrupt the myth that, among the Baganda, widows are bound to fulfil sexual obligations to their husbands even in death. It problematises the notion of widows having sexual rituals with in-laws as a “duty” to their dead husbands. If the husband does not oblige the wife to offer sexual services to his lineage members when he dies, if in fact he most often does not even make a will, and if he does not instruct his relatives to demand these sexual services from his wife, where then do these myths emanate? What justifications are made for these actions, or claims thereof, particularly in the literature? The easiest target: “Blame it on the culture!” However, contrary to the claims of scholars such as Ntozi and Nakayiwa (1999) who assert that widow-inheritance is a cultural practice in Buganda, many study participants emphatically stressed that this practice is not customary of the Baganda, and that when it did occur, it was either because the two concerned adults mutually consented to it, or otherwise the widow was over- powered by her brother-in-law’s insistence, or indeed the greed of the in-law led him to trick the widow into sexual interaction as a means to handing over control of the inheritance to him. In specu - lation, some people supposed it was possible that the widow was won over by the generosity of the brother-in-law if he was provid - ing material, financial, or other support to her and the orphans. Participants stressed that where widows engaged in sexual activi - ties with their in-laws it was generally because of individual personal choices, rather than cultural customary practice. They argued it was more rare than common that in-laws remarried the widow. Most remarriages were with people unrelated to the deceased husband. Many widows reported that, unlike the widow - ers, there were many restrictions on their chances of remarriage even when it was to men of no relations to the deceased husband. Not only did their in-laws and (often adult) children refuse them to bring any new sexual partners into the deceased husband’s home, but also the widows feared the ridicule and public shame from the community engendered through gossip, rumours, banter, and open Nyanzi, Emodu-Walakira and Serwaniko : The Widow 29 confrontation. Some reported that their former negative experi - ences when married had put them off the idea of remarriage. Others felt that their “excess baggage” of orphaned children was often a deterrent to men who might otherwise have been interested in sexual relationships with the widow. A few younger ones had remarried — one taking her three children into her new marriage, two sending them to live with their maternal-grandparents. Many widows chose to remain single, and were the household heads in their homes. They lived to run their homes, support their orphans, and make ends meet on a daily basis. This confirms Betty Potash’s point: A common misconception is that most widows are involved in conjugal relationships. The reality is that many widows live without spouses ... (1986, 1; see also Obbo 1986, Mukiza- Gapere and Ntozi 1995). Regarding sexualised cultural practices involved in widow - hood, some scholars distinguish between sexual cleansing (Asiimwe, Kibombo and Neema 2003; Malungo 1999, 2001) of widows and widow-inheritance or levirate marriage. This distinc - tion is important because it highlights the ambivalence of mean - ings associated with the label “widow-inheritance.” It contributes to the complexity of teasing apart the range of possible practices attached to this label, their over-laps, differences, and inherent tensions within specific contexts. Potash (1986, 7-8) elaborately discusses the definitional challenges of working out the different practices carried under the umbrella terms: “widow-inheritance,” and “levirate marriage.” In Buganda, there is evidence of the possi - bilities of a widow engaging in sexual or sexualised activities with her in-laws during rituals of completion emikolo egy’okumala olumbe in the last funeral rites ceremony. This sexual cleansing does not equate to levirate marriage or widow inheritance because, other than performing the symbolic rites with the widow, the man in question rarely ever develops a further relationship with this woman. In the cases where last funeral rites were conducted, none of the participants reported furthering relationships with the male members of their deceased husband’s clan / lineage who performed the ritual cleansing. Most widows negotiated alternatives, including outright refusal based on religious convictions against the whole customary 30 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 function, ignorance of the expected customary processes, claims to modernity and progress which negated the necessity of indulging in the entire repertoire of traditional rites, shortness of time in rela - tion to long distance travel back to their urban dwelling from the rural cites of burial where the husband’s corpse lay and where the last funeral rites were held. Other common explanations for refus - ing to engage in lengthy last funeral rites included falling out with in-laws such that there was no interest in going to the length of the full customary rituals, breakdown in the extended family networks, lack of funds to conduct separate last funeral rites for each individual dead member of the lineage such that several peoples’ rites were piled together and attached to the ceremony of a more prominent lineage member. Where the rites of cleansing did occur to study participants, the widows reported that they resorted to other symbolic performances rather than sexual intercourse, including the in-law jumping over the widow’s out-stretched legs, or her inner belt. Other symbolic acts of ritual sex — including urinating in the same spot as the widow, using traditional medi - cines, jumping over the levir’s spear — were reported among rural Baganda living in Masaka district (see Nyanzi, Nassimbwa, Kayizzi and Kabanda 2008). Similar to other settings (Ewelukwa 2002; Malungo 1999, 2001; Asiimwe, Kibombo and Neema 2003; Nyanzi, Nassimbwa, Kayizzi and Kabanda 2008), the perceptions towards and practices involved in the sexual cleansing of widows have altered in light of the sexual transmissibility of HIV. Because people are more aware of the risk involved in exchanging sexual fluids through unprotected sex, they use alternatives, including getting protection from traditional heal - ers and spiritual mediums, or altogether refraining from the customary script and instead replacing it with Christianised or Islamic versions. There are alternatives to sexual cleansing, which negate the need for sexual violation of widows in the name of Kiganda culture. The widows in our study revealed they were resourceful enough to appeal to these other avenues, as active controllers of their sexual lives, rather than submit to the whims of an implicit customary sexual more of widow victimisation. Another dimension to the victimisation debate is the place and role of the omukuza in the widow’s life. If he is not a levirate husband, or indeed a widow-inheritor, what is the omukuza to the Nyanzi, Emodu-Walakira and Serwaniko : The Widow 31 widow? Does he have any rights to the sexual and reproductive functions of the widow? Our data challenge the customary sexual - isation of the omukuza in contemporary Buganda. To begin with, we find that the term “guardian” is perhaps a better estimation of the meaning of omukuza whose root okukuza means “to grow,” “to raise,” “to groom,” or “to make important.” In this case, the role behind the term perhaps applies much more to the orphans than the widow(s). By extension, the omukuza’s role was perhaps more about assisting with the raising of the orphans than meeting any sexual obligations to the widow(s). During the last funeral rites in Kiganda custom, the clan leaders instruct the male omukuza and his female counterpart — lubuga to give heed to the proper raising of the deceased man’s offspring. From the narratives of our study participants, many did not receive any help or support whatsoever from the people appointed in these positions. Many widows lost contact with these people after the last funeral rites. A few widows reported that they were in touch with the chosen omukuza who mainly played the social role of representing the orphans’ father at ceremonies, such as weddings and graduations. Only two widows reported that they received meaningful support from their bakuza. Generally, due to extensive poverty, breakdown of extended famil - ial ties and resultant obligations, disruptions of traditional social networks enforced by rural-urban migration, and urban lifestyles, widows hardly received any support or involvement from the people appointed to be bakuza. With growing capitalism and dependence on monetary incomes, participants explained that Kiganda society is more individualistic, and thus these widows had to rely on their own abilities to tap into available resources and support networks than wait for bakuza to intervene in their plight. In a bid to gain sympathy and as a strategy for survival, some widows performed at helplessness targeting at wealthy individuals to be moved to the point of providing some support or assistance. Admittedly there were some destitute widows. However, there were also others who played out this role to appropriate audiences towards beneficial or lucrative ends. According to Kenda Mutongi, By expressing their grief publicly — usually in ways that focussed on their social and economic needs — Maragoli widows ... sought to redress their grievances ... they consciously presented themselves as “poor widows,” as ideal - 32 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

ized stereotypes of suffering females who were believed to become needy and helpless at the death of their husbands. They told their stories in ways calculated to solicit sympathy. And this usually worked to their advantage since it placed men in the difficult situation of having to defend their “ideal” masculinity. Only by helping guarantee the economic liveli - hood and social status of bereaved widows could men uphold their self-image.... By presenting their grief publicly so as to solicit relief for their sufferings, widows were actively able to turn what men saw as stereotypical feminine behaviour: emotionality, helplessness and weakness — into strengths (1999, 67-68). This conclusion is confirmed in our study: social relationships involving men and widows were informed by a reciprocity suggest - ing that the widows were more than passive recipients of male charity. Rather, they actively re-constructed how they articulated their losses in ways that would benefit them. However most partic - ipants agreed that due to poverty, individualism, greed, selfishness, and emancipation of women, many of these plight performances often generated nothing more than verbal consolations, or advice. The frequency of widowhood also resulted in its normalisation, such that people were no longer moved to compassion as previ - ously when death was a minimal occurrence.

Notes 1 In local lexicon, the people are Baganda, their language is Luganda, their kingdom is Buganda, and the derivative adjective is Kiganda. 2 Widowhood is highly stigmatised among younger adults because of its associations with possible HIV infection. Therefore, some widowed indi - viduals did not publicly identify thus. We relied on insider knowledge of long-term residents and cultural leaders to locate people who had lost a spouse, although this was not common knowledge. Thus, we asked key informants and participants to inform us about any widows or widowers living in the study area. This method was relevant to the qualitative methodology which aimed at deepening our understanding of local prac - tice and knowledge. In response to critiques of using snow-ball sampling because it undermines the value of statistical analysis, this is not a quan - titative study, the sample size is too small to justify meaningful statistical Nyanzi, Emodu-Walakira and Serwaniko : The Widow 33 analyses, and we are not making claims to generalisability or representa - tiveness. 3 In the Kiganda legend of origin, death is a male personality called Walumbe who lives with Gulu, the father of the woman Nambi who married the first Muganda man Kintu. When Kintu visited to seek permis - sion to marry Nambi, Gulu cautioned them to pack lightly and travel very early before Walumbe awoke and insisted on following them back to earth. As they began the journey, Nambi remembered she forgot to carry millet for her chicken. She returned to fetch it despite Kintu’s warnings not to, found Walumbe awake, and he followed her to earth. Mentioning death could invite him back. Thus the local philosophy of death. 4 When a man dies intestate, it is from his male kin — usually sons, nephews, or younger brothers that an heir is selected. In order to facilitate fairness, brothers are often asked to leave the meeting because it is from among them that an heir is selected. This allows the clan meeting members to openly discuss the good and bad qualities of the different sons. Therefore, it is commonly daughters who contribute to such meetings. 5 While not reifying dynamic concepts such as “custom,” “tradition,” or “culture,” we use these terms as they were presented by study partici - pants. Otherwise, we agree with the literature about the constantly chang - ing character of these constructs. Faith in God, But Not in Condoms: Churches and Competing Visions of HIV Prevention in Namibia

Nicole Rigillo

Résumé La Namibie est d’une part, l’un des pays d’Afrique le plus chrétien, mais aussi l’un des cinq pays les plus affectés par le HIV/SIDA. On estime que quatre-vingt-dix pour cent de la population s’identifient aux diverses confessions chrétiennes, alors que près d’une personne sur cinq est infec - tée par le virus du SIDA. Bien que le gouvernement ait, depuis les années 1990, fait la promotion des préservatifs et les ait distribués soit gratuite - ment, sit à des prix modiques pour la prévention du SIDA, les doutes sur l’efficacité de la formule n’ont pas cessé de grandir aussi bien dans les régions urbaines que rurales, particulièrement chez les chefs religieux pentecôtistes. Cet article explore la façon dont ces chefs religieux, à l’in - star des groupes chrétiens du monde entier, se servent des données scien - tifiques pour défier la promotion de préservatifs selon laquelle ils seraient une stratégie de prévention viable du SIDA. Ainsi, ils sont en mesure d’ex - ploiter les ambiguités scientifiques sur l’efficacité du préservatif pour défier la sagesse de la prévention du SIDA. Ils sont alors bien placés pour recommander l’abstinence et la fidélité comme les seules vraies formes de “sexe sans risques.”

Abstract Namibia is both one of the most Christian countries in Africa, as well as the fifth most affected by HIV/AIDS — an estimated ninety percent of the population identifies with one of the various Christian denominations, while nearly one in five are currently infected with HIV. Although the government has promoted and distributed free and socially-marketed condoms for HIV prevention since the 1990s, doubts about the efficacy of the devices proliferate in both urban and rural areas, particularly among Pentecostal religious leaders. This article explores the ways in which

34 Rigillo: Faith in God, But Not in Condoms 35 these religious leaders, in a similar fashion to Christian groups world - wide, are using scientific data to challenge the promotion of condoms as a viable HIV prevention strategy. In this way, they are able to exploit the scientific ambiguities concerning condom efficacy to challenge estab - lished HIV prevention wisdom, thus reframing abstinence and faithful - ness as the only truly safe forms of “safe sex.”

Introduction In response to the pressures brought upon communities and congregations by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, churches and faith- based organizations (FBOs) have emerged as significant sources of authority in the development and execution of HIV prevention and care initiatives across the African continent. Such groups account for approximately twenty percent of the total number of agencies worldwide working to combat HIV/AIDS, and constitute thirty to seventy percent of the entire health infrastructure in Africa south of the Sahara (ARHAP 2006, 20; WHO 2004, 46). Working alongside religious organizations are secular groups, many of which employ condom social marketing 1 as a key HIV prevention strategy (USAID 2006). The co-existence of these two groups, one largely stressing the importance of abstinence and faithfulness and the other stressing correct and consistent condom use, has predictably resulted in ideological tensions regarding effective HIV prevention strategies (Pfeiffer 2004; Willms, Ariata and Makondesa 2004). Such tensions are both relevant and visible in Namibia, where nearly one in five citizens are reported to be HIV positive (UNAIDS 2006). As part of its treatment and prevention plan, Namibia’s Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS) both provides free anti-retroviral treatment to HIV-positive citizens, and widely promotes the use of condoms as a part of the ABC (Abstain, Be faithful, use Condoms) approach, as a way to encourage sexually active Namibians to engage in what the government calls “safe sex” 2 (UNICEF no date). Despite this, mistrust in condoms is wide - spread — numerous studies report that both rural and urban Namibians, across age groups, are wary of the ability of condoms — particularly those distributed free of charge by the MoHSS — to prevent the transmission of HIV (Iipinge, Hofne and Friedman 2004; Mufune 2005; Yamakawa 2001). Young people in Windhoek described government-distributed condoms as being of a far lower quality, more likely to break, and more porous than branded ones, 36 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 a quality which was believed to allow the passage of HIV through the latex barrier. Such condoms also generated suspicion because of their perceived “foreign” origins, many of them having been donated as development aid from countries whose motives were suspected of being malicious in nature (Rigillo 2007). Profiting from this pervasive incredulity, certain Pentecostal religious lead - ers in Namibia have begun to employ scientifically-based argu - ments to challenge condom efficacy, in order to give credence to the belief, already common among congregants and members of the wider community alike, that condoms are dangerously ineffective in protecting users from HIV. Based on three months of ethnographic fieldwork 3 in Windhoek, Namibia, this article explores the ways in which these Pentecostal religious leaders, in a similar way to certain leaders of Catholic churches located far beyond Namibia’s borders, challenge the promotion of condom use as the gold standard of HIV preven - tion. In accessing and disseminating scientific research that chal - lenges established knowledge about condom efficacy, religious leaders are better able to promote abstinence and faithfulness as the only truly “safe” sexual behaviours in the context of an HIV epidemic. HIV prevention experts in Namibia seem unable to mean - ingfully counter this conviction given their primary approach, which seeks to correct health-related “misconceptions” through the dissemination of scientifically-based health information.

Public Health and the Management of Misinformation Deviations from established biomedical knowledge about HIV/AIDS, what I will describe as alternative conceptions of health and disease, are commonly labelled as “myths,” “misconcep - tions,” “rumours,” or “traditional beliefs” in the HIV prevention literature. Such deviations are inevitably juxtaposed with biomed - ical and scientific knowledge, which, as a result of the application of the empirical method, are believed to be imbued with qualities such as truth and objectivity. Scholars within the interdisciplinary field of science and tech - nology studies have sought to break down the objectivist veneer of scientific research, in order to reveal the extent to which science is socially constructed (Jasanoff 2004; Latour 1993; Fleck [1935] 1979. In relation to HIV/AIDS, Paula Treichler likewise argues that Rigillo: Faith in God, But Not in Condoms 37 scientific understandings of the disease, like lay understandings, are socially constructed, ... based not on an objective, scientifically determined “real - ity,” but on what we are told about this reality: that is, on prior social constructions routinely produced within the discourses of biomedical science (1999, 15 [author’s emphasis]). Moreover, scientific knowledge concerning the nature, etiology, and transmission of HIV/AIDS remains uncertain and incomplete, leaving important questions unanswered, both for scientists and those more directly affected by the disease. Treichler argues that it is not unreasonable that in the face of such uncertainties, laypeo - ple’s imaginations give birth to a multitude of different concep - tions that serve in some cases to fill in these knowledge gaps. She challenges the tendency of scientists to discount such knowledge, asking: To label them mis-conceptions implies what? Wrongful birth? Only “facts” can give birth to proper conceptions and only science can give birth to facts? (1999, 16 [author’s emphasis]). Considering the erroneous conceptions held and advanced by scientists throughout the course of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, such as the belief that the virus was only transmissible among men, such questions cannot be answered affirmatively. In ignoring their own misreadings of the disease and labelling popular interpretations “misconceptions,” scientists and experts reinforce the idea that science is the sole site of appropriate knowledge production about HIV/AIDS: “Such assertions blur the line between the facticity of scientific and non-scientific (mis)conceptions” (Treichler 1999, 16), disguising the ambiguity and contradiction inherent in scien - tific discourse, and instead associating such qualities with inter - pretations emerging from non-scientists. When HIV prevention experts address alternative conceptions of health and disease, they are likely to ground themselves in a conception / misconception dichotomy: misconceptions are viewed as a type of belief, where “belief is used to connote ideas that are erroneous from the perspective of biomedicine and that constitute obstacles to appropriate behaviour” (Pelto and Pelto 1997, 148). The beliefs of non-scientists must thus first be corrected and replaced with factual scientific information for the desired changes in behaviour to occur and for an intervention to be 38 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 considered successful. Such a position discounts alternative ways of knowing and understanding the disease, upholding the supremacy of scientific knowledge and its presumed positive influ - ence on behaviour. An article in the journal Population Reports provides one example of the ways in which health experts discount “rumours” about family planning in developing countries, promoting their replacement with scientifically-based, factual health information, and neglecting any deeper analysis concerning their spread: In some places false rumours about reproductive health are widespread and scare some people away from contraception — for example, “the pills build up in your stomach” ... or ... “an IUD can travel to a woman’s brain.” Family planning service providers are trained to counter such rumours by counselling clients with the facts. Help journalists also to counter rumours by reporting the facts. Such activities as preparing fact sheets and background reports on family planning methods and programs, arranging interviews with service providers and clients, and making family planning programs more accessible to journalists will help the news media see rumours for what they are. The more people who know the facts, the more who are in a position to stop rumours from spreading (Robey and Stauffer 1995, 42 [my emphasis]). When public health experts contend that more information is the solution to the HIV epidemic, a principal obstruction thus becomes the “cultural barriers” that stand in opposition to the adoption of healthy attitudes and practices. As Airhihenbuwa and Obregon note, this dualism is common among public health experts engag - ing in cross-cultural interventions, where the term “barrier often becomes a coupling metaphor with culture” (2000, 11), with Western culture serving as the ideal that promotes good health. “Knowledge” thus becomes the repository of biomedicine, while culture becomes the repository of “beliefs” (Airhihenbuwa and Obregon 2000, 11). In turn, facts become the salve that will soothe the mistrust and doubt presumed to be steeped in ignorance; facts will motivate individuals to adopt healthy behaviours. Condom promoters in Namibia have likewise chosen to counter alternative conceptions of health and disease with the dissemination of HIV and condom-related facts and statistics, Rigillo: Faith in God, But Not in Condoms 39 which are widely apparent in the media and on promotional health materials. For example, the development of the Smile condom, released in 2006 in order to convince the “man on the street that he was using a quality product” (!Goraseb 2006, 2), was accompanied not only by colourful packaging and a mock “price,” but also backed by persuasive claims of safety intended to challenge condom mistrust. Smile promoters placed much emphasis on the fact that the condom is produced safely and locally in Windhoek, and released a pamphlet assuring the public that the devices are tested for defects in a multitude of ways. Serious scientists are depicted undertaking high-tech experiments using sophisticated machinery (see Figure 1), and the company’s adherence to interna - tional WHO standards are invoked to generate further trust in prod - uct safety. Similarly, responses to the rumour that Western countries donate defective condoms in order to infect Namibians with HIV are also present in HIV prevention materials, although the information they provide is not always entirely accurate. A brochure produced in 2004 as a part of the local campaign Take Control countered that “free condoms are now all produced and controlled in Namibia and have to pass rigid quality tests.” Despite this apparently straightfor - ward claim, in 2004 condoms being distributed in Windhoek hospi - tals were still stamped with diverse countries of origin, such as the United States, South Korea, and South Africa, and anxieties about condom safety continued to be widespread in 2006.

Figure 1: Smile Water Leakage Test

Source: The Smile in the Desert. Windhoek: Commodity Exchange, 2006. 40 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

To HIV prevention experts, the possession of accurate scientific knowledge concerning HIV/AIDS is believed to be a necessary prerequisite to facilitating healthy behaviour, and is supported by psychological models such as the Health Belief Model. Within such frameworks lies the assumption that there is a linear relationship between the possession of biomedical knowledge and the “ratio - nal” translation of that knowledge into behaviours that promote good health, an assumption that has been widely criticized (Buchanan, Sasiragha and Hossein 1994; Campbell 2003; Yoder 1997). Furthermore, the focus on replacing beliefs with facts neglects an examination of the reasons why alternative concep - tions of health and disease gain prominence within communities, which I will briefly explore below.

Conceiving of Misconceptions Explorations of the factors contributing to the emergence of alter - native conceptions of health and disease within communities have identified two common attributes: first, such communities are or have been subjected to abuses by state or extra-state actors; and second, such communities often occupy a marginal position rela - tive to the dominant society. As public health efforts to stamp out disease are usually directed by the state, a history of abuse delivered through the health system, especially when combined with political or social upheaval, may fuel rumours regarding present efforts (Feldman- Savelsberg, Ndonko and Schmidt-Ehry 2000; Scheper-Hughes 1996). For example, Nancy Scheper-Hughes (1996, 9) argues that widely circulated rumours about the theft of children, organs, and body parts in Brazil are not simply metaphors recounting the precarious economic and social position of poor Brazilians. Rather, such rumours are “existentially true,” referring to unscrupulous practices of child adoption and medical malfeasance within Brazil, as well as a history of state-directed violence against citizens, one which has been repeated in numerous other developing countries, and likewise met with the subsequent spread of mistrust and rumour. Likewise, abuse in the form of unethical research prac - tices, carried out with a zeal for the acquisition of scientific knowl - edge no matter the human cost, have been common throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, despite the widespread adop - Rigillo: Faith in God, But Not in Condoms 41 tion of the Nuremberg Code in 1947 and the Helsinki Declaration in 1964. The US Public Health Services’ Tuskegee Experiment (1932-72), which denied African Americans treatment for syphilis in an effort to chart the “natural history” of the disease, has been identified as one event instrumental to the loss of trust in the government and medical profession that has contributed in part to the preponderance of health-related conspiracy theories among African Americans today. As Alexander Rodlach (2006) notes, the legacy of this medical project has passed far beyond the borders of the United States, fuelling AIDS and condom conspiracy theories in his village field site in Zimbabwe. Alternative conceptions of health and disease also proliferate among socially, economically, and politically marginalized communities, as studies of cholera epidemics among indigenous groups in Venezuela and of HIV/AIDS among Haitian villagers suggest (Briggs and Mantini-Briggs 2003; Farmer 1992). According to Briggs and Mantini-Briggs (2003, 254), the use of conspiracy narratives among indigenous Warao residents in Venezuela served to help residents move beyond disempowering official rhetorics that pinned the blame for the cholera epidemic on their “cultural” beliefs and behaviours. The spread of alternative conceptions of health and disease here counter official discourses and give voice to concerns and suspicions concerning whose interests might be served by the potentially deliberate spread of disease. Certain groups may meet with more success than others in the widespread, intentional circulation of alternative conceptions of health and disease, as is the case of religious groups in certain African countries (Pfeiffer 2004; Willms, Ariata and Makondesa 2004). In regions where HIV/AIDS is prevalent, Christian groups in particular often place themselves in opposition to agencies promot - ing condoms, devices that prevent not only the transmission of HIV, but also act as a barrier to conception. To certain Christian groups, procreation is the “natural law” purpose of sexual inter - course; thus the use of contraceptive methods constitutes a wilful act against life, as well as one against the Christian God. The spreading of alternative discourses that challenge dominant biomedical knowledge about condoms by religious groups thus becomes one way of discrediting secular health interventions and promoting health practices more in line with Christian ideals. 42 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 Doubting Condoms Internationally Doubts about condom efficacy and safety have been widely reported across African regions affected by HIV/AIDS, expressed not only by religious groups, but also by politicians, conspiracy theorists, and members of HIV/AIDS-affected communities (Kaler 2005; Pfeiffer 2004; Rodlach 2006; Willms, Ariata and Makondesa 2004). The use of a scientific idiom to prove that condoms are inef - fective against the spread of HIV is one strategy that appears to be gaining currency among Christian organizations worldwide. Certain Catholic churches in particular have begun to adopt the language of science in discussions surrounding condom promo - tion for HIV prevention, seemingly as a way to better challenge the supremacy of secular approaches. One well-known proponent of this approach is Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family. In an article entitled Family Values vs Safe Sex, Trujillo presents a litany of scientific evidence that supports the claim that the condoms distributed globally for HIV prevention are significantly less effective than popularly believed to be. Cardinal Trujillo vehemently accuses the governments and international health agencies who promote them of using science to further “certain economic interests on the part of condom producers, with an `ideology’ of the powerful against the poor in line with `population control’” (2003, section 4). Trujillo rejects a secularist construction of the Church as a monolithic organization that contributes to the spread of disease by prohibit - ing the use of condoms among believers. Rather, it is the actions of condom promoters, who do so “without properly informing the public of its failure rates ... that have led to, lead to, and will continue to lead to the death of many” (Trujillo 2003, section 18). Trujillo further questions ... why, despite the invitation to promiscuity made by the “safe sex” campaign and the distribution of an enormous quantity of prophylactics where the pandemic is more widespread, the problem of infection has become even greater (2003, section 11). Significantly, Trujillo’s opposition to condoms does not rest solely on the faith-based argument that condoms prevent concep - tion and hence are forbidden because they interfere with the “natural” course of reproduction. Instead, his argument centres on questioning the generally accepted scientific wisdom that Rigillo: Faith in God, But Not in Condoms 43 promotes condom use as a highly effective way to prevent preg - nancy, STDs, and HIV. Furthermore, it questions the role of the state and international development agencies in family planning, seen here as underhandedly pursuing a form of unwanted popula - tion control. Similar debates have resonated among religious groups at the epicentre of the epidemic in Southern Africa. For example, the Catholic Bishops of South Africa, Swaziland and Botswana recently put forth a statement advising against the use of condoms as a means of HIV prevention. Two of the four reasons the Bishops cite for their opposition to the promotion of condoms are that they “do not guarantee protection against HIV/AIDS,” and somewhat more conspiratorially, that they “may even be one of the main reasons for the spread of HIV/AIDS” (Catholic Bishops of Southern Africa 2005, 76). Supporting this claim is data from a study by Catholic pro-life organization Human Life International (HLI) that reported the failure rate of condoms to be “up to 30 percent.” Similarly, in a BBC online report published on 26 September 2007, Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio claimed that European-made condoms and certain anti-retroviral drugs were deliberately infected with HIV “in order to finish quickly the African people.” While these examples reveal an opposition and suspicion towards condoms — presented through a scientific idiom — I do not wish to homogenize religious groups internationally or in Namibia as unequivocally holding similar views. In 2001, The World Council of Churches (WCC) questioned religious resistance to condom promotion, asking: “should not the churches, in light of [scientific] facts, recognize the use of condoms as a method of prevention of HIV?” (2001, 62). Likewise, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia has adopted what it calls the ABCD strategy, which promotes a hierarchy of HIV prevention behaviours. This position instructs individuals that to be Abstinent and ( Be) faithful is “the Christian way, and it guarantees LIFE. But if you find that you cannot follow this teaching, then choose C for a condom, because the alternative is D for death” (Isaak 2000, 114). Namibia’s Catholic Church embodies several different positions: while certain members speak out against condom promotion, Catholic AIDS Action, the largest HIV/AIDS service organization in Namibia, has successfully built partner - 44 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 ships with promoters of condoms, such as the Washington-based Social Marketing Association. Further, members of several differ - ent FBOs and churches reported discussing condom use with clients and even sometimes distributing the devices secretly, despite organizational constraints and prohibitions. In contrast, certain Pentecostal groups in Namibia worked hard to spread the message that condoms were ineffective in the prevention of HIV, employing media and political channels to spread this message beyond the pulpit. Before exploring these messages, I will provide a brief background on HIV/AIDS, condom promotion, and Pentecostalism in Namibia.

HIV/AIDS, Condoms, and Religion in Namibia In 1986, the first four cases of HIV/AIDS were reported in Namibia. Nineteen years later, in 2005, the national HIV seroprevalence had risen steadily to nearly twenty percent, with HIV prevalence reported to be in excess of thirty-one percent in some regions (UNAIDS 2006, 414). Shortly after the country’s independence from South Africa in 1990, the National AIDS Control Program (NACP) was launched, assuming the management of HIV preven - tion and outreach activities and the distribution of free condoms (!Goraseb 2006). The practice of condom social marketing followed in the mid-1990s, when a lack of resources and infrastructure prompted the MoHSS to seek out partners for condom production, promotion, and distribution. In February 2006, the government released Smile, a condom which resembles the packaged socially marketed brands currently on the market, although it is distributed free of charge. Unbranded condoms wrapped plainly in silver foil packaging are also available free in clinics and government offices. Christianity is the major religion of Namibia, reportedly followed by ninety percent of the population (Steinitz 2006, 95). Pentecostalism, also known as “Born-Again Christianity,” is a branch of Evangelical Christianity that emphasizes direct experi - ence with God through baptism with the fire of the Holy Spirit. The movement appears to be a significant force in Africa, with adher - ents currently estimated to comprise twelve percent of the conti - nent’s total population (Pew Forum 2006, 1). No demographic information exists on Pentecostal churches in Namibia, largely because data on denominational affiliation have never been gath - Rigillo: Faith in God, But Not in Condoms 45 ered. Even the available statistics are likely inaccurate, as the church baptismal registers used to generate them are never updated to reflect the loss of members to other churches or their lack of church attendance. Pentecostal religious leaders estimated their churches to number approximately two hundred in Katutura alone, Windhoek’s apartheid-era largely black township. This is a rela - tively significant presence considering the already strong represen - tation of mainline churches and Katutura’s population of only about 120 000 people. Whatever their numbers, the Pentecostal presence is palpable in Windhoek, even to the casual visitor. Posters advertising spiritual salvation (“Ensure your Rapture”), bodily healing (“Are you suffering from HIV/AIDS? Witchcraft Attacks?”), and spiritual conferences adorn lampposts and grocery store bulletin boards across the city. Likewise, visitors to Zoo Park, the largest public space in downtown Windhoek, increasingly find themselves the targets of impromptu evangelizing and preaching during the weekly lunch hour and on sunny Sunday afternoons.

Doubting Condoms in Namibia The attacks on condom promotion emerging from the Catholic groups described above also manifested themselves within certain Pentecostal churches in Namibia. What was common among nearly all religious leaders interviewed was that they expressed serious doubts about the efficacy of condoms in protecting users against the transmission of HIV, largely choosing to preach against them and the public health messages that promoted their use. Religious leaders often anchored their arguments against condom use with scientific evidence, citing research reports, medical opin - ions, and anecdotal evidence to further the claim that the devices were not as safe as people have been led to believe. Pastor Ezekiel, 4 the founder of a pan-African church headquartered in Namibia, was particularly active in HIV prevention and care activities, managing feeding schemes for orphans, home-based care for people with HIV/AIDS, and support for HIV positive women with young chil - dren. He was an ardent supporter of abstinence and faithfulness, using scientific language and research to back up this position. Pastor Ezekiel explained his opposition to condoms in the follow - ing terms: 46 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

We’re against condoms because fifteen percent don’t work ... fifteen percent of condoms worldwide are not effective. And actually we’ve got statistics from Kenya, Cameroon, and some other countries: the more condoms that were sold, the higher HIV rate, the less condoms sold, the less HIV (28 October 2006). Some religious leaders also explained that contraceptives in general were proscribed by their churches because they prevented pregnancy, and hence interfered with the “normal” course of repro - duction. However, it was often the language of science that was used to support and strengthen this primarily faith-based argu - ment. A pastor from a medium-sized church in Katutura combined these two rationales in putting forward his argument against the use of condoms: [The Church] says “no” to condoms — they are not meant for AIDS prevention. Many people also got HIV through using condoms because they burst, and because they have tiny holes in them — they are not one hundred percent. So the church says no. The condom is a contraceptive — it interferes with the creation of God, the normal way, in the sense that when we have sex the normal result is pregnancy (15 September 2006 [my emphasis]). The low rates of perceived condom efficacy were most often explained by the idea that male latex condoms were highly perme - able to both sperm and HIV because their surfaces are covered with “pores” that allow the virus to escape. Religious leaders, like many young Namibians, often reasoned that because the virus was smaller in size than sperm it was better able to exploit this perme - ability, thus infecting unsuspecting users. I met Matteus, a middle- aged sexual health educator who gave Christian-themed sexual health presentations to mainly Pentecostal youth, through a friend at a Pentecostal Church. He was extremely well-versed in the inter - national HIV/AIDS literature, citing peer-reviewed papers, Johns Hopkins reports, newspaper articles, and any other type of infor - mation he could access that supported the claim that condoms were ineffective, and that abstinence and faithfulness were the sole actions proven to decrease the transmission of HIV. Latex perme - ability was one concept that he used to explain condom inefficacy: Condoms do fail — they are not infallible. There are pregnan - cies that are reported, even with the use of a condom. And for Rigillo: Faith in God, But Not in Condoms 47

that to happen , it’s a requirement that sperm escapes from the condom — for HIV that opening can be even smaller (29 September 2006 [my emphasis]). Pastor Joel, a charismatic healer from the independent Hand of God church, whom I met at one of his HIV healing sermons, didn’t necessarily have access to the studies cited by the above speakers, who held relatively high positions in their churches, but nonethe - less had taken up these theories in his own descriptions of condom inefficacy. Pastor Joel describes below what he had learned at a recent faith retreat on HIV prevention for Pentecostal pastors: ... according to what the scientists and doctors told us, when you look at a condom, there is a small hole in the condom , so people are not so safe. It doesn’t matter what kind of condom they use, be it chocolate, be it strawberry, be it any kind of stock (30 October 2006 [my emphasis]). Other religious leaders constructed condoms as fallible objects created by humans who erroneously believed they had engineered a way to protect themselves from HIV, a virus infinitely more capa - ble of bypassing such defences. HIV was depicted as a sneaky virus, one intelligent enough to evade condoms and other human-created defences designed to counteract its spread, capable of hiding itself and attacking from within. Pastor Brown, a young Pentecostal preacher at the Jesus Saves church engaged with scientific knowl - edge to prove his point below: ... the HIV/AIDS virus can penetrate through the pores of a condom. Condoms say, “store in a cool place.” It’s not cool while you’re having sex, things expand. This HIV/AIDS virus has a brain of its own, all viruses you can study and say, after so many weeks and months, this and this and this will happen. With HIV you can’t. This virus has got a brain of its own; it decides when to attack, where to attack and then it hides itself in human tissues (22 August 2006). Justified by the belief in condom inefficacy, the argument that condom promotion itself was to blame for rising rates of HIV infec - tion across Africa was also made by religious leaders. This argu - ment was seen by some in more conspiratorial terms, and implicated governments and international aid agencies in facilitat - ing the continued transmission of HIV. These agencies were blamed for the spread of HIV for a number of reasons: some blamed 48 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 them and the foreigners they employed for encouraging Namibian women to engage in sex work. Others blamed them for continuing to promote condom use as a solution to the epidemic, even though the devices were believed to be unsafe. As Pastor Ezekiel explained his reservations: Since it’s a scientific fact that fifteen to twenty percent of condoms are not safe, and eighty percent are, and the condoms in Africa are being sponsored by the United Nations, the ques - tion comes then if they are not purposely trying to eliminate the populations of Africa. Some people think it’s far-fetched, but why would an organization like United Nations, with their health organization [WHO], sponsor distributing millions of condoms, knowing that only eighty percent work, and know - ing that those who get HIV/AIDS are going to die? (28 October 2006). Dr. Eva Seobi, a member of the Christian health organization Doctors for Life South Africa, and a vocal abstinence campaigner in Namibia, echoed these conspiratorial views, albeit in a more ambiguous manner. In a videotaped interview, Seobi offered her opinion on the causes of the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in South Africa: Condoms, as far as I am concerned, they are not one hundred percent protective. So they can’t protect and so they can’t even prevent the transference of infection from one partner to the next. The more that they [the government] campaign on condom awareness ... not just AIDS awareness, but condom awareness, and as far as the campaign goes up, the rate of AIDS infection also goes up. That, to me, means one of two things: either people don’t know how to use the condom, or people use the condom with an understanding that the condoms are going to protect them, whereas they don’t (2006 [my emphasis]). Seobi thus attributes the rise in HIV infections to the rise in condom promotion campaigns, either to user error, or, more ambiguously, to the possibility that condoms do not effectively prevent HIV transmission, although she does not elaborate on the reasons for why this may be so. In this sense, instead of being viewed as instrumental partners in the fight against HIV/AIDS, governments and international aid agencies are perceived to be Rigillo: Faith in God, But Not in Condoms 49 colluding with unidentified forces to contribute to an increase of infection through the promotion of condoms. The above data point to an engagement with science on the part of religious leaders in their efforts to convince congregation members, as well as the public at large, that abstinence and faith - fulness are effective in preventing the transmission of HIV, while condoms are not. In an effort to lend strength to this argument, certain religious leaders pointed to Uganda, where a perceived focus on abstinence and monogamy and a shift away from condom promotion was believed to have led to a remarkable decrease in HIV seroprevalence.

Uganda as Christian Exemplar To many Pentecostal religious leaders, condom promotion had contributed to a rise in HIV infection across Africa that could only be remedied by a focus on abstinence and faithfulness. Accessing certain research concerning Uganda’s “miracle” HIV prevention strategy allowed religious leaders to buttress this argument, provid - ing an exemplar of what Christian-directed programs could accom - plish with regard to stalling the spread of HIV. Exactly how Uganda was able to reduce the incidence and prevalence of HIV infection from a high of thirty-six percent in some urban sites (with the national average at twenty-one percent) in 1991 to slightly more than eight percent in 1999, and down to five percent in 2001 (Cohen 2003, paragraph 5; Parikh 2005, 125), remains a contentious issue among researchers — one theory holds that it was Uganda’s quick adoption of ABC that was responsible for the decrease, leading to its export across Southern Africa. The popularity of ABC is also due to its promotion and support by orga - nizations devoting large sums of funding to HIV prevention, such as USAID, who justify its application worldwide as a universalist solution that can be “tailored to meet the specific needs of the most at-risk or vulnerable individuals” (USAID 2006, paragraph 5). However, the success of the approach remains questionable, as multiple theories continue to compete to explain Uganda’s decrease. Some point instead to the importance of government initiatives, such as “reducing stigma, bringing discussion of sexual behaviour out into the open, involving HIV-infected people in public education, persuading individuals and couples to be tested 50 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 and counselled, improving the status of women, involving religious organizations, [and] enlisting traditional healers” (Green 2003 in Cohen 2003, 3). Others explain it as the result of increased death rates (combined with increased condom use) that drastically reduced the number of individuals living with the virus and able to spread it, as a recent study in Uganda’s Rakai district suggested (Wawer et al. 2005 in Harder 2005). In contrast, USAID (2006, para - graph 7), claims that the “most significant” of the factors leading to Uganda’s decrease “appear[s] to be faithfulness or partner reduction behaviours by Ugandan men and women, whose reported casual sex encounters declined by well over 50 percent.” Uganda’s rate of HIV infection appears to be rising again, having increased 2.6 percent from 2003 to 2005 (UNAIDS 2007, 11). Some believe this rise to be the result of President Yoweri Musaveni’s discouragement of condom use in the name of abstinence-only programs, as well as a condom shortage brought about by the government’s recall of several brands in 2004: thousands of condoms “were found to be defective as they had a foul smell, while others had tiny holes in them” (Wakabi 2006). The recall brought about not only a national shortage, but more worryingly, a serious loss of public confidence in the national brand, Engabu, that has resulted in widespread mistrust and dwindling demand (Ouma 2007; Wakabi 2006). Current Ugandan president Yoweri Musaveni himself publicly questioned Engabu’s safety, stating: I am told Ngabo [Engabu] is not good, it breaks. That is another crisis. I don’t know who approved that type. It breaks and kills people. Whoever allowed the importation of that condom into Uganda is a killer. Maybe that is why the prevalence rate has stagnated because people believed in the safety of such condoms and found they break. There must be a limit to condoms, but for sure if they are well manufactured they can control AIDS (Human Rights Watch 2005, paragraph 16). Interestingly, Namibia experienced its own smaller recall of condoms in 1999 in Windhoek (Amupadhi 1999), an event which Sayumi Yamakawa (2001) viewed as the catalyst that spurred wide - spread condom anxieties there. Uganda nonetheless continued to represent a beacon of hope for Pentecostals in Namibia, seen as the only country in Africa that had been able to seemingly turn around an HIV epidemic. Matteus Rigillo: Faith in God, But Not in Condoms 51 related the following statistics as evidence that abstinence, not condom promotion, had been responsible for the HIV/AIDS decline in Uganda: When you look at the statistics on increases in condom use, even where there is an increase of five to seventeen times in condom use, there still has been no appreciable impact on the growth of HIV. In Uganda the abstinence campaign was only partially responsible — but it reduced casual sex by fifty percent - this was enough to turn around the epidemic. And this is all from a Johns Hopkins University report, it was multi- sourced. People are sceptical about Uganda, but the facts are undeniable. Science proves that the condom is ineffective in reducing the transmission of HIV/AIDS (26 September 2006). Related to this idea was one that in countries where Pentecostal and Christian movements in particular were growing, the rates of HIV infection were declining as well. Uganda’s success was seen as being the result of behaviour change rather than condom promo - tion — in particular, a change towards behaviours concurrent with Christian lifestyles. As a pastor in town for a Pentecostal confer - ence in Windhoek argued: But you see, the Born Again faith sees things differently, it teaches you life skills, and how to respect yourself. That’s why in countries where the Born Again church is growing, the HIV rate is declining, like in Uganda and Zambia. There people live their lives as Christians - it becomes something that affects your entire life, not something you just hear about on Sundays (30 September 2006). The example of Uganda thus provided proof that an abstinence and faithfulness-based approach was able to facilitate behavioural change among individuals by reducing the amount of “casual sex” taking place outside of marriage. The Ugandan government was seen as not having bowed to international pressure forcing the promotion of condoms, and further, the approach was perceived to be one that incorporated the church’s position into state-level HIV prevention activities, rather than excluding religious groups from decision-making processes. The case of Uganda exemplified the vast possibilities of a Christian-led HIV prevention initiative, where condoms would lose their place of supremacy and be replaced by faith-based prescriptions leading to behavioural 52 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 changes across society. Religious leaders thus felt a responsibility to promote these behaviours as viable solutions to the epidemic. Because condoms were constructed as ineffective, abstinence and faithfulness were viewed as the only truly “safe” ways to avoid HIV infection and were promoted as health-seeking behaviours rather than as moral prescriptions. Abstinence and faithfulness were thus presented as protective mechanisms against HIV, ways to keep individuals not only spiritually pure, but physically pure as well. This was a message that religious leaders sought to relay not only to their congregants, but also to members of the wider community.

Beyond the Pulpit Pentecostal religious leaders were active in spreading their alterna - tive HIV prevention messages beyond their congregations, seeking to increase public awareness of the idea that condoms would likely infect rather than protect users from HIV. For example, one of the pastors whom I interviewed had been successful in rallying the national television broadcaster to run an “educational” film for youth entitled In Your Face, produced by the religious health orga - nization Doctors for Life (DFL) South Africa. The film portrays Dr. Albu van Eeden, CEO of DFL South Africa, presenting information on HIV/AIDS to auditoriums filled with school-aged youth. Throughout the film, graphic medical images of patients with advanced stage opportunistic and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as Kaposi’s sarcoma and syphilis, are shown in an effort to scare young people away from sex outside of monogamous, heterosexual marriage. An almost violent theatre of oppressors and victims is played out through the stories recounted by Dr. van Eeden: the innocent are largely left to suffer for the immoral actions of HIV infected people. No mention is made of the influence of structural determinants which have been proven to shape one’s risk of HIV infection in Southern Africa specifically, such as the widespread poverty caused by the colonial economic system, perpetuated today by economic programs that limit the reach of public health care, in addition to gender inequality and the migrant labour system (Campbell 2003; Lurie, Hintzen and Lowe 2004; Schoepf 2004). Instead, in van Eeden’s view, it is an individual’s responsibility if he or she has contracted HIV — and when one has Rigillo: Faith in God, But Not in Condoms 53 done so, one is blamed for it. The motif of the inefficacy of condoms is one that appears in the film as well. Dr. van Eeden, maximizing the authority conferred by his professional status and invoking the power of “medical science,” exhorts young people: Please, please don’t put your trust in condoms. Medical science shows that condoms fail in fifteen to twenty percent of the cases in protecting against AIDS. If you do skydiving and you hear that one in six parachutes don’t work, are you still going to jump? Sex with a condom is dangerous sex, that’s it (DFL 2005). According to a representative from the Christian organization responsible for its promotion, the film was re-broadcast four times on the national television station “by request of the public,” and was mentioned often by the young Namibians whom I inter - viewed. The organization’s newsletter reports that the Khomas Regional Education Board has ordered almost fifty copies of the film, and that the President’s wife, Penehupifo Pohamba, requests that it be screened at all of her speaking engagements, despite the government’s official support of ABC. Pentecostal religious leaders seem to be successfully spreading alternative HIV prevention messages beyond the pulpit and into the homes and classrooms of countless more Namibians. With its fear-inducing images supported by expert medical opinion, its reli - gious associations obscured, In Your Face has the ability to frighten young people away from both sex and condoms — although what remains unclear is whether or not they will misinterpret the message, choosing to forego condom use instead of sex. What is clear is that religious leaders’ depictions of condoms are resonating with young people, most forcefully among those who are members of their churches. I spoke to Malika, a young Born-Again student at the University of Namibia (UNAM), and Malena, an active member of one of UNAM’s Christian organiza - tions, about their views about condoms. Their personal estima - tions of condom safety were worryingly pessimistic: I don’t even trust those things [condoms]: one man was telling us that when you use condoms, there are pores in the condom. There are some tiny holes, and cells can go through the condom. The more you have sex the more of these things are 54 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

deposited on you ... the viruses go through the condom little by little and then you get HIV. It was one Christian gentleman came to talk to us at the University of Namibia, and he demon - strated as well how this was possible (20 October 2006).

I’m part of a church that organizes youth conferences ... the pastor speaks about health and wellness often. He said once: “You cannot trust a rubber — abstinence is the only way. Young people should keep themselves pure.” So in that way he’ll go against the fact that people say “have safe sex” — you can’t trust a condom, so it’s not worth it (14 October 2006).

The Roots of Misconceptions In a similar way to the approaches of international Catholic move - ments described above, certain Pentecostal religious leaders in Namibia are appropriating science to strengthen the claim that condoms are ineffective against the transmission of HIV. At the same time, they articulate a lack of trust in the powers that promote the use of condoms as a safe and healthy choice in an epidemic context. While it may seem simple to discount such discourses as distortions of scientific evidence that serve only to lend credence to religiously grounded claims, I would like to briefly explore the scientific evidence concerning condom use. While condom promo - tion appears to be a relatively straightforward action, popularly accepted as a reasonable, scientifically-proven approach to prevent - ing the spread of HIV, a wealth of conflicting research currently exists concerning condom efficacy. Questions about the safety and reliability of condoms are not particular to the religious sphere, although dominant HIV prevention discourses tend to silence these minority views, regardless of where they originate from. As Edward Green notes, ... experience shows that those who raise any sort of question about the safety and reliability of condoms become highly suspect and are often the target of accusations of having a reli - gious or moral agenda rather than a concern for public health (2003, 95 ). The oft-cited statistic from the US Centres for Disease Control Rigillo: Faith in God, But Not in Condoms 55

(CDC 1999, 4) rates the breakage of condoms in the United States at less than two percent, and their effectiveness in preventing preg - nancy (although not STIs) as up to ninety-eight percent with correct, consistent use during penile-vaginal sex. However, research concerning the efficacy of condoms in preventing the transmission of STIs, including HIV, are not as encouraging, for a number of reasons. First, researchers have noted that statistics on condom efficacy are context-specific, related not only to correct use, but also to the material inequalities between the “West and the Rest.” In addition to problems relating to distribution and affordability in underde - veloped countries, Green notes: ... condoms also have a relatively high failure rate in Africa, due to incorrect use but also due to the poor quality of condoms often found in poor, tropical countries. In fact, quality may deteriorate from incorrect or simply lengthy storage in hot warehouses or shelves of clinics or shops. Or condoms can be of good quality but the wrong size for the local population (2003, 93). Second, the CDC statistic of ninety-eight percent efficacy relies on ideal-use conditions, where condoms are used correctly, consistently, and only during heterosexual vaginal sex. Studies of condom efficacy in practice tend to produce much lower estimates of efficacy. For example, a study of condom breakage in Ethiopia among literate men measured the number of condoms broken while opening the package, putting the condom on, or during inter - course or withdrawal. Almost twenty-seven percent of the 143 participants were found to have broken condoms (Mekonen and Mekonen 1999). Similarly, a 2003 study of condom use among American university students found that sixty-nine percent of respondents had engaged in some action that compromised condom efficacy, such as opening packages with sharp instru - ments, or applying the condom after sex had begun (Crosby et al. 2003, 369). As these studies demonstrate, ideal-use conditions rarely exist in practice, likely reducing the “real” efficacy of condoms considerably in both developing and developed countries. Third, the CDC statistic accounts only for the prevention of pregnancy, and not for the transmission of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). In 2000, the American National Institute of 56 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) convened a workshop to examine the evidence on condom efficacy in preventing STD trans - mission during vaginal intercourse. The authors concluded that the quality of the published data documenting the effectiveness of the male condom were strongest for HIV, surprising considering the significant margin of condom failure detected. According to the meta-analysis that provided the evidence for this conclusion, correct and consistent use of male condoms is eighty-five percent effective in reducing the risk of HIV infection (NIAID 2000, 14). Interestingly, the American Foundation for AIDS Research uses this information in support of their opinion that condom use is nonethe - less a “highly effective” mode of preventing HIV/AIDS, in their efforts to challenge recent US government initiatives that have begun to question their promotion (AMFAR 2005). In contrast, simi - lar statistics are used by Namibian religious leaders to prove the opposite. In a country where nearly one in five people are HIV posi - tive, a potential five to twenty percent condom failure rate is likely to generate different anxieties about HIV infection, and may contribute to different conceptions of the practice of “safe sex.” Namibia’s long and abusive history of population control by the South African state’s health care system provides another cogent reason to disbelieve the benevolence of condom promoters and the safety of their products. Beginning in the 1970s and only ending in 1990 with independence, the apartheid government authorized the forceful injection of Depo-Provera contraceptives and the insertion of IUDs into Namibian women, as well as covert sterilizations and hysterectomies, in their efforts to control the birth rate of the black population (Lindsay 1991). South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 1998 made public the activities of South Africa’s chemical and biological warfare (CBW) program, which worked largely to develop strategies to reduce the black population, including the development of unde - tectable compounds that could be placed in food or cigarettes to kill groups and individuals that threatened the apartheid state. In their efforts to diminish and control the black population, the CBW program also strove “to develop an anti-fertility vaccine that could have been used clandestinely on black people” (quoted in Baldwin- Ragaven, de Gruchy and London 1999, 155). Justified under the need to control the “communist threat” facing South Africa, the Rigillo: Faith in God, But Not in Condoms 57

CBW program was supported in part by the United States and other Western nations (Baldwin-Ragaven, de Gruchy and London 19 99, 156). This history has perhaps created a negative association in the minds of Namibians, some of whom believe that the distribution of condoms, many by foreign countries, constitutes another veiled attack on their health. The ignorance of and lack of reference to this history by many of the HIV prevention experts to whom I spoke constitutes yet another failure of the dissemination of information in health communication efforts concerning HIV/AIDS.

Conclusion In shifting from faith-based arguments that promoted abstinence and fidelity as expressions of religious morality and the use of contraceptives as an act against God to arguments that re-cast abstinence and fidelity as “healthy” choices as compared to “unsafe” condom use, religious leaders are better able to exploit the uncertainties of science to give weight to religico-moral prescrip - tions regarding HIV prevention. The lack of scientific consensus over Uganda’s HIV decrease likewise provides a useful example for Namibian Pentecostal religious leaders, who view Uganda’s success in terms of its adoption of health initiatives perceived to be in line with Christian morality. In taking such a stance towards condom promotion, religious leaders seem better able to tap into the already prevalent mistrust in condoms among Namibians. They thus promote the A’s and B’s of HIV prevention as “healthier” choices relying on individual moral and behavioural change, arguing against a dependence on medical devices that may or may not function as advertised. By engaging with science and contesting its claims, this oppositional and sometimes conspiratorial approach allows religious leaders to justify religious beliefs within secular and scientific knowledge, therefore lending greater legitimacy to their claims. The history of abusive population control policies directed towards non-white Namibians provides yet another cogent reason for individuals to doubt the safety of condoms and the intentions of their providers. Such events are by no means confined to Namibia; popular doubts about condoms have also recently been observed elsewhere across Southern Africa (Kaler 2005; Rodlach 2006), some emerging 58 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 specifically from religious groups (Pfeiffer 2004; Willms, Ariata and Makondesa 2004). Fuelling such anxieties are the reports of recalls of millions of defective condoms not only in Uganda and Namibia as described above, but also in 2007 in South Africa, a country with one of the fastest growing rates of HIV infection in the world. The results of this research point to a worrying challenge to the promo - tion of condoms for HIV prevention in epidemic contexts across Africa, one that needs to be addressed through changes in the ways in which condoms are promoted and distributed. In seeking to chal - lenge “misconceptions” about condoms and HIV/AIDS with scien - tific information, HIV prevention experts in Namibia are unable to address the motivations behind the spread of alternative concep - tions of health and disease, or the reasons why individuals may ascribe them more weight than dominant biomedical explanations. Innovative and holistic strategies that recognize the importance of historical and contemporary social contexts in influencing ideas about health and disease may be most helpful in countering, or at least containing, mistrust in condoms in Namibia and other south - ern African regions affected by HIV/AIDS.

Notes 1 Social marketing, one of the most widely used market-based approaches to health promotion today, was first developed by marketers Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman, who define it as “the design, implementation and control of programs calculated to influence the acceptability of social ideas involving considerations of product planning, pricing, communications and marketing research” (1971, 5). Social marketing uses commercial marketing to elicit improvement in the health status of populations, through the promotion of ideas or products (usually at subsidized cost). Social marketing has been applied across Africa towards the promotion of condoms for HIV/AIDS, mosquito nets for malaria, and counselling to promote breast feeding among new mothers. The approach has been heav - ily critiqued on the grounds that it individualizes health problems and ignores the influence of social and economic determinants (Wallack 1990), that its fee-for-service model impedes access by the poor (Price 2001), and that it neglects issues of trust and consensus-building within target communities in its efficiency driven, top-down approach to health inter - ventions (Pfeiffer 2004). Rigillo: Faith in God, But Not in Condoms 59

2 HIV prevention experts in Namibia use the term “safe sex” to describe the variety of practices one can employ (such as condom use and monogamy) to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted infections. The term “safer sex” tends to be more widely used in North America, largely to emphasize that the risks of STI transmission can be reduced through safer sex practices, but not entirely eliminated. 3 The author conducted fieldwork in the Greater Windhoek Area between August and November 2006. Interviews, focus groups, and participant- observation were conducted with Pentecostal religious leaders (pastors, church administrators, FBO workers), Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal youth from sixteen to twenty-five years of age, and HIV prevention experts working out of diverse HIV/AIDS-related organizations. 4 All names of informants and their churches are pseudonyms. Sur les rétributions des pratiques homosex - uelles à Bamako

Christophe Broqua

Abstract The close link between money and heterosexuality in Africa is increas - ingly the subject of an already extensive literature. However, hardly anything has been written on this link in homosexual relations, while the widespread conception of homosexuality in many african countries is that they are essentially motivated by the quest for money. This article analyzes the stakes of “transactional sexuality” between men in Bamako, based on the results of a ethnographic field survey that took place from 2003 to 2008. Money is omnipresent because it has a regulating effect, since it finds common points between homosexual and heterosexual rela - tions, and reduces the notion of transgression associated with a sexuality outside the norms which would be motivated solely by desire.

Résumé Le lien étroit qui unit l’argent et la sexualité ordinaire entre hommes et femmes en Afrique est l’objet d’une littérature très abondante qui ne cesse de se développer. En revanche, presque rien n’a été écrit sur ce même lien dans le cas des relations homosexuelles, alors que la conception domi - nante de l’homosexualité dans maints pays d’Afrique les considère princi - palement motivées par la quête d’argent. Cet article propose d’analyser les enjeux de la “sexualité transactionnelle” entre hommes à Bamako, à partir des résultats d’une enquête de terrain ethnographique réalisée entre 2003 et 2008. L’omniprésence de l’argent s’explique ici par l’effet régulateur qu’il

Cette recherche a bénéficié de bourses post-doctorale de Sidaction et de l’ANR (Projet “Causes africaines”). Je remercie Karine Delaunay qui a commenté une version antérieure de ce texte, ainsi que Aliou Sylla et Amadigué Togo, responsables de l’association Arcad-sida, qui ont coor - donné une enquête à laquelle j’ai été associé (Sylla et al. 2007) et dont j’utilise ici quelques résultats.

60 Broqua: Sur les rétributions des pratiques homosexuelles 61 induit, en rapprochant les relations sexuelles entre hommes du modèle hétérosexuel et en réduisant la portée transgressive d’une sexualité non normative dont l’exercice serait motivé par le seul désir.

Introduction Si l’homosexualité se développe en Afrique subsaharienne, c’est qu’elle permet de s’enrichir! Telle est l’une des conceptions domi - nantes du comportement homosexuel dans maints pays d’Afrique. Mon objectif ici ne sera pas de l’infirmer, mais plutôt de mettre au jour les logiques sociales qu’elle camoufle plus qu’elle ne révèle. Car si cette idée n’est pas entièrement infondée, elle cultive néan - moins l’illusion du caractère d’exception des comportements homosexuels en Afrique, suggérant à la fois qu’ils n’existeraient pas sans compensation financière et que leur logique se distinguerait de celle des comportements sexuels majoritaires. Je montrerai à l’in - verse que leur économie ne se comprend qu’en relation avec celle de l’ensemble des échanges sexuels dans l’Afrique urbaine contem - poraine, à partir du cas des pratiques homosexuelles étudiées à Bamako dans le cadre d’une enquête de terrain ethnographique réalisée entre 2003 et 2008.

De la sexualité “transactionnelle”

La sexualité ordinaire et l’argent Bamako est l’une des villes les plus pauvres au monde. Durant les années 1980 et 1990, en dépit des politiques d’ajustement struc - turel, la croissance économique du Mali a stagné, touchant forte - ment les populations urbaines. Les difficultés que doivent affronter les jeunes générations touchées par le chômage renforcent leur dépendance à l’égard de la famille, et donc aussi leur dette, oblig - eant à la mise en oeuvre de différentes stratégies pour échapper à cette logique (Marie 1997). C’est dans ce contexte qu‘ont eu lieu certaines transformations relatives à l’organisation des relations conjugales et sexuelles. Au Mali, comme dans d’autres pays, s’observe un recul progres - sif de l’âge au premier mariage (Ouédraogo et Piché 1995; Antoine, Ouédraogo et Piché 1998). En même temps, l’entrée dans la sexual - ité devient plus précoce (Gueye, Castle and Konaté 2001). Il en découle que la période d’activité sexuelle prémaritale s’accroît dans la capitale malienne, tout particulièrement chez les hommes, en 62 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 même temps qu’elle correspond à une période de précarité. Parallèlement aux obligations financières liées aux mariages, les relations sexuelles entre hommes et femmes supposent aussi des compensations financières ou matérielles, les femmes recevant très fréquemment de l’argent ou des cadeaux tant avec des parte - naires occasionnels qu’avec des partenaires stables. 1 Dans la littérature en langue anglaise sur la sexualité dite “transactionnelle,” les analyses du phénomène ont opposé une approche en termes de “désorganisation sociale,” selon laquelle la sexualité échapperait aux formes traditionnelles du contrôle social, à une approche voyant plutôt ces évolutions comme une “adapta - tion rationnelle” au contexte socio-économique. Les travaux sur la sexualité transactionnelle les plus récents se détachent des expli - cations en termes de nécessité et l’envisagent aussi sous l‘angle d’un désir de consommation (Leclerc-Madlala 2003). Les femmes ne sont plus seulement décrites comme victimes mais comme actrices de la transaction (Hunter 2002). De plus, il apparaît que les jeux de la sexualité transactionnelle sont intimement liés à ceux de l’amour (Poulin 2007). À Bamako, les jeunes hommes répartissent leurs partenaires en trois catégories: les “copines,” les “louches” et les “occasion - nelles,” ces deux dernières catégories pouvant être rassemblées en une (Le Palec 1994). Dans les trois cas, l’homme doit dépenser de l’argent, soit sous forme de transactions ponctuelles avec des parte - naires occasionnelles, soit en subvenant à certains besoins des régulières, ce qui implique un lien automatique entre sexualité et argent, vécu comme normal mais cependant générateur de tensions, conduisant à la multiplication des partenaires occasion - nels et à la fragilisation des relations stables. À Mopti, Claude Fay (2000) relève également l’existence de deux grandes catégories de partenaires féminines: la “titulaire” et les “louches.“ Outre qu’il rétribue chaque rapport avec une “louche,” le garçon subvient aux besoins de la titulaire, dont le statut permet de se vivre comme la potentielle future mariée. Cependant, les garçons ont tendance à multiplier les titulaires et leurs difficultés à assurer leur rôle de financeur conduisent les filles à entretenir également plusieurs relations. Cette situation alimente ainsi la logique circulaire des rapports de genre marqués par des imputations respectives de vénalité et de manque de sérieux. Broqua: Sur les rétributions des pratiques homosexuelles 63

Les résultats d’une enquête quantitative sur la sexualité des quinze à dix-neuf ans au Mali confirment l’importance des rétribu - tions dès les débuts de la vie sexuelle, tant en milieux urbain que rural: 13,2% des filles et 21,1% des garçons sexuellement actifs déclarent s’être engagés dans une pratique sexuelle rétribuée au cours des douze derniers mois (Castle and Konaté 1999). Qu’en est-il à présent des pratiques ou relations sexuelles entre hommes?

Théorie de la corruption homosexuelle Si les logiques des relations sexuelles rétribuées sont aujourd’hui fort bien documentées en ce qui concerne les pratiques hétérosex - uelles en Afrique, elles le sont infiniment moins dans le cas des pratiques homosexuelles, pourtant souvent stigmatisées pour être motivées par l’appât du gain. Dans un article journalistique publié en 2006 au Mali, l’homosexualité est ainsi dépeinte: Aujourd’hui, selon Amadou Coulibaly, sociologue, la situation économique relativement aisée des homosexuels, leur permet de recruter parmi la jeunesse.... L’origine de la fortune des homosexuels connaît beaucoup de ramifications. Selon nos sources, les expatriés, en l’occurrence les touristes, contribuent beaucoup sur le plan financier (Cissé 2006). Cet article reflète bien l’opinion dominante sur les pratiques homosexuelles en Afrique, qui imprègne également certains travaux de recherche. Dans sa forme populaire comme dans sa forme savante, cette théorie de la corruption homosexuelle mêle trois composantes: la pratique homosexuelle, le comportement prostitutionnel et l’influence des Blancs. Les comportements homosexuels des Africains seraient motivés par l’argent et princi - palement induits par les sommes alléchantes que proposeraient des Blancs pour satisfaire leurs désirs. En forçant le trait sur le lien entre ces trois dimensions, c’est l’essentiel des logiques de la sexu - alité rétribuée entre hommes qui se trouve occulté. Tout d’abord, cette théorie construit un scénario où il y aurait des homosexuels d’un côté et des victimes de l’autre, dont nous verrons qu’il est infondé, principalement parce que les payés peuvent être en même temps des payeurs. Ensuite, si le contexte de pauvreté représente indéniablement un facteur déterminant, il ne saurait en aucun cas expliquer à lui seul les logiques de la sexualité transactionnelle 64 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 entre hommes. Enfin, en se focalisant sur le rôle des Blancs, cette théorie occulte la plus grande partie des pratiques homosexuelles rétribuées, à savoir celles qui se déroulent entre partenaires africains. C’est donc à ce type de rapports uniquement qu’est consacré cet article. Bien que ce discours liant l’homosexualité à l’appât du gain soit fréquent en Afrique, les relations entre les pratiques homosexuelles et l’argent sont longtemps restées occultées dans les travaux de recherche. C’est principalement au travers d’enquêtes récentes, la plupart quantitatives, qu’elles sont évoquées.

Rétributions des pratiques homosexuelles Différentes enquêtes comportementales réalisées récemment en relation avec la problématique du SIDA attestent du fait qu’à l’in - star des relations hétérosexuelles, les comportements homosex - uels en Afrique supposent très souvent des compensations financières ou matérielles. Une enquête pionnière montre que, dans la ville de Mombasa (Kenya), les relations homosexuelles se déroulent “presque sans exception” entre un individu riche et un autre plus jeune et moins fortuné, les considérations financières étant toujours présentes (Shepherd 1987). Si une étude quantitative réalisée vingt ans plus tard dans la même ville montre l’importance de la population des “hommes qui vendent du sexe à des hommes” (Geibel et al. 2007), une autre enquête récente menée à Nairobi invite toutefois à rela - tiviser l’analyse de Gill Shepherd: sur 500 hommes, 52% ont reçu de l’argent lors d’un rapport sexuel au cours des douze derniers mois, et 29% en ont donné (Onyango-Ouma, Birungi and Geibel 2005, 28). Les motivations exprimées pour justifier les pratiques homosexuelles obligent à considérer que la recherche d’argent n’est pas le seul facteur: en tête sont cités le plaisir (52%), puis l’amour (22%) et le soutien financier (20%) (Onyango-Ouma, Birungi and Geibel 2005, 19). À Accra (Ghana), il apparaît aussi que le plaisir et la recherche d’argent sont mêlés dans les raisons avancées par près de la moitié des 150 répondants pour justifier leurs pratiques homosexuelles: 91,3% disent s’engager dans de telles pratiques pour le plaisir, et 53,3% pour des raisons économiques (Attipoe 2004, 15). Ainsi, presque la moitié des répondants (47,3%) le font à la fois pour le Broqua: Sur les rétributions des pratiques homosexuelles 65 plaisir et pour des raisons économiques; 37,3% disent le faire uniquement pour le plaisir et seulement 4% pour des raisons économiques exclusivement. Au Sénégal, les résultats d’une étude qualitative conduite au début des années 1990 à Dakar indiquent que de l’argent ou des cadeaux sont fréquemment offerts dans le contexte des pratiques homosexuelles (Teunis 2001). Une enquête quantitative ultérieure montre que la part des relations sexuelles monnayées est impor - tante: les deux tiers des hommes interrogés avaient reçu de l’argent lors du dernier rapport, tandis que 9% disaient avoir eux-mêmes payé (Niang et al. 2003). Au Burkina Faso et en Gambie également, les pratiques homosexuelles sont l’objet de transactions financières (Niang et al. 2004, 12-13). Enfin, au Cameroun, à partir d’une enquête réalisée à Yaoundé et Douala, Charles Gueboguo (2006) montre que l’argent occupe une place importante dans l’économie des pratiques homosexuelles. En dépit de la disparité relative des résultats et de l’impossibil - ité de les comparer terme à terme en raison de différences au niveau des questions posées ou du traitement des réponses, quelques enseignements peuvent néanmoins être tirés: il n’existe pas de lien de causalité simple, et surtout exclusif, entre situation de précarité et recours à l’homosexualité; la pratique homosexuelle rémunérée ne concerne que très marginalement les relations entres Noirs et Blancs; la dimension vénale de la sexualité n’est pas facilement séparable du désir ou du plaisir sexuels. En revanche, ces travaux renseignent fort peu sur le sens et les fonctions des transactions sexuelles entre hommes.

Le sens des transactions homosexuelles à Bamako Lors d’une enquête qualitative réalisée à Bamako par l’association Arcad-sida auprès de trente hommes ayant des pratiques homosex - uelles (Sylla et al. 2007), le thème des rétributions financières ou matérielles de la sexualité est apparu de manière frappante dans la quasi totalité des entretiens. Ce matériau sera utilisé ici afin de comprendre tout d’abord quels sont les facteurs qui déterminent le sens des transactions sexuelles. 2

Le rôle sexuel Pour comprendre les logiques qui gouvernent les rétributions de la 66 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 sexualité entre hommes, il faut tenir compte de la configuration particulière des relations homosexuelles à Bamako. Celles-ci combinent les trois grandes formes d’homosexualité décrites à travers l’histoire et les cultures: l’une se fonde sur une différencia - tion genrée, une autre sur une différenciation générationnelle et la troisième, parfois dite “égalitaire,” concerne des relations entre pairs du point de vue genré et générationnel. La première forme est cependant la plus prégnante, au moins dans les discours (Broqua 2007). Chez les hommes, deux termes censés définir les rôles sexuels sont parfois utilisés, qui renvoient au binôme masculin/féminin: “yoos” et “qualité.” La “qualité” est un homme présentant des caractéristiques féminines au niveau de l’apparence et du comportement, qui occupe en théorie le rôle “réceptif” dans la relation sexuelle; le “yoos” est d’aspect masculin et supposé jouer sexuellement le rôle “insertif”; le “double face” enfin peut occuper les deux rôles sexuels. Cette configuration est ainsi très proche de celle décrite à Dakar où, en même temps, selon Niels Teunis (2001), le sens de la transaction dépend du rôle sexuel. Une première approche de la question pourrait laisser penser qu’à Bamako, comme à Dakar, la logique du paiement est fondée sur la répartition des rôles sexuels, et que le partenaire qui rétribue l’autre est celui qui occupe sexuellement le rôle masculin, comme l’explique un homme interrogé sur ses motivations: Les motivations sont d’ordre financier. Ce sont les yoss qui doivent donner de l’argent aux qualités. Dis-toi que quand une qualité donne de l’argent à un yoss, soit elle est ancienne dans le domaine, soit elle est refusée par le yoss. Personnellement, je pense que c’est le yoss qui doit donner de l’argent, des vête - ments, etc., à la qualité (Entretien 22, 20 ans). 3 D’après d’autres témoignages, ce sont effectivement le plus souvent les qualités qui reçoivent de l’argent, conformément au rôle féminin occupé dans la relation. Le terme “qualité” lui-même renverrait précisément au fait qu’il s’agit d’individus appréciant les belles choses, c’est-à-dire nécessitant que l’on subvienne à leurs besoins. Cependant, cette situation n’est en rien systématique. Tout d’abord, certains yoss disent recevoir de l’argent. Ensuite, des qualités disent en donner: Je jure au nom de Dieu que je ne reçois rien. C’est seulement Dieu qui a fait de ça mon vice. Au contraire c’est moi qui donne Broqua: Sur les rétributions des pratiques homosexuelles 67

de l’argent pour corrompre mes partenaires (Entretien 6, 24 ans). Enfin, un “double face” dit recevoir de l’argent à la fois des yoss et des qualités: Je reçois de l’argent avec des yoss, et avec cet argent je m’achète des habits et tous mes nécessaires. À la veille des fêtes, ils peuvent me donner jusqu’à 15 000 francs ou 12 000 francs. Je ne donne pas d’argent à mes qualités. Au contraire, ce sont elles qui me donnent de l’argent car je leur plais (Entretien 14, 17 ans). Cette fluctuation du sens de la transaction selon les rôles sexuels tient en partie au fait que, à l’instar de la situation observée à Dakar, les identités sociales et les rôles sexuels ne sont pas parfaite - ment superposables. Mais elle suggère aussi qu’il ne s’agit pas là du seul facteur déterminant.

L’âge Selon Gill Shepherd (1987), à Mombasa, c’est l’âge qui prévaut sur la qualité genrée ou le rôle sexuel dans l’organisation des pratiques homosexuelles et leur logique transactionnelle. De même, à suivre plusieurs hommes interrogés à Bamako, le facteur générationnel est central. Certains expliquent rechercher des hommes plus âgés, dont la situation économique permettra de subvenir à leurs besoins, conformément à un modèle de relation homosexuelle courant dans le “milieu.” 4 Dans le même ordre d’idée, une qualité âgée de 24 ans au moment de l’enquête explique devoir payer pour obtenir les faveurs des plus jeunes: Je n’ai pas adhéré à la pratique pour de l’argent. Je n’aime pas les vieux, mais les enfants. Et là, il faut déployer de l’argent pour les avoir (Entretien 6, 24 ans). D’ailleurs, plusieurs entretiens font état du fait que de nombreux jeunes s’adonnent aux pratiques homosexuelles dans le seul but d’en retirer un bénéfice financier: Par les temps qui courent actuellement, tous les jeunes garçons de Bamako sont “milieu.” Qu’ils se cachent ou qu’ils se déclar - ent, ils sont tous “milieu.” Pour ce faire, il faut que tu payes souvent les gens pour qu’ils te donnent satisfaction. Mais si tu n’as pas d’argent, tu ne trouves pas toujours quelqu’un pour te satisfaire (Entretien 4, 25 ans). 68 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

On remarque qu’il y a des jeunes fainéants qui, à cause des diffi - cultés financières, s’adonnent à la pratique de l’homosexualité. On rencontre ces gens-là un peu partout (Entretien 2, 35 ans). En effet, les homosexuels qui savent identifier les individus susceptibles d’être conquis, maîtrisent les règles de la demande de service sexuel et savent déjouer les risques de refus agressifs (qui se produisent parfois avec enrôlement du groupe contre l‘auteur de la proposition), peuvent obtenir sans mal un rapport sexuel avec un jeune homme non initié des classes défavorisées pour une somme inférieure à 3 000 FCFA (sachant qu’il est possible à Bamako d’avoir un rapport avec une “prostituée” pour 1 000 FCFA). Le rôle de l’âge dans les transactions homosexuelles apparaît plus clairement si l’on s’intéresse au processus d’entrée dans la sexualité. Pour beaucoup d’hommes, il s’est déroulé au moment de l’adolescence, parfois dans l’enfance. En la matière, il est possible de distinguer deux grandes catégories d’expériences: les uns sont entrés dans la sexualité avec des pairs du même âge, souvent sur un mode tout d’abord ludique; les autres ont été initiés par des person - nes plus âgées. Chez ces derniers, l’initiateur peut être un homme rencontré au hasard de la vie quotidienne, mais c’est aussi parfois un proche voire un membre la famille, par exemple un oncle: C’est mon tonton qui m’a fait adhérer à la pratique.... Il me choyait en me donnant de l’argent, souvent 1 000 francs ou 500 francs. De ce fait je ne pouvais pas expliquer aux parents ce qu’il me demandait. Il m’a finalement demandé le rapport et je ne pouvais pas refuser (Entretien 7, 16 ans). Il apparaît souvent que les premières expériences homosex - uelles ont résulté d’un travail de persuasion de la part du plus âgé, où peuvent intervenir des arguments d’autorité, qui vont parfois jusqu’à la contrainte physique. Dans la majorité des cas, c’est la proposition d’un tiers qui semble déclencher le passage à l’acte; rares sont ceux qui disent avoir éprouvé un tel désir avant d’être confrontés à une sollicitation. Dans de nombreux cas, le fait d’offrir des cadeaux ou de l’argent aide à obtenir de l’individu convoité qu’il accepte la relation sexuelle. L’exemple de Kader illustre ce processus. Au moment de l’en - tretien (réalisé le 20 décembre 2004), il est âgé de 22 ans et étudiant en première année à l’université. Né dans un pays voisin, il vit à Bamako depuis l’âge de 17 ans avec son père dans la grande famille. Broqua: Sur les rétributions des pratiques homosexuelles 69

Il se définit comme musulman, affirme jeûner et prier régulière - ment. Il explique n’avoir jamais eu de relation sexuelle avec une femme. Dès sa première relation sexuelle avec un homme âgé d’au moins dix ans de plus que lui, il reçoit de l’argent : J’ai commencé à 17 ans. Il y avait quelqu’un qui était chez nous, il jouait avec moi chaque jour, moi-même je ne connaissais pas le “milieu.” Il m’a invité un jour, on est parti chez lui.... Après il a essayé de me faire l’amour. Ce jour-là j’ai été un peu blessé. Mais après il m’a donné de l’argent, il m’a dit de ne rien dire à personne. Il m’a donné beaucoup d’argent, si bien que j’ai creusé un trou pour le mettre dedans.... Mais j’ai eu un peu peur après. Il continuait à venir me chercher. Et à chaque fois qu’il venait, il me donnait de l’argent et aussi des habits (Entretien 1, 22 ans). Dans cette relation comme dans les suivantes, Kader dit occu - per sexuellement le rôle réceptif et affirme éprouver du plaisir: “Quand on est en train de faire le rapport, si la personne te plaît vraiment, tu éprouves un grand sentiment (plaisir) et tu arrives même à verser (éjaculer).” Jusqu’au moment de l’entretien, il n’a eu de relations sexuelles qu’avec des hommes plus âgés: Je choisis seulement des personnes âgées, ceux qui sont mariés, j’ai des contact avec ceux-ci. Il y en a certains qui me télépho - nent pour me fixer des rendez-vous et on se voit. Je suis à leur disposition, s’ils m’appellent, si je suis disponible et que je ne dois pas aller à l’école, on se voit. Mes besoins ne sont à la charge ni de mon père ni de ma mère, c’est moi-même qui me prends en charge, je subviens à tous mes besoins.... Les jeunes me plairaient s’ils pouvaient me donner quelque chose, mais ils ne peuvent rien te faire, tu ne dois pas les suivre (Entretien 1, 22 ans). Le cas de Kader suggère que la façon dont s’organise la logique des rétributions dépend fortement du mode d’entrée dans la sexu - alité. La situation dépeinte par ce témoignage semble renvoyer à une logique finalement attendue: un jeune homme répond aux avances d’hommes plus âgés pour en obtenir des rétributions. Mais le fait que cette sexualité est la seule qu’il exerce laisse penser qu’elle répond en même temps à son désir sexuel, qu’il ne cherche pas à satisfaire autrement, et que la motivation financière aura contribué à former ce goût. L’exemple d’un autre individu montre 70 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 que le désir peut déterminer la pratique homosexuelle et sa logique transactionnelle.

Le désir sexuel Selon l’une des qualités qui payent, ce serait la question du désir qui justifierait le sens de la transaction. Âgé de 35 ans au moment de l’entretien (réalisé le 15 décembre 2004), Moussa s’est marié sous la pression familiale, il est père d’un jeune enfant. Sa femme est au courant de ses pratiques homosexuelles et lui en fait souvent le reproche, mais il affirme: “l’essentiel c’est que je lui donne ce qu’elle veut.” Musulman pratiquant (“mais pas régulièrement”), il est né et a grandi à Bamako. Il s’est initié à l’homosexualité avec un cousin qui partageait sa chambre alors qu’il avait 12-13 ans. Il a également eu des relations sexuelles avec des femmes mais sans véritable goût pour cela. Une fois atteint l’âge adulte, il rencontre un homme blanc avec lequel il entretient une relation durant plusieurs mois, puis il y met un terme lorsque sa mère le découvre et lui en fait le reproche. “Et depuis lors, mon cas a pris de l’am - pleur. Je sors moi-même, je cherche les jeunes garçons et je leur donne de l’argent, comme je suis issu d’une famille aisée, pour qu’ils me fassent l’amour.” Concernant son rôle sexuel, il se définit comme “femme,“ c’est-à-dire réceptif. Moussa a un partenaire “titulaire” depuis deux ans, qui est un peu plus âgé que lui. Mais il explique avoir également d’autres partenaires (“deux sont louches”) car il fait “de gauche à droite.” Avant le mariage de Moussa, son partenaire titulaire vivait chez lui, “logé nourri,” dans sa chambre située en retrait dans la concession familiale. À la ques - tion, “Quelles sont vos motivations pour faire la pratique?” Moussa répond: Moi c’est le vice, le plaisir sexuel. Peut-être que pour d’autres ce n’est pas ça, mais pour moi c’est ça. Pour preuve, je donne de l’argent pour qu’on me fasse ça.... C’est mon plaisir, et ça me coûte excessivement cher parce que j’entretiens mon amant... . Celui qui tire le plaisir, c’est celui qui dépense le plus (Entretien 2, 35 ans, je souligne). Ainsi, tels qu’ils apparaissent dans les discours, les facteurs qui concourent à orienter le sens de la transaction sexuelle sont divers et rarement unidimensionnels. Assurément, le rôle sexuel constitue un facteur déterminant; ce sont le plus souvent les Broqua: Sur les rétributions des pratiques homosexuelles 71 hommes occupant le rôle réceptif qui reçoivent de l’argent ou des cadeaux. Mais ce n’est pas systématiquement le cas et d’autres facteurs parfois plus importants interviennent de manière distincte ou combinée, tels que l’âge, la position dans la hiérarchie sociale, le mode de socialisation sexuelle, ainsi que le désir ou les sentiments. Bien sûr, le facteur “racial” peut aussi s’avérer très important, mais il sera l’objet de considérations ultérieures à cet article qui concerne exclusivement les rapports entre Maliens.

Logiques et fonction de la sexualité transactionnelle entre hommes À l’instar des échanges sexuels entre hommes et femmes (Tabet 2005), les pratiques homosexuelles rétribuées se répartissent sur un continuum qui va de la sexualité transactionnelle “ordinaire” à des formes relevant de la sexualité marchande. Mais en raison de l’in - visibilité où se trouve confinée l’homosexualité, il n’existe pas dans ce cas de pratiques prostitutionnelles “publiques“ (ou publique - ment identifiables); ici, les rétributions sexuelles empruntent majoritairement les voies de traverse qu’autorisent les jeux de la sexualité transactionnelle. Néanmoins, le lien étroit qui unit l’ar - gent à la sexualité entre hommes oblige chaque individu concerné à produire les conditions, par définition instables, d’une distinction entre comportements stigmatisables ou acceptables; comme pour les pratiques hétérosexuelles, il importe d’éviter le risque du label de “prostitution,” mais de manière plus spécifique, la motivation financière peut conférer à la pratique homosexuelle un argument justificateur.

Le contournement de la honte Le fait que, lors des entretiens réalisés pour l’enquête d’Arcad-sida, la grande majorité des hommes interrogés affirment recevoir de l’argent et que ceux qui disent payer sont très rares suggère un constat (que ces affirmations soient fidèles à la réalité ou non): le fait d’être payé n’est pas socialement dévalorisant. De plus, les sommes que les hommes disent recevoir (que ce soit pendant les entretiens ou au cours des observations ethnographiques) sont rela - tivement importantes et sans doute surévaluées, ce qui indique que le fait d’être généreusement rétribué peut être valorisant. Cette dimension en apparence valorisante (ou non dévalorisante) des 72 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 rétributions que les pratiques homosexuelles peuvent générer demande dès lors à être éclairée, notamment en ce qu’elle paraît a priori contradictoire avec l’argument de vénalité au motif duquel sont discrédités les comportements homosexuels. La sexualité transactionnelle entre hommes maliens pose doublement la question de la transgression des normes domi - nantes, qui s‘exprime au travers de la notion de “honte,” fréquem - ment convoquée par le vocable local. Dans la vie quotidienne des Bamakois, comme dans d’autres contextes africains, la honte agit comme un régulateur social, ne renvoyant pas tant à un sentiment de culpabilité intrapsychique qu’à l’intériorisation des jugements moraux dont on sait qu’ils sont portés sur les comportements inconvenants: “La honte est une morale sociale, une morale du regard des autres, et non une morale de l’examen de conscience individuel” (Olivier de Sardan 1996, 110-11). Le premier motif de honte est ici le fait de s’adonner à un comportement sexuel socialement condamné, bien qu’il ne soit pas illégal. Non pas que l’individu concerné éprouve un sentiment de culpabilité à s’y livrer, mais il sait qu’une personne informée portera un jugement moral négatif sur cette pratique. Le second motif concerne la honte officiellement ou théoriquement associée à la demande (et non pas à l’attente ni à la recherche) d’argent. Dans la vie courante, on peut entendre une personne qui demande de l’argent dire que “ça (lui) fait honte.” Cependant, les requêtes financières sont si fréquentes qu’il faut en déduire que la honte est un sentiment auquel on contrevient facilement si besoin est. 5 En fait, c’est surtout dans le domaine de la sexualité que la demande d’argent pose prob - lème, en ce qu’elle renvoie à la figure de la “prostitution.” Pour contourner la honte du comportement homosexuel comme celle de la demande d’argent dans ce cadre, c’est une stratégie du silence ou de l’euphémisation qui sera mise en oeuvre. 6 Le plus souvent, l’argent reçu par l’un des deux partenaires n’est pas réclamé. Un informateur qui me confirmait, au cours d’une discus - sion, la fréquence des rétributions financières de la sexualité entre hommes, ajoutait aussitôt: “Mais on ne demande jamais!” Le parte - naire considérant qu’il doit lui revenir de l’argent peut attendre que l’autre prenne l’initiative de lui en proposer. Il peut encore décider de ne pas renouveler une expérience sexuelle qui n’aura pas été rémunératrice. Il peut enfin ne rien demander au moment précis de Broqua: Sur les rétributions des pratiques homosexuelles 73 la relation sexuelle, mais solliciter plus tard la générosité de son partenaire en jugeant sa demande légitime en raison de l’épisode sexuel, mais sans que le lien ne soit explicitement établi entre les deux faits. Ainsi, ceux qui attendent de l’argent de la relation sexuelle soit ne le réclament pas, soit formulent leur demande sur un mode différé. La rétribution sera souvent l’initiative du donneur, tel l’infor - mateur précédemment cité qui considère au sujet d’un partenaire à qui il a donné 2 000 FCFA après une relation sexuelle que, “comme ça, il le fera encore,” bien que ce dernier soit décrit comme ayant lui-même provoqué le rapport et en avoir éprouvé du plaisir. Ainsi, si l’on peut se donner pour principe de ne “jamais demander,” c’est en considérant souvent à juste titre que l’on pourra recevoir sans réclamer. Dans les cas où l’on ne reçoit pas, il arrive alors fréquem - ment que l’on demande, mais de préférence sous une forme euphémisée, en disant par exemple “Il faut donner quelques chose,” ou en demandant “l’argent du transport,” selon la formule consacrée pour signifier dans ce cas le paiement, souvent modeste, attendu en contrepartie d’une relation sexuelle. Mais cela peut aussi donner lieu à des demandes plus importantes; un jour un homme propose à un jeune homme peu expérimenté de l’accompa - gner à son domicile dans le but implicite d’avoir avec lui un rapport sexuel, ce dernier lui demande comment il rentrera, l’homme lui répond qu’il lui paiera le taxi, le jeune lui demande alors: “Tu me donnes 10 000 pour le taxi?” (environ cinq fois le prix de la course). Une autre forme de proposition euphémisée de rapport sexuel contre rétribution consiste à dire à un homme dont on sait qu’il est sexuellement intéressé. “Si tu as besoin de moi, tu m’appelles,” formule généralement anodine, mais qui dans ce contexte prend une signification particulière. Par conséquent, si le fait de percevoir une rétribution n’est pas vécu comme dévalorisant, c’est à condition que cela apparaisse non pas sous la forme d’une condition imposée par le rétribué, ce qui équivaudrait à de la “prostitution,” mais d’un geste “spontané” de la part de celui qui offre la rétribution. La honte est contournée à la fois parce que le comportement n’est pas prostitutionnel et parce qu’il n’est pas entièrement gratuit, c’est-à-dire motivé par la seule satisfaction du désir ou recherche du plaisir, comme nous le verrons plus loin. 74 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

Cependant, le fait d’être rétribué sans le demander peut être également considéré comme source de honte si la rétribution devient visible et inspire de ce fait les soupçons sur les moyens de son obtention — car dans un contexte où le contrôle social s’exerce sans relâche, l’origine des biens ostentatoires suscite généralement la curiosité, et le principe de la sexualité rétribuée, y compris entre hommes, fait alors partie des hypothèses envisageables. Ainsi, un jeune homme qui n’a connu que des expériences hétérosexuelles me raconte qu’il a reçu des avances de la part de plusieurs individus dont l’un lui a dit qu’il avait une moto à lui donner s’il acceptait de venir chez lui. Je lui demande: “Tu n’aimerais pas avoir une moto?” Il me répond: “Ce serait la moto de la honte!” En ce qui concerne la position de celui qui offre la rétribution, elle aura plus de chance d’être considérée comme relevant d’une forme de vice, car s’il est jugé normal de payer pour une relation sexuelle avec une femme, le faire avec un homme révèle un désir interdit (excepté parfois lors d’un échange sexuel avec une qualité, qui peut être apparenté à un comportement hétérosexuel). Mais dans ce cas, comme plus largement dans la vie courante, le geste de dépense renvoie à un statut socio-économique supérieur, et le payeur peut de ce fait bénéficier du respect généralement accordé à ceux qui disposent de moyens financiers, quand bien même on juge négativement, sur un plan moral, son comportement.

Une inversion sociale des rôles de genre? Dans la littérature scientifique où elle est considérée sous l’angle des relations hétérosexuelles, la sexualité transactionnelle est analysée explicitement ou implicitement à travers le prisme des rapports sociaux de sexe. Cette approche repose sur le postulat selon lequel les services sexuels des femmes sont rétribués par les hommes, et suppose généralement que ces échanges sont fondus dans l’économie générale des relations de genre. Le cas des pratiques homosexuelles permet de questionner le bien-fondé de ce cadre d’analyse implicite ou non. Il impose aussi d’interroger le lien qui existe entre les logiques de la sexualité transactionnelle entre hommes et femmes, d’un côté, et entre personnes de même sexe, de l’autre. Nous avons vu que les hommes qui jouent le rôle sexuel récep - tif, ou “qualités,” sont souvent ceux qui perçoivent des rétributions Broqua: Sur les rétributions des pratiques homosexuelles 75 dans le cadre de relations sexuelles avec des partenaires conformes aux normes dominantes de la masculinité. Mais la sexualité trans - actionnelle entre hommes ne se réduit aucunement à ce seul scénario, les bénéficiaires des rétributions pouvant être eux-mêmes des hommes conformément masculins, dont beaucoup ont aussi par ailleurs des pratiques hétérosexuelles. Car à l’instar de ce que l’on observe dans d’autres pays africains, la grande majorité des hommes qui ont des pratiques homosexuelles à Bamako ont égale - ment des relations sexuelles avec des femmes, et beaucoup ont une partenaire régulière. En schématisant, on peut distinguer trois caté - gories de comportements: ceux qui ont des rapports sexuels avec des femmes et des hommes; ceux qui ont eu des relations sexuelles avec des femmes mais qui ont cessé au profit de pratiques homo - sexuelles exclusivement; ceux qui n’ont jamais eu de relations sexuelles avec des femmes mais seulement avec des hommes — ceux-là sont rares. Les hommes impliqués dans des pratiques ou des relations homosexuelles ont donc aussi expérimenté, pour la majorité, les obligations des rapports hétérosexuels prémaritaux et la règle de la sexualité transactionnelle qui en fait partie. À suivre le discours fréquemment exprimé par les jeunes hommes en général, les rela - tions qu’ils entretiennent avec les femmes sont largement marquées par cette loi, vécue comme fortement contraignante. Et souvent, c’est en référence à cette expérience que la pratique homo - sexuelle est décrite par les individus concernés comme un moyen d’inverser la logique de la relation hétérosexuelle où l’homme se trouve contraint de financer sa partenaire en sachant que s’il ne s’y conforme pas, le risque est grand de la voir multiplier des relations parallèles et d’en subir le déshonneur si cela se sait, précisément pour n’avoir pas été capable de respecter cette norme de la masculinité. Pour beaucoup d’hommes, la pratique homosexuelle rétribuée permet un renversement des contraintes de genre: Dire que je n’aimerais pas me marier, non! Mais je ne veux pas faire des dépenses pour une femme alors que d’autres font des dépenses pour moi. Compte tenu de ma pratique homosex - uelle, je gagne beaucoup d’argent de mes partenaires. Je ne veux pas moi aussi faire la même chose à une femme qui donne moins de sentiment (plaisir) que ce que je pratique actuelle - ment (Entretien 6, 24 ans ). 76 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

Les lois de la sexualité transactionnelle entre hommes et femmes constituent donc toujours un point de référence pour penser la logique des rétributions de l’homosexualité, à Bamako comme dans d’autres métropoles africaines. Dans l’enquête réal - isée au Ghana, parmi les hommes qui disent avoir des pratiques homosexuelles à la fois pour le plaisir et pour des raisons économiques, certains expliquent que l’argent n’est pas le motif principal mais que de fait, en étant engagé dans une relation homo - sexuelle, ils bénéficient d’avantages économiques, comme lorsqu’un homme donne des cadeaux ou de l’argent à sa partenaire contre des faveurs sexuelles (Attipoe 2004, 15). Si les qualités peuvent être considérées comme des femmes (voire comme des prostituées) et rétribuées à ce titre, dans de nombreux autres cas, le fait de bénéficier de rétributions dans le cadre de pratiques homosexuelles n’implique pas automatique - ment une inversion sociale des rôles de genre, cela pour deux sortes de raisons. Tout d’abord parce que le fait de recevoir de l’argent contre des services sexuels n’est pas une prérogative féminine. Dans certains cas, ce sont des femmes qui rémunèrent des hommes, y compris en Afrique. Au Mali, le sens de la transaction sexuelle ne s’effectue pas uniquement du garçon à la fille, mais aussi parfois de la fille au garçon, en particulier dans le contexte de relations censées conduire au mariage; la majorité des filles non mariées aurait, à un moment ou un autre, offert un cadeau ou de l’argent à leur parte - naire sexuel (Castle and Konaté 2003). Ensuite, un homme rétribué dans le cadre de pratiques homo - sexuelles ne perd pas mécaniquement sa qualité masculine. L’argent qu‘il reçoit est en partie voué à circuler. Un homme qui acquiert une somme par ce moyen peut ensuite la redistribuer auprès d’un-e partenaire occasionnel-le ou de son-sa partenaire en titre. Un même homme peut être rémunéré par un partenaire puis, avec l’argent recueilli, faire bénéficier à son tour de rétributions un-e autre parte - naire qu’il souhaitera conquérir ou choyer. L’argent peut encore être redistribué à la famille ou l’entourage. À cet égard, les pratiques homosexuelles peuvent renforcer indirectement l’organisation sociale traditionnelle, mais aussi parfois permettre de rompre avec les contraintes qu’elle suppose en rendant possible l’autonomisa - tion financière de l’individu. Et si l’on sait que le soutien financier Broqua: Sur les rétributions des pratiques homosexuelles 77 accordé à la famille ou l’entourage par les hommes ayant des pratiques homosexuelles constitue l’une des tactiques de neutrali - sation des jugements négatifs qu’ils cherchent à éviter, on comprend que le bénéfice obtenu des transactions sexuelles favorise encore indirectement l’acceptabilité des comportements homosexuels. Ainsi, outre que les femmes ne sont pas les seules à bénéficier de rétributions dans le cadre des pratiques ou unions hétérosex - uelles, le fait pour un homme d’être bénéficiaire de transactions homosexuelles ne lui fait pas nécessairement perdre sa qualité masculine car celle-ci ne se constitue pas autour du seul fait de la transaction, mais sur la base de l’ensemble des actions et carac - téristiques de l’individu. Les hommes concernés redistribuent en partie l’argent qu’ils gagnent, et c’est même parfois précisément un motif de l’engagement dans la transaction homosexuelle que de pouvoir satisfaire aux exigences sociales de la redistribution par les hommes. Être bénéficiaire d’une transaction homosexuelle ne produit donc pas une inversion des rôles sociaux de sexe, mais permet en revanche dans certains cas un renversement des contraintes de genre, en offrant une source de revenu qui favorisera la conformation à la logique consistant à faire valoir son autorité (masculine) par la redistribution d’argent, voire la dépense ostenta - toire. Bénéficier de rétributions dans le cadre de pratiques homo - sexuelles ne remet pas en cause la masculinité, notamment en ce que cela permet de conserver le pouvoir de faire circuler l’argent.

Désirs et sentiments: La face cachée des transactions homosexuelles Les éléments livrés jusqu’ici pourraient laisser penser que chez les hommes bénéficiant de rétributions, les pratiques homosexuelles à Bamako sont purement vénales ou instrumentales; je souhaiterais à présent souligner qu’il n’en est rien. Le fait de recevoir de l’argent ou autres compensations ne signifie pas que le plaisir sexuel ou les sentiments (amoureux y compris) sont absents. Ici, comme dans le cas des relations hétérosexuelles, la sexualité transactionnelle n’est pas facilement séparable du désir ou des sentiments. Nous avons vu que, selon un homme interrogé, c’est le parte - naire qui éprouve le plus grand plaisir qui devra rétribuer son parte - naire. Mais il ne faut pas déduire de cela que le partenaire rétribué 78 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 n’en éprouve aucun; d’autres entretiens, mes observations ethno - graphiques ou les résultats d’enquêtes réalisées dans d’autres pays tels que le Ghana (Attipoe 2004) ou le Kenya (Onyango-Ouma, Birungi and Geibel 2005) attestent du contraire. L’idée selon la- quelle l’intensité du désir oriente le sens de la transaction est autant prescriptive que descriptive des logiques sociales, en ce qu’elle conditionne les termes de l’échange. Contrairement aux pratiques hétérosexuelles où il va souvent de soi que la partenaire féminine sera bénéficiaire de la rétribution, dans le cas des pratiques homosexuelles entre personnes de statuts socio- économiques ou d’âges proches, la désignation du partenaire béné - ficiaire ne s’impose pas toujours d’elle-même et sera donc l’objet d’une négociation, non pas verbale mais fondée sur des stratégies de présentation de soi: celui qui se montrera le moins animé par le désir, ou qui saura le mieux se faire désirer, aura toutes les chances de bénéficier des largesses de l’autre partenaire. L’association entre sexualité et argent (ou autres rétributions) ne concerne pas les seuls rapports sexuels avec des partenaires occasionnels, mais aussi, et plus fortement encore, les relations suivies, qui supposent le plus souvent que l’un des deux partenaires subvienne aux besoins de l’autre, si bien que l’activité la plus “rémunératrice” n’est pas la sexualité occasionnelle mais la rela - tion de couple. D’autant que dans ce cas, la demande explicite d’ar - gent ou autres faveurs est plus fréquente, car jugée plus légitime. Comme le désir sexuel, les sentiments amoureux conditionnent eux aussi le sens de la transaction: dans une situation où le statut du bénéficiaire ne s’impose pas de lui-même (sur la base du genre, de l’âge ou de la position sociale par exemple), la stratégie de chacun consistera à trouver le moyen d’occuper cette position et celui qui rétribuera son partenaire sera souvent le plus déterminé à faire montre de son amour. Dans le cadre d’une relation suivie, le don d’argent est la marque du sentiment, le moyen de l’exprimer jugé le plus convaincant, à plus forte raison dans le contexte des relations homosexuelles où il ne répond pas à une obligation sociale, c’est-à- dire socialement sanctionnée par le regard de l’entourage, excepté peut-être celui des pairs du “milieu.” Une question demeure: pourquoi, dans le cadre des pratiques ou relations homosexuelles, qui n’imposent pas a priori les impératifs de rétribution associés aux rôles de genre, la sexualité Broqua: Sur les rétributions des pratiques homosexuelles 79 transactionnelle est si courante et structurante? Pour comprendre cela, il nous faut revenir à la conception dominante du comporte - ment homosexuel dans la société malienne. Selon les normes qui prévalent au sein des groupes où il se manifeste, le désir homosexuel peut s’avérer plus transgressif que la sexualité rétribuée. C’est le cas à Bamako où, comme dans beau - coup d’autres contextes urbains en Afrique, la “sur-monétarisation de la vie courante” (Olivier de Sardan 1996, 110), jusque dans les domaines de la sexualité et de la conjugalité, rend possible dans une certaine mesure de ne pas assimiler les pratiques relevant de la sexualité transactionnelle à la “prostitution.” En même temps, nous l’avons vu, la conception dominante de l’homosexualité en Afrique postule que son existence ou son développement sont motivés par la quête d’argent et s’expliquent par le contexte de pauvreté qui pousserait les jeunes à s’engager dans des pratiques rémunératrices. Cette fréquente explication conditionne, au moins autant qu’elle en rend compte, les logiques de la sexualité transactionnelle entre hommes. En effet, dans un contexte où chaque individu concerné cherche à ne pas apparaître, vis-à-vis des autres (si ces derniers venaient à savoir, et de fait, l’entourage finit parfois par savoir ou se douter) voire de soi-même, comme étant uniquement attiré par un comportement condamné par la morale et la religion, la pauvreté est présentée comme une justification par les discours mêmes qui condamnent l’homosexualité. La remarque si courante selon laquelle les comportements homosexuels sont de nature vénale offre un schéma explicatif, disponible pour tous, qui rend ces comportements, sinon légitimes, au moins compréhensibles. Je n’invite pas à considérer que l’homosexualité serait pratiquée contre de l’argent pour rendre cette pratique intelligible ou accept - able, mais que, de fait et sans que cela résulte d’une intention stratégique, dans un contexte où l’opinion le plus couramment exprimée au sujet de l’homosexualité affirme qu’elle est motivée par l’argent, le fait d’en retirer un profit rend la pratique plus justi - fiable, à ses propres yeux comme, le cas échéant, à ceux des autres. De manière liée, la logique transactionnelle de la pratique homosexuelle représente aussi, pour ceux qui sont rétribués, un moyen de voiler sa dimension la plus transgressive: la quête du plaisir ou la satisfaction du désir. Recevoir de l’argent dans le cadre 80 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 d’un rapport sexuel ou d’une relation suppose, comme nous l’avons vu, de camoufler son désir ou ses sentiments et confère ainsi une forme de circonstance atténuante en cas de dévoilement: on pourra alors être considéré comme l’ayant fait pour l’argent. Le fait de bénéficier de rétributions présente donc l’avantage non seulement de procurer une justification à la pratique homosexuelle en soulig - nant l’état de besoin que la représentation dominante considère comme explicative de la pratique, mais aussi de minimiser le désir qui peut la motiver. On pourrait opposer une objection à ce raisonnement: le comportement homosexuel n’est pas le seul à être réprouvé, le comportement prostitutionnel (auquel peut être assimilé celui du partenaire rétribué) est lui aussi moralement condamné. Pour y répondre, je propose de prendre en considération la distinction qui sépare dans la pratique les normes morales des normes sociales. Du point de vue des normes morales (qui condamnent l’homosexualité et la prostitution), la sexualité rémunérée est transgressive, mais du point de vue des normes sociales, elle est conforme au comporte - ment majoritaire. Ainsi peut-on soutenir l’idée que la dimension transactionnelle de la sexualité entre hommes souscrit aux normes sociales dominantes, bien qu’elle s’oppose aux normes morales. Au fond, la principale vertu de la logique transactionnelle struc - turant souvent la pratique homosexuelle est de la mettre en confor - mité avec le modèle dominant, c’est-à-dire non seulement celui des relations hétérosexuelles, dont la dimension transactionnelle est aujourd’hui constitutive, mais aussi celui des conventions sociales ordinaires qui supposent que tout service mérite salaire. La présence de l’argent dans les relations sexuelles entre hommes réduit leur portée transgressive et leur confère un sens qui s’insère dans l’économie générale des rapports sociaux à Bamako, où les relations sexuelles procèdent des logiques d’échange faisant intervenir argent ou cadeaux qui conditionnent l’ensemble des rapports sociaux. Dans ce contexte, l’argent offert en échange de services divers, sexuels y compris, suppose et valide à la fois le statut socialement dominant du payeur, en même temps qu’il procure une justification au bénéficiaire de la rétribution. Inversement, la sexualité non rétribuée peut être vécue comme une menace pour l’ordre social, tout d’abord parce qu’elle révèle le désir transgressif qui la sous- tend, ensuite parce qu’elle ne permet pas d’inscrire l’échange sexuel Broqua: Sur les rétributions des pratiques homosexuelles 81 dans l’ordre des hiérarchies sociales lorsque ces hiérarchies n’appa - raissent pas d‘elles-mêmes pour légitimer la relation.

L’argent comme élément régulateur de la sexualité Au tournant des années 1980 et 1990, différents articles publiés par John C. Caldwell et ses collaborateurs ont occasionné une salve de critiques réfutant notamment la thèse d’une “sexualité africaine” caractérisée par une grande permissivité (Caldwell, Caldwell and Quiggin 1989). Parmi ces critiques, certaines ont souligné le fait que la sexualité en Afrique, prémaritale y compris, est, comme partout ailleurs, mais selon des logiques ou modalités éventuelle - ment différentes, soumise au contrôle social et fortement régulée. Parmi les éléments régulateurs, la dimension transactionnelle de la sexualité ordinaire a été pertinemment invoquée. L’application aux comportements homosexuels, sous une forme arrangée, des règles de la sexualité transactionnelle entre hommes et femmes, les soumet à une forme de régulation par l’ar - gent, au même titre que les comportements hétérosexuels. Si l’on admet que dans bien des sociétés, la sexualité est mise au service de l’ordre social et de son impératif de reproduction (Godelier 2004), on comprend que la logique transactionnelle assignée aux pratiques homosexuelles, qui échappent par définition à cet impératif, leur confère une fonction sociale tout en leur interdisant dans une certaine mesure de répondre à la signification d’une sexualité qui se dérobe au contrôle social. Les pratiques homosexuelles à Bamako subissent ainsi l’effet d’une double régulation. D’une part, elles doivent s’adapter aux contraintes imposées par l’environnement extérieur, s’exprimant sous la forme de permanents rappels à l’ordre, qu’ils soient le fait des individus se montrant hostiles à l’homosexualité (les “contres”) ou des normes qui régissent plus largement la vie sociale tels que les interdits religieux par exemple. D’autre part, les pratiques homosexuelles sont soumises aux règles qui les organ - isent au sein des groupes d’individus concernés, dont fait partie la logique transactionnelle qui limite au moins autant qu’elle facilite l’exercice de la sexualité. En effet, de même qu’ont été contestées les analyses considérant que la multiplication des pratiques sexuelles rétribuées chez les jeunes femmes en situation précaire entraînerait une dérégulation de la sexualité, le point de vue selon 82 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 lequel le contexte de pauvreté favorise le développement des pratiques homosexuelles en raison de leur potentiel lucratif, s’il n’est pas entièrement infondé, omet de prendre en considération l’effet fortement régulateur des logiques transactionnelles de la sexualité entre hommes, qui soumettent tout individu s’y livrant à des conditions nettement plus contraignantes que ne le serait la seule quête du plaisir.

Notes 1 Ce fait aujourd’hui bien documenté sur le continent africain a été observé par exemple, pour ce qui concerne les pays d’Afrique de l’Ouest, en Côte d’Ivoire (Vidal 1977, 1979; Antoine et Nanitelamio 1989), au Ghana (Dinan 1983; Ankomah 1999), au Sénégal (Antoine et Nanitelamio 1989; Biaya 2001), au Mali (Le Palec 1994; Castle and Konaté 1999, 2003; Fay 2000) ou au Burkina Faso (Bardem et Gobatto 1995). 2 Par “transaction sexuelle,” j’entends toute pratique sexuelle donnant lieu à une rétribution financière ou matérielle. L’expression “sens de la trans - action” désigne le sens dans lequel est versée la rétribution entre deux partenaires. 3 La numérotation des entretiens est reprise de celle utilisée dans le rapport d’Arcad-sida (Sylla et al. 2007). 4 À Bamako, comme dans d’autres métropoles africaines, le terme “milieu” désigne (notamment mais pas exclusivement) la population que forment les homosexuel-le-s. 5 Il faudrait insister sur le fait que la honte peut être instrumentalisée: par exemple, un individu peut dire avoir honte de demander de l’argent au moment où il le fait pour légitimer sa demande, pour montrer que le besoin le pousse à se faire violence en demandant. 6 Sur les tactiques de camouflage des pratiques homosexuelles et l’efficac - ité performative du silence, voir Broqua (2007). Deaf, Gay, HIV Positive, and Proud: Narrating an Alternative Identity in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Karin Willemse and Ruth Morgan with John Meletse

Résumé Cet article explore la manière dont John Meletse, jeune activiste noir, ouvertement homosexuel, porteur du virus du SIDA et sourd de surcroît, donne la priorité à certaines de ses identités, lorsqu’il nous fait le récit de sa vie. Cet article, analyse de cette histoire du moi, explore la manière dont les identités sexuelles, celles associées aux sexes et les identités “invalides” s‘entrecoupent pour former des constructions alternatives de la masculin - ité. Une lecture attentive de certains morceaux de la biographie de John permet à l’article de montrer plutôt que d’affirmer qu’arriver à accepter son identité sexuelle est un processus. La vie de John, enregistrée sur vidéo, traduite à partir de la langue des signes Sud-africaine, est dérivée, d’une part, d’entrevues originales qui formaient une partie des résultats d’un projet du SANPAD sur la culture des mal-entendants en Afrique du Sud et d’autre part, pour le suivi, d’autres entrevues ultérieures.

Abstract This article explores the ways in which John Meletse, a young black man who is an openly gay Deaf activist living with HIV, prioritizes some iden - tities over others when telling us about his life. In analyzing this narrative of self, this article explores the ways in which sexual, gender, and “disabled” identities intersect in alternative constructions of masculin - ity. A close reading of parts of John’s biographic narrative allows the arti - cle to show rather than tell how his coming to terms with sexual identity is a process. John‘s videotaped life story, translated from South African Sign Language, was drawn from original interviews that formed part of the results of a SANPAD project on Deaf Culture in South Africa and from subsequent follow-up interviews.

83 84 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 Introduction The biographic narrative of John Meletse is important in the context of the theme of African sexualities, since he articulates his negotiation of being gay quite explicitly. By closely reading the way he relates about this process, we have come to understand sexual identity as a construction that is not defined only by sexual prac - tice or a culturally defined “gay lifestyle” and “dress codes”: it is an identity that is intersected with other identities and enacted in specific contexts at particular times and in relation to different people. Because the authors (Karin Willemse and in particular Ruth Morgan), have participated in John’s process of coming of age as a Deaf 1 gay person over the past six years, they can trace this trajec - tory of “becoming gay” rather than “being gay.” This process is infinite and incomplete in the sense that the intersection of sexual identity with other identities keeps shifting and so does its mean - ing for John — and for any person who enacts a certain sexual iden - tity, which may or may not influence his or her sense of sexuality. Reading closely (parts of) John Meletse’s biographic narrative allows us to show rather than tell how his coming to terms with sexual identity as a process is enacted by telling about his life: “By telling who one is, one explains how one came to be that way” (Fischer-Rosenthal 1995, 257). In addition, looking carefully at the way John tells about his life, gives insight into the way his sexual identity is intersected with other identities, in particular with his Deaf identity, and how this “intersecting,” in the sense of how some identities are prioritized over others and how some are down - played in the process, changes over time.

Contextualizing the Biographic Narrative of John Meletse Ruth Morgan first met John Meletse when he narrated his life story on videotape for the original South African Deaf culture project in 2001. 2 Pre-1994, Deaf people (and those with other impairments) were seen by the apartheid state to be pathological and deviant as opposed to the human rights model that was adopted post-democ - racy in 1994. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that most of the biographic narratives collected for this large project in 2000-01 focus in a lot of detail on the problems Deaf South Africans encounter in the dominant hearing world at the hands of the segre - Willemse and Morgan: Deaf, Gay, HIV Positive, and Proud 85 gated Deaf education system and in the open labour market. Unfortunately, the situation for Deaf people on the ground has not improved significantly since the advent of democracy. Despite the equality clause in the constitution of 1996 which prevents discrimination on the basis of disability as well as sexual orientation, Deaf lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgendered, and intersexed (lgbti) people are largely invisible in South Africa as they are usually deeply closeted and do not disclose their sexual orien - tation within the Deaf community and their hearing family struc - tures. Homophobia continues to exist within the broader society due to patriarchal, traditional, and religious factors. Homosexuality is thus viewed as unnatural, demonic and un- African (Epprecht 2004, 3-16; Morgan and Wieringa 2005, 17-19, 217-18, 320; Murray and Roscoe 1998, xi-xxii, 1-18; Reid and Walker 2005, 185-94). At the same time, the literature that deals with Deaf people from the perspective of the dominant hearing world often perceives Deaf people as pathological, even “disabled” (for example: Butler 2001, 231-35; O’Neill and Hird 2001, 204-24) and discriminates against them on the basis of their hearing impairment. This bias, for which Tom Humphries coined the term “audism” in the 1970s, has pervaded the literature on Deaf studies (Ladd 2003; Luczak 2007). There is, however, a growing corpus of literature that deals with the way Deaf people experience and construct their world in the West written by Deaf writers and the hearing people who work with them in a social-cultural framework (Ladd 2003; Lane, Hoffmeister and Bahan 1996; Padden and Humphries 1988, 2005). Within this Deaf-centered perspective, Ladd (2003) has proposed that the notion of Deafhood more aptly refers to the process of iden - tity construction by Deaf people instead of deafness, which is a medical term. Given the lack of tertiary education opportunities for Deaf people in Africa, it is not surprising that there is very little published material documenting Deaf experiences in Africa by Deaf people themselves. The record for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans - gendered, and intersexed (lgbti) and Deaf hood is even less impres - sive: Eyes of Desire: A Deaf Gay and Lesbian Reader and its sequel (Luczak 1993, 2007) can be considered that rare exception to the rule. 3 One of the few ways to assess the ways in which sexual and 86 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

Deaf identities are lived, experienced, remembered, and constructed seems to be the personal narrative (Epprecht 2004, 233- 38; McRuer and Wilkerson 2003, 10-12; Luczak 1993, 2007; Morgan 1995, 2008). John Meletse’s narrative is one such personal testi - mony, or what we call, biographic narrative. Although the biographic narrative has been labelled a Western bourgeois mascu - line mode of self-representation (Abu-Lughod 1993; Comaroff and Comaroff 1997, 1-36; see for a critical reflection Geschiere 2001, 31-39; Willemse 2007, 24-35; Willemse, forthcoming), the method has been hailed by both feminist and queer studies as a way of understanding the shifting positions and positioning of subjects whose voices and experiences have not received much attention in mainstream academic works. Precisely because of the secrecy and taboos, which surround issues of sexuality, as well as Deafhood, stereotypical images loom large and prove quite resistant to change. So if we want to understand better how sexual identities are lived, experienced, and transformed over time, we need to listen carefully to the narratives of people who enact certain sexual iden - tities in particular contexts. This raises the question: how to listen carefully? In addition to being Deaf and gay, John Meletse is an HIV posi - tive, black, unemployed Sowetan. Judged from the dominant hear - ing, heteronormative, white middle-class South African perspective, he is multiply disadvantaged. The dominant discourses construct him as a basically powerless victim. The “listen carefully” means in fact a “listening against the grain” to what and how John is telling about his life, in order to understand alternative subject positions he thereby negotiates. It means to be attentive to both what John puts forward, in signing about his life, and how he is telling this: and to what is not being conveyed, what is left out. It is a search for sub-texts and a layeredness of the text which might allow for understanding the text in alternative ways. This means that knowledge about John’s life and the contexts in which he enacts his life is important: Ruth Morgan’s understand - ing of this context is due to the fact that she has engaged in John’s life in different capacities, which will become clear in the course of reading John’s biographic narrative. In other words, by paying close attention to the notions of self John constructs in and by telling his narrative, we may understand the spaces that South African soci - Willemse and Morgan: Deaf, Gay, HIV Positive, and Proud 87 ety allow for, but which cannot be articulated within those domi - nant discourses. 4 We base our analysis mainly on interviews with John in 2001, 2005, and 2007, with a focus on the 2005 interview as this narrative clearly captures John’s coming of age as a gay Deaf person. At the time of the first videotaping of his biographic narrative in 2001, John had not disclosed the fact that he is gay to his family as he was fearful of their reaction, in particular of his grandmother with whom he was living in Soweto. He was also unemployed and subsisting on a disability grant. We initially focus on this particu - lar part of his life in order to better understand how John comes to terms with his homosexuality as part of the construction of a self, of an “identity in practice.” We consider how he actively makes sense of his relation to himself and to others in the Deaf, gay, and hearing worlds he inhabits, and how he thus negotiates, not only “Deafhood,” but “personhood” by constructing a, however tempo - rary, unified gay and Deaf narrative identity. As identities are quite commonly considered to be performa - tive rather than innate, at issue here is how then are sexual identi - ties enacted, and which intersecting identities are of importance to this enactment in particular contexts (Butler 1990, i-ix). Before we turn to John’s narrative, we want to specify the analytical perspec - tive from which we analyze his biography in the light of the theme of “African sexualities.”

Mapping Experiences, Charting Identities: Spaces of Empowerment The contextualized nature of the performativity of identities leads us to consider two aspects of the biographic narrative of John. The first is that we take a spatial perspective, in the sense that we look into the contexts that John refers to in his narrative in which he enacted his sexual identity. According to Setha Low (Altman and Low 1992), orientation to place is inseparable from the life experi - ences which shape identity construction. People attach feelings, beliefs, knowledge, and actions to places in which they have expe - rienced significant life events. By tracing the locations in which John’s sexual identity obtained meaning, and by considering how he intersected this with other identities, we attempt to understand how John constructed a meaningful self in and through these loca - 88 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 tions. Following De Certeau, who differentiates between “places” (fixed and inert, in a sense they are dead places of control) and “spaces” (full of life, where things happen and where social actors may empower themselves by creating locations which are fluid, practiced, and unstable), we will examine how John’s “space is a practiced place” (1984, 117) . In looking at how John is “walking the city” in his narrative, we consider not just how John thus claims an identity, but agency as well. Though the notion of agency is often used as shorthand for expressing the intention of researchers or scholars to take the perspective of the subject, we think that there is more to this. Close attention to the mapping of self by John in his narrative may lead to a consideration of the way his construction of spaces within places of dominance allows him to negotiate dominant discourses that construct him as multiply disadvantaged. This, in turn, may give an insight into the construction of an alternative subject posi - tion as a space of resistance. As resistance is often not self-evident and covert rather than overt, it is precisely to be found in silences and negations. Spaces of resistance are to be discovered and uncov - ered by a close reading of the narrative. This is related to the second focus of our argument here. In order to assess the way John negotiates this alternative identity, his biographic narrative is also considered to be a context of the enact - ment of this alternative identity in and of itself, a possible space of resistance. In order to establish how, in the case of John, “having the opportunity to talk about one’s life, to give an account of it, to interpret it, is integral to leading that life rather than being led through it” (Lugones and Spelman 1983, 593, quoted in Patai 1991, 148), we will in the second part of this article briefly touch upon later versions of his narrative about the same period of outing, as a gay as well as HIV positive. John has thereby become both the analyst and performer of his own biographic narrative and it is precisely in the representational shifts that he has made that we may point out the agency John has gained in the process.

Being Deaf, Becoming Gay: Naming and Framing of Identities My name is [sign name] John [fingerspelled] and my surname is Meletse [fingerspelled].... I am gay and I am called Queen. Willemse and Morgan: Deaf, Gay, HIV Positive, and Proud 89

The first narrative strategy employed by John in his 2001 interview is self-naming by giving his sign name, which is usually given to a Deaf person by Deaf peers when they start school and which is part of the construction of a Deaf identity. These sign names are often associated with a prominent facial feature: in John’s case, his sign name indicates his nose. Next he translates his name into English by fingerspelling the letters of his full name, often in relation to a (mixed Deaf and) hearing audience. In the narrative that follows, he elaborates on his “gay name”: It was my first time to learn about gays, because when I was still young, I didn’t know about being gay. My boyfriend ... was explaining to me that some gay men have muscular strong bodies. These masculine looking gays are “men” and take the male role in a relationship.... However some men walked like women and those are called “gay-ladies.” He explained the difference between the two. He said, “gay ladies” love “men” whom they admire. I was able to distinguish the difference after his explanation. I was very interested in what he told me.... I wanted to be part of the community but I was not involved in the Deaf gay / lesbian community. I am part of the Deaf community ... because I know about the Deaf community and understand everything.... I now understood about the gay community and they named me Queen. It is in their culture to give new members of their community names. In the Deaf community my name is John. On the other hand in the gay and lesbian community I am called Queen. I was enjoying myself and was happy with them. The names he uses to refer to himself thus are context-bound and signify both the locational and intersubjective nature of his performance of self. In this self-representation, we can read that, at the moment of narrating about himself, he considered his Deaf iden - tity as unproblematic, while John constructs his coming out as a gay as a process of initiation into the township gay community. He was enculturated by understanding its culture and codes: a “becoming” marked by acquiring a new name, Queen. At the same time, in these parts of his narrative, he constructs his gay identity as positive: he feels “happy” and “enjoys” himself. Four years later in the 2005 interview, John narrates about the small group of Deaf gay friends to which he now belongs, combining two main identities: 90 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

We have certain signs as a group of gays and lesbians, we said we won’t give Kevin this sign name [signing] ... [but] this would be his sign name [signing].... We have so much fun.... They still haven’t given me my [gay] sign name.... We thought about all different signs. The open assertion of his identity as gay is also constructed and reconstructed in terms of the performance of gender which can be seen in John’s style of signing. When discussing his Deaf gay friends, he uses larger signs made with exaggerated and embell - ished body movements which stretch and extend the conventional signing space: I got dressed in Charles’ clothes — clothes that I don’t usually wear and I washed, put on deodorant and looked soooo hot and sexy. His positioning as a gay is not unproblematic throughout his narrative, however. This becomes clear when he discusses the way he dealt with his grandmother: So my grandmother shouted and said why didn’t you come home last night and I said ... well I didn’t tell the truth. I just said I visited a hearing friend of mine I slept over and she said is it a girl? I said “no it’s not” so I left it. He lies to his grandmother, whose authority becomes stifling and who is not aware that he is gay. According to De Certeau (1984), people make do in order to survive. Young lgbti people are often rejected by their families if they disclose their sexuality. John clearly wants to keep his relationship with his grandmother and at the same time act out his gay identity: Then during December 2002 I didn’t do anything and I received a sms [text message] from Thobile and he said “What are doing during December? ... Come and stay at my flat” ... and Thobile said I needed to meet him somewhere in town. So he met me and I explained to him that my grandmother said I am not allowed to leave. He said “You are stupid! You are stupid! Because you are old enough to make your own decisions.” Then I told him that I had to really respect my parent’s decision. I sent an sms to Thobile and I said “yes ... I am twenty-one I can do what I want.” I packed my bag and I left to stay at my friend’s. My grandmother just looked at me she said “are you really going to go?” I said “yes.” She said when are coming back? And I said Willemse and Morgan: Deaf, Gay, HIV Positive, and Proud 91

“next year January the 3rd or 4th,” and she said “you have to go and come back quickly,” and I said “well I won’t.” John’s Deaf friend Thobile lived in Hillbrow and invited him to spend a few nights there during this time that John was coming out: And then he told me and convinced me to go to Hillbrow, Skyline. So we walked there and I didn’t have money on me because I didn‘t earn an income at the time and I just had a cold drink. And Thobile said “I have to have alcohol” and I said “no I don’t want to,” he kind of forced me. So he left me alone and I just bought a cold drink and just watched people while I was drinking my cold drink and he kept on asking me “you must have some alcohol” ... and then he said “come with me I want to go to another gay club in Hillbrow.” John’s narrative follows a spatial trajectory from Soweto, the De Certeauan “place” of his “parental” house as well as of the author - ity of his hearing, heterosexual grandmother, via town to Thobile’s flat in Hillbrow. All through his 2001 and 2005 narratives John constructs Hillbrow as a practiced, vibrant, gay space in which he comes out. Hillbrow has historically been a space of transition and resis - tance. During the 1980s, before apartheid was dismantled, Hillbrow was declared a grey area after many black people defied the group areas act and moved into apartments in this previously segregated white area. Hillbrow became a space that gays and lesbians of all races claimed for themselves and where gay bars and clubs prolifer - ated before homosexuality was decriminalized — home to many young gay black people who could afford to rent flats / apartments in this area close to the central business district. Today, Hillbrow is populated by mostly black South Africans as well as many immi - grants from all over Africa. Hillbrow was the location of the first gay bar in its incarnation as Skyline in Johannesburg, which was still popular at the time John went there. Though he defies his grandmother’s wishes and priori - tizes his gay identity when joining Thobile, John is ambivalent about going to clubs and is initially resistant. He describes himself as reluctant to accept the advances of other gay men there: And so I left for Thobile’s flat. And we had a lot of fun, he spon - sored me to go to the clubs in Hillbrow. He said “let’s go to Hillbrow” and I said “uh-uh,” I was very resistant to that idea.... 92 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

He said “you are stupid!” I said “ok” ... I really looked sexy ... put on after shave and deodorant.... And there was a hearing gay guy who came up to me, I was chatting and he was very excited to meet me.... And then Sello came up to me and said “Hey! How are you” and he was sweet talking me because I am sure Thobile had arranged something that I wasn’t sure of. Anyway so we were chatting, I felt very awkward but I said “no thank you,” I just left it. And he wanted to date me I said “no I am not inter - ested.” ... Thobile said “do you see Sello” and I said “yes I remember him because he only gave me R20 last time ... he gave R20 for sex” and I said “I won’t do it again, I am against him....” A large part of John’s narrative tour focuses on how he felt he had to negotiate his way through the pressures to drink alcohol and have transactional sex in the different clubs and dark rooms near the inner city that he visited. He describes in detail a sex club in Braamfontein (adjacent to the inner city and Hillbrow) where many gay bars were located at the time, in outright negative terms: ... at Shaft in Braamfontein, I was taught all different and bad things, I was influenced.... So we went there ... when I went in I really felt strange because there were many white people and black people as well.... Later in his 2005 narrative, John takes us on a tour to another sex club, which he felt ambivalent about near the inner city and where he met a hearing man called Jeffrey whom he later became involved with: So we walked passed Doornfontein and went to Ellis Park and they said that this was a dating place.... It was about six o’clock at night and I said “this a dangerous place” and he said “no I’ll protect you” and I said “ok.” So we went in, pressed the button or the doorbell and the security gate opened and then the door locked. I really was shocked because there’s a naked white man who came up to me and I said “I need to leave.” And there were other black people there as well, I was so shocked and very embarrassed. This is not the way we have to do this but we had already paid R30 each.... And he wanted to show me where they are having sex, it was dark again and I could see all of this and it made me feel sick. It was somewhere in the dungeon everybody was naked and there were black people, many white people. I just went, sat down and then this Jeffrey wanted sex with me Willemse and Morgan: Deaf, Gay, HIV Positive, and Proud 93

and I said “no, you didn’t tell me about this, you didn’t say this is what you wanted from me.” I said “no,” then he said “no, don’t worry I’ll be patient....” He later has a relationship with Jeffrey, who visits him in Soweto. The reason that he gives for ending the relationship is that Jeffrey tended to look at other men while John was signing to him. Apart from being “unfaithful,” this may — implicitly — refer to the fact that Jeffrey did not understand Deaf culture, in which it is important never to break eye contact while communicating in signed language. As John is trying to come to terms with his gay identity and being Deaf, his evaluation of his ventures into these places located in Hillbrow is positive as “we had a lot of fun, he [Thobile] spon - sored me to go to the clubs in Hillbrow.” This is in contrast to his experiences in the gay sex bars and sex clubs in Braamfontein and Ellis Park where he is confronted with sexual practice, which he feels “is not the way we have to do this” and which “made me feel sick.” In these cases he uses terms like “bad,” “strange,” “angry,” “shocked,” and “embarrassed.” These are the places in which gay identities are accepted, but enacted in such a way that John obvi - ously feels insecure, powerless, and disrespected. What John is negotiating here, thus, is agency. He claims a moral position, which seems to be in accordance with dominant discourses on gay sexual practices even using terms that in dominant discourse are used to condemn gay sexual practices, like “bad” and “sick.” It seems that his differentiating between gay identity and certain gay practices allows him to claim a moral position by showing he “knows” what are proper and improper sexual practices as well as his wish to abstain from these last. However, the notion of “improper” seems to refer not just to sexual practices per se, but to the relational context in which these are practiced: one of dominance and hierar - chy. Though John shows an ambivalence towards the passes made at him in all gay bars, the dominated position that John experiences in those outside Hillbrow is to be read from his usage of “being influenced” in both cases that he refers to negative experiences in the gay scene. In other words, he suggests that in these cases his entrance into these places was not completely with his consent, while in Hillbrow he went of his own will. Both excerpts allow us also to see that the hierarchy relates to 94 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 another position, except from being a novice in gay clubs, and that is his identity as a black unemployed young man: a position that also makes him less powerful than many of the gay men he meets. In particular, in those parts of his narrative in which John refers to negative experiences with gay clubs, he mentions the presence of both white and black men. Even so, since he does not include this identity into the way he positions himself and the persons that initiate him in the gay scene, it becomes a contextual aspect, rather than one that John actively negotiates while narrating: his gay iden - tity is central in his negotiation. The fact that Hillbrow is his favoured space of the enactment of his gay identity also becomes clear when John narrates that he returns to Hillbrow to visit a gay hairdressing salon. He does so with the help of the Witwatersrand Deaf Association’s (WDA) development worker Lerato who is the first Deaf heterosexual that he discloses his gay identity to. She introduces him to the hair salon in Hillbrow where her Deaf friend works and the employees at the salon are mostly gay: Then Lerato and I went to a hairdresser in Hillbrow which was a friend of hers, a coloured woman, by the name of Pamela. And there were many gay people who worked there, I was very shocked and I said “are these people all gay” and she said “yes.” So that was the first time I met those people and then she intro - duced me and I was chatting to them and they were exaggerat - ing signs, we had a lot of fun together.... And there was also a Deaf girl there and I said that I would visit her again and on a Wednesday I went there again and we were chatting about gay issues and she gave me signs like this ... [demonstrates sign]. It means rent boy.... Ok so she taught me some signs and when I had nothing to do I just stayed there. I think I went to Lerato again on a Tuesday and Lerato wanted to know if I would mind to do an AIDS workshop I said no I don’t and that was in Hillbrow. The salon in Hillbrow becomes an important space as it is both Deaf and gay and John can communicate with the others. John’s narrative is also anchored in other gay spaces such as the HIV NGO run by a cross dresser called Pinky in Hillbrow: In Hillbrow ... I told Pinky that I wanted a job and they said that’s fine. I said I could do anything like typing. I went there Willemse and Morgan: Deaf, Gay, HIV Positive, and Proud 95

and I was paid but then not long after that I wasn’t paid and then I said no! no! I am going to resign.... John gets his first job there. However, this becomes an ambivalent space as he feels exploited after Pinky stops paying him. Interestingly, John is silent in his narrative about the fact that Pinky borrowed his cell phone and never returned it, although this was very traumatic when it happened as, without a cell phone, John was unable to send or receive text messages, his primary means of communication. Hillbrow is the space to which John returns in his narrative, having found the courage to assert his independence in relation to his grandmother and prioritize his gay identity by spend - ing his holidays with his Deaf gay friend; Hillbrow is marked as gay in John’s narrative during the time that he is coming out and constructing a gay identity that is tied to this practiced space in which he discovers the gay world of clubs, Deaf and gay friends at the hairdressing salon, and his first job at the NGO run by the cross dresser Pinky. There are other important spaces which John mentions in his narrative, such as the Witwatersrand Deaf Association office where he goes for assistance to find a job, a trip to Botswana with Deaf peers, and a sign language training workshop organized by the Pan South African Language Board. But he refers to these only in pass - ing as these are all locations in which his identity, mainly as a Deaf person, is prioritized and constructed by John as unproblematic. Most of the detailed recounting concerns his venturing into the landscape of gay life as a Deaf person. It is in the intersection of becoming gay and being Deaf that John finds his niche, his space of self-construction and agency. Hillbrow is important as it is the location where this process of becoming a different self combining these main identities, is acted out. His construction of Hillbrow as a space of positive identity may explain why he is silent on the fact that Pinky stole his cell phone: this silence seems to be part of his strategy to map himself onto places where he is acknowledged as both a gay and Deaf subject and an actor by those he considers to constitute both communities. The silence on the stolen cell phone is indicative of this need to construct a safe space for this combined but unified identity: the fact that he resigns from Pinky’s HIV NGO because of not being paid does not touch upon his identity as a Deaf gay person, and it 96 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 constructs him as actor, the one who decided to leave. This strategy of silencing in order to construct a safe space in which he is able to perform a unified, positive identity as gay and Deaf is concurrent with his evaluation of gay bars outside Hillbrow as “bad.” This strategy of differentiating locations of identity construction becomes even more obvious when John does touch upon incidents, which expose disrespect towards him as a Deaf gay man. One of the central locations of ambivalence that is thereby constructed is Soweto. Not only is it the location of his grand - mother’s house, which he had to leave in order to find a space for being gay, but it is also the place where John received an anony - mous letter stating that he had AIDS: And then there was a letter that I received because I worked at Wits I received the letter at home. My grandmother gave me the letter and wanted to know who it was from and then this letter said that I have AIDS. And I was shocked I said “what, I have AIDS“ I felt very vulnerable and then the following day I went to work, it was extremely stressful me, very stressful. I asked Betty [interpreter] ... I told her about the story and it was shock - ing, I couldn’t work. The only thing I could do was to think about this. I passed out and “someone else phoned a doctor and they came to pick me up and I was taken to the Wits University Health Center. And the doctor did some tests and said “you are negative,” the HIV test came negative. I was very relieved about that. Soweto becomes an ambivalent location with respect to his process of becoming gay as it is both a gay space where he has relationships with hearing gay men, and a place of sexual violence when he is date raped after unknowingly been given alcohol which was mixed with coke by his boyfriend who then had unprotected sex with him: He gave me wine mixed with Coca-Cola to drink and that made me very drunk I couldn’t remember anything. The following morning I was naked and I said what’s happening and he said “well I had sex with you,” I said “really.” And then it was very stressful for me thinking about it but I just went to work every - day. And then I started feeling weak again. The location becomes invested with even more identities and expe - riences towards which John feels ambivalent: ... and I went to a clinic in Soweto and I said I would like to have Willemse and Morgan: Deaf, Gay, HIV Positive, and Proud 97

a test done. And there was no counselor, they just said “you want the test done,” so they took blood from my finger and they said “you can wait for fifteen minutes.” And I was given the test results there and then it was thrown into my face and it was positive. I said “what! Me! Positive!” I couldn’t believe it nor could I understand it. They said “yes you are,” but there was no counseling, no counseling at all. This made me very angry. Soweto thus is an oppressive hearing “place” where he is diagnosed in November 2003 as HIV positive at the local clinic by an insensi - tive doctor who breaks the law when he does not provide counsel - ing. However, Soweto becomes, also, a space of positive experience: I sent a sms [text message] to Ruth and I said I am positive. So I waited I stayed home for three days. As I went into the house I saw my grandmother and I started to cry. My granny just said “why are you crying?” I said “I am positive” and my granny said “don’t worry it will be fine, don’t worry it doesn’t matter there are many positive people in the world....” I stayed at home for three days and that’s all I could think about ... my granny just said “don’t think about it try and sleep, don’t worry” but it wasn’t possible for me. I just thought about me being HIV posi - tive. For three days I rested and I came to work I met with Ruth and she gave me some advice which was wonderful.... And I decided to go to Baragwanath hospital and there was a person with an Indian interpreter, who does not sign very well. An interview was done ... some counseling and so I had another test done and it came back, counseling was done, and it said “yes, you are positive you have to be careful you need to wear condoms” and made me feel a little more relieved as I started to understand everything. When I went there, the doctor gave me some medication, at first I went with Amanda, she was my interpreter. She interpreted and she just said to me: “I am so sorry my friend that you are HIV positive but I still love you as you are my friend, don’t worry I’ll still have a good relationship with you.” And I was so relieved because I thought perhaps she would reject me, and she said “you’ve been my friend for four years and you will still be my friend,” so we laughed about it and she gave me a hug. She then left and I thought a lot about it. I took some medication and keep taking this medication. 98 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

John’s claim to agency, however, is problematized by authors like O’Neill and Hird (2001, 204-24) who researched the construc - tion of masculinity among gay disabled men. The fact that the men in their research all prioritized their gay identity over their disabled identity leads the authors to state that “what may appear as agency in the matter of marginalized male gender identity may, instead, be a form of subjectedness” (O’Neill and Hird 2001, 217). Instead of constructing an alternative identity, these men, in their view, copy the hierarchization of masculine identities, which is prevalent in dominant masculinity. In dominant masculinity, able-bodies are considered “focal points for struggles over power” and important markers of masculine identity, which is why these men down play their dis-abled bodies rather then their gay identity (O’Neill and Hird 2001, 214-21). In this view, hegemonic masculinity is in fact taken to be fixed, bounded, unified. This means the authors step into the discursive trap of the meta-narrative of dominant masculinity and in fact take the make-believe of a unified, stable dominant masculinity for real. Apart from a discussion to what extent able-bodied men can live up to the ideal of masculine iden - tity, and to what extent hearing impairment constitutes disability, the main argument here is that gendered and sexualized construc - tions of self shift according to context. This is not only true relative to places and spaces, but also relative to time. Although in the context of this article we cannot represent extensively the biographic narratives John constructed after his coming out as a gay and as HIV positive, we want to turn here to some of the more important events, and John’s reflections on these, that occurred after he narrated his identity as gay and Deaf. Not surprisingly, these events also relate to his being gay and Deaf, but this time these identities turn out to be secondary to other, newly acquired identities, with which these intersect.

John Moving from Biography to Activism: I Narrate Therefore I Am In a recent publication (Meletse and Morgan 2006), John himself reflects on parts of the biographic narratives of 2001 and 2005, of which we also represented excerpts above. It is interesting to see how, in his more recent biographic narratives, he has singled out those parts in which he struggles with being HIV positive, and in Willemse and Morgan: Deaf, Gay, HIV Positive, and Proud 99 his comments focuses, not so much on his gay identity as he did while relating these narratives, but on the fact that he is a Deaf person struggling with HIV. As the context of that narrative is a completely different one, dealing with his activism, rather than his coming out as gay and HIV positive, the issue of the lack of respect of Deaf people is emphasized: I could not believe the way I was treated at the clinic as Voluntary Counseling and Testing requires that people are counseled both before and after being tested for HIV. This was not done in my case because I am Deaf.... It is important for Deaf people to be treated with respect and dignity at clinics. This is our constitutional right in South Africa (Meletse with Morgan [2006] 2007, S18). The issue of respect and rights shifts the focus from his personal experiences to that of the Deaf as a collective, and this also means a shift in the identity John is constructing: It took a long time for me to be able to access the information and support I needed as a Deaf gay person.... I am now going to explain my experiences in more details than I did in my life story interview quoted above. I feel the need to do so as there were frustrations at every corner. The worst thing was that I had a lot of problems at the local Deaf organization which is where I thought I could get a lot of support (Meletse with Morgan 2007, S19). John uses here his biographic narrative, not to come to terms with his gay identity, nor his HIV status, but to construct an identity as a pioneer and possible role model for the Deaf youths. At the end of his article, John in fact articulates his future project, which is based on his experiences as a Deaf gay HIV positive person: It is important for learners to know that I am both Deaf and HIV positive as Deaf learners do not have any HIV positive role models. In the hearing world learners have many HIV positive role models such as Zackie Achmat and Edwin Cameron who have come out as HIV positive publicly on television and in the HIV activist world. However in the Deaf world HIV is still highly stigmatized and there are no Deaf people that I know of besides myself who are publicly out as HIV positive. That is why I decided this year, after a long process of 15 months of coming to terms with being HIV positive myself to come out 100 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

and disclose my status to the Deaf world (Meletse with Morgan [2006] 2007, S24). In these reflections on his biographies, John overemphasizes public exposure and constructs a positive self-identity by seeing himself as a role model who has strong support in the gay Deaf community. His biographic narrative thereby has become a site, not just of reflecting and constructing his identity, but of his position as a public figure whereby he performs his own biographic narrative in, for example, a film, a theatre performance, a television program, and a DVD. 5 In this way, he has constructed a space for himself in the gay and Deaf worlds in which he claims authority and power. He thus creates agency by claiming his activism and navigating the Deaf, Deaf gay, and hearing world that he inhabits. By looking closely at two different contexts of narration, we have been able to assess the shifting position of his sexual identity in the way John Meletse constructed himself. In the narrative of 2001 and 2005, John is in the process of coming to terms with his gay identity as part of the way he locates himself in life. These narratives were spaces for his “coming out” not only in terms of his sexuality, but also with reference to his HIV status. In his last narra - tive of 2006, which we have not discussed in detail, John has resolved his identity as a gay man and intersects this more secure identity with his Deaf identity as well as his HIV status. Here, he acquires another identity: that of a gay HIV/AIDS activist, in particular in relation to the Deaf world. After the initial shame, fear, and depression that the verdict of his HIV positive status brought on him, both in the hearing and Deaf society he was part of, he turned that potentially marginalizing and disempowering position into one of strength and activism. Indeed, John has become an lgbti and HIV/AIDS activist with a high profile in the Deaf and gay worlds, participating in many projects of the Gay and Lesbian Archives (GALA): first, in 2004, as a volunteer, and then as a staff member responsible for the Deaf oral history and outreach project, which focuses on biographic narra - tives. He has performed his life story for many different events, both nationally and internationally, over the past two years, as indicated above, and given numerous talks to Deaf and hearing audiences about being Deaf, gay, and living with HIV. John’s current work includes diversity training in Deaf schools with a Willemse and Morgan: Deaf, Gay, HIV Positive, and Proud 101 focus on sensitization to same-sexuality issues and HIV/AIDS. In other words, from a narrator of his life, John has become the performer and analyst of his own biography, which earned him identities as a role model and a professional, all centered on the biographic narratives that represented his experiences, struggles, and solutions to become a Self.

Conclusion: Negotiating Hegemonic Masculinity Our analysis of John’s biographic narrative as practice focuses on John as an ordinary person who pro-actively creates and recon - structs his Deaf gay and HIV positive identities and agency in everyday life. If from a hegemonic viewpoint, John has marginal - ized identities as gay, Deaf, and HIV positive, he has, in the course of narrating about his life, positioned himself as proudly Deaf and then gay — casting himself as a hero, a Deaf gay mentor to both the hearing and Deaf people in his world. John has moved in his most recent biographic narrative beyond detailing his Deaf gay identity to a space where he takes these for granted. He is firmly situated and comfortable in his Deaf gay world. This transformed identity of an activist, role model, and professional is still based on his iden - tities as a Deaf, gay, HIV positive, young, black, South African, but intersected differently in the sense that now his activism and professional status are prioritized. His activism has not only given him public exposure, but recognition and admiration as well. John’s life might seem extraordinary and therefore limited in what it may teach us about “African sexualities” more generally. It should suffice to state that everyone has a life “less ordinary,” in the sense that any person, when asked, would narrate about his or her life in a way that makes sense of that life and makes one stand out as someone that is “leading that life rather than being led through it” (Lugones and Spelman 1983, 593). But to conclude, we do want to push the limits of our micro-analysis and venture into some broader academic debates. In order to acknowledge both the facilitating and constricting aspects of the ways sexuality intersects with other identities in place and time, the notion of “mapping” proved to be useful in understanding this contingent and dynamic process (Deleuze and Guattari 1989, 22; Crang and Thrift 2000, 19-25). The shifting way that John intersected his identities in terms of his sexual orienta - 102 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 tion, gender, Deaf and HIV status showed that the context of narra - tion as well as of negotiation are of main importance for under - standing the ways in which these identities are performed and given meaning. No identity can therefore be understood as fixed or stable: on the contrary, as identities are “always constructed through memory, fantasy, narrative and myth” (Hall 1990, 225), this makes identities inherently unstable (Braidotti 1994, 31, 35- 39; Butler 1990, i-xi; Hall 1996, 1-17; Silberstein 2000 , 3). At the same time, however, people cannot live well with insta - bility, with constant change and transformation. What people do in actual life is to try and “fix the flux” (Meyer and Geschiere 1999, 9- 14) of identifications, meanings, and messages about self, by anchoring it to supposedly fixed identities (Hall 1996, 1-17; Willemse 2007, 420-34). When narrators talk about their lives, that is precisely what they do: trace a past up to the present in order to “fix the flux” and construct a, however temporary, stable and seem - ingly unified identity (De Certeau 1984; Morgan 2008; Willemse 2007, 425). Subjects may thereby not only prioritize particular identities over others but even silence some, depending on what the context requires in order to claim personhood. John first prioritized his gay identity over being Deaf, but in his reflection on his earlier narra - tives, thus creating a new one, he prioritized his Deaf identity over being gay. At the same time he also silenced some identities or aspects of these, for example his identity as a black youth does come up in his narrative but so far he has not prioritized this; nor did he dwell on the fact that, during his youth, he assumed a femi - nine role in the gay world, but that this identity may shift to becoming the male partner in same-sex relations when he gets older. This is not to say that this process of “becoming” a self is voluntary, or based on rational and conscious choices. The contrary is true. Dominant discourses allot people in a given society certain subject-positions which means that none can think of themselves, nor construct identities, however radical or counter-hegemonic, without making use of the terms of the discourse they thus negoti - ate in the first place. However, in the process of negotiation, alter - native identities may be constructed, which not only subvert the dominant discourse but also have the potential to transform it in the process, thereby constructing spaces out of places. 6 Willemse and Morgan: Deaf, Gay, HIV Positive, and Proud 103

In this process, the narrating of one’s life is not just a means to attain an end, to attain closure, however temporary. The biographic narrative in itself creates a space in which narrators can try and trace their lives through alternative trajectories in order to under - stand who they are, or are becoming. The narratives offer not just a representation of the way sexuality and other identities inter - sected, but should at the same time be perceived as a performance that in itself constructs and produces these identities during the process of narration. In other words, biographic narratives produce and determine life. Indeed, by telling our narratives, “in the end we become the autobiographical narratives by which we `tell about’ our lives” (Bruner 1987, 15). For us, the project of biographic narratives does not constitute “just” another method of grasping the ways in which subjects view and represent their lives: it constitutes a chronotope of space / time in which the subject and those bearing witness engage in a process of becoming, of fixing the flux. In this process, the narrator gains a sense of control over and purpose of his or her life that validates the adage “I narrate, therefore I am.” 7

Notes 1 The convention of writing “Deaf” with a capital “D” is used to indicate persons who identify as culturally Deaf and use signed language as a first language. The use of a small “d” in “deaf” denotes persons with a hearing impairment who use spoken language . 2 This project, funded by the South African Netherlands Research Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD), investigated the nature of Deaf culture in South Africa. 3 A second volume also edited by Raymond Luczak: Eyes of Desire 2: A Deaf GLBT Reader (2007) features a piece by John Meletse and Ruth Morgan. 4 Ideally, we would represent here the narrative as a whole in order to leave our analysis, our version of John’s truth, as open to scrutiny as possible. In the context of this article this is not possible. See, for example, Willemse (2007, 24-36) for a discussion of this aspect of transparency of interpreta - tion. 5 For example, directing and producing the short film I Have Two! (as part of the “Just a Minute” film development workshop, an initiative of the Out In Africa, Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, March 2004); as actor in a HIV community theatre performance in 2005-06; in the educational comic Are 104 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 your Rights Respected? (linked to the theatre production, produced for the Deaf community). Also, he has come out on Deaf TV in 2004, and disclosed his HIV status in 2006 on national television. In early 2007, John also produced a digital story of his life as an HIV positive gay black man as one of fourteen Southern African heroes and heroines who participated in the making of the DVD Amplifying Voices for the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) in January 2007. 6 Butler refers to this process of unavoidable alteration “iterability” (Butler 1990, 140; see also Alsop, Fitzsimons and Lennon 2003, 103-05). However, this way of perceiving resistance to dominant discourse has been criticized for being too easy and even a middle-class, white view of access to resis - tance (see for example Alsop, Fitzsimons and Lennon 2003, 94-114; Willemse 2007, 418-20). It is beyond the context of this article to delve into this argument in detail. 7 See also Wolfram-Fischer (1995, 257), who even suggests to replace the notion of identity by biography. “Mombasa Morans”: Embodiment, Sexual Morality, and Samburu Men in Kenya

George Paul Meiu

Résumé Les années 1980 ont vu l’expansion de l’industrie touristique au Kenya et durant cette période, de nombreux jeunes Samburu ont fait des voyages saisonniers vers les stations balnéaires touristiques du littoral pour gagner de l’argent. Ces hommes ont établi des relations avec des touristes blanches et se sont fait une petite fortune. Ils ont ainsi formé un nouveau groupe social à l’intérieur de leurs communités d’origine. Cet article s’applique à montrer que ces hommes, fréquemment nommés “morans de Mombasa” ont fini par incarner les effets des représentations (post) coloniales de leur identité et ceux de la critique morale des jeunes de la même génération. Leurs efforts pour représenter l’exemple corporel spécifique du “guerrier Masai” dans le contexte du tourisme sexuel féminin a mené à des conflits eux-mêmes générateurs de nouvelles dispositions concernant le corps. Ici, la critique morale ciblant la sexualité de ces hommes a constitué non seule - ment un moyen discursif de discréditer les inégalités matérielles crois - santes mais aussi une ressource symbolique pour fabriquer de nouvelles masculinités tout en créant une nouvelle conception du corps.

Abstract With the growth of the Kenyan tourism industry in the 1980s, numerous young Samburu men migrated seasonally to coastal tourist resorts seek -

This article originates in a paper presented at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association of African Studies at the University of Toronto. I am thankful to Anthony Synnott, Christine Jourdan, Rose Wangeci, and John Terrace Maina for their support with my field research, and their help - ful advice. I am also thankful to Beth Brummel, Jean Comaroff, Claudia Gastrow, Judith Farquhar, Andrew Ivaska, Rachel Jean-Baptiste, Michal Ran, Nicole Rigillo, and Jonah Rubin for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

105 106 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 ing the niche of tourism for material gains. By developing relationships with white female tourists, many of these men have rapidly accumulated wealth, and came to form a new social group within their home commu - nities. This article argues that these men, often referred to as “Mombasa morans,” came to embody the effects of (post)colonial representations of their identity, and the effects of the moral criticism of their age-mates. Their attempt to perform a specific bodily paradigm of the “Maasai warrior” in the context of female sexual travel led to conflicts generative of new bodily dispositions. Here, the moral criticism targeting the sexu - ality of these men constituted not only a discursive means of discrediting rising material inequalities but also a symbolic resource for fashioning new masculinities while refiguring bodies.

Introduction “See that guy with the dreadlocks,” David points out, “him too, he has a muzungu mama [white woman] in Mombasa.” David and I were having tea at the Jadana motel when this young man passed by. He was a tall, skinny twenty-year-old, dressed in red shorts and a gray Puma shirt, wearing a large gold chain around his neck, and carrying a cell-phone in his hand. David continues: He fucks the old lady, and she sends him money and gold. She bought him a bicycle and some goats. She is taking care of him and then she is proud she has a Maasai. Yeah, Maasai she says. Even those dreadlocks, those aren’t Samburu. Us, Samburu, we don’t have that. David went to talk to an elderly Samburu man sitting at the next table. They laughed. He explained to me afterwards: You know even the apayaa [old man] was laughing at this guy. Some years ago, he used to work at this hotel. He was cleaning the toilets here. And now, every time he is in Maralal, he comes and takes a room here. His parents live close by in a manyatta [huts compound]. But him, he can no longer sleep there ... there’re too many flies [laughing]. David’s criticism of his age-mate speaks to the reconfiguration of Samburu masculinities in the late twentieth century. More specifically, it is an instance of moral discourse that resituates Samburu masculinities in relation to white women’s sexual travel. This article examines some of the ways in which young Samburu men who migrated seasonally to coastal tourist resorts, mostly to Mombasa, and engaged in relationships with white female tourists Meiu: “Mombasa Morans” 107 came to embody both the effects of a neo-imperial commodifica - tion of their bodies for tourist consumption, and the effects of a moral criticism phrased in terms of sexuality. Their seemingly miraculous accumulation of wealth attracted a vociferous criti - cism, repositioning them within the moral economies of their home community: they became the “Mombasa morans (warriors).” Herein, contrasts in sexual behavior constituted a moral issue supplementing a rationalization of economic inequalities. This reconfiguration of gendered identities in relation to global processes is ultimately about the inculcation of different bodily dispositions. The re-situation of Samburu masculinities with regard to female sexual tourism constitutes an embodied political matter. It is about the ways in which colonial and postcolonial histories of bodily stereotyping are generative of bodily disposi - tions. The body, thus, is the very site of cultural hegemony, and its “tangible processes are eminently susceptible to the kind of ethno - graphic scrutiny that may divulge the hidden hand of history” (Comaroff and Comaroff 1992, 41). Strangely enough, the theorization of “sex tourism,” and more recently of “female sex tourism” does not include embodiment as one of its analytical concerns. Even when “the body” is present in these discussions, it is disembodied; that is, it is treated merely as an object of consumption, a consuming object, or a form of repre - sentation. It is conceptualized through what Judith Farquhar called “a naive faith in the existence of material natures that are, in theory and essence, untouched by human history” (2002, 8). In studies of “female sex tourism,” as I will show, this tendency results from the fact that the tourist site — the place where hosts and guests meet — is taken as an apparently isolated unit of interaction upon which all analytical energies are focused, and which is, therefore, defined merely in terms of situated power statuses and “sexual-economic exchanges” (Kempadoo 1999, 2001). Accordingly, the recurring question of these studies is whether or not women can be in a domi - nating position as consumers of sex tourism. Whereas some schol - ars argue that traveling women engaging in sexual relations with local men are occupying the same exploitative position as their male counterparts (Albuquerque 1998; Kempadoo 2001; Sanchez Taylor 2001; Phillips 1999), others argue that, in fact, women are doing something else, less exploitative, often referred to as 108 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

“romance tourism” (Dahles and Bras 1999; Jeffreys 2003). I argue that this very question, however helpful for comparative studies of tourism, leads inevitably to the de-historicization of the “tourist site,” and the analytical objectification of bodies and sexualities. Consequently, local men, for example, tend to be dealt with in an essentialist manner, either as “embodied commodities” (Sanchez Taylor 2000) or as mere consumers of female tourists’ sexuality (Jeffreys 2003). Meanwhile, in the recent studies of men and masculinity in Africa, the analytical implications of embodiment have not yet come to be fully recognized. Responding to Luise White’s (1990) early call to theorize men in Africa, an emerging literature on African masculinities (Lindsay and Miescher 2003; Miescher 2005; Ouagane and Morrell 2005; Silberschmidt 2004) underlines the role of the dynamic social and historical processes in the continuous reconfigu - ration of masculinities on the continent. Herein, education, religion, wealth, and sexuality are only a few of the social forces that shape masculinities, and that are — in their turn — (re)shaped in the gendering process. Nevertheless, the embodied effects of such dynamic gendering processes have yet to be explored. Instead, this article offers the alternative of analyzing the effects of these relationships, and of thinking “how to conceptual - ize these delicate and dramatic figurations and refigurations of local embodiments, identities and imaginaries” (Povinelli and Chauncey 1999, 442). Based on my fieldwork in Kenya in 2005, this study is about the re-shaping of Samburu masculinities through the embodiment of the effects of multi-contextual social processes. 1

Context: “Moran Mania” At the end of the twentieth century, on a global scale, transnational travel reached the unprecedented level of 625 million international arrivals (World Tourism Organization 1999). In 1999, the number of tourists visiting Kenya was estimated at 969 000. By 2004, it had increased as much as forty percent, reaching 1 361 000 (ECPAT). Since Kenya’s Independence in 1963, the profitability of the agri - cultural production has fluctuated, but the tourist market has grown, and more and more people, mostly from West European countries, turned to Kenya as a holiday destination. 2 As such, since 1987, tourism has represented Kenya’s leading foreign exchange Meiu: “Mombasa Morans” 109 earner, and now employs eight percent of the country’s wage earn - ing labor force (Omondi 2003). Early on, the Kenyan postcolonial state foresaw some of the great financial opportunities opening up on the international market. Besides wildlife safaris, it began commodifying a certain “cultural heritage” that drew intensively on colonial paradigms. Within discourses of Kenyan cultural diversity, fashioned at the interface of the state’s nationalist politics and the demands of the global market, the Maasai “emerged as the epitome of Kenya’s national heritage,” as local journalists put it, while “[t]he western tourist’s love of them has only boosted their image” (Obonyo and Nyassy 2004, 2). The same journalists observe: Considered the main selling point of Kenya’s tourism, the Maasai are, indeed, one of the most photographed, filmed and written-about indigenous communities on earth; and their culture probably the most commercialized and exploited world over (Obonyo and Nyassy 2004, 3). In the 1980s, most safaris already included visits to Maasai settlements in their schedules, and hotel administrators were peri - odically hiring groups of ten to twenty Maasai or Samburu men to perform dances for their customers. Meanwhile, women from European countries (but also, to a lesser extent, from Australia, North America, and Japan) began visiting Kenya armed with a clear image of the tall, slim bodies of the “vanishing” Maasai morans (warriors), walking half-naked, covered only by their red shukas (body blankets) and proudly carrying their spears and clubs. In the early 1990s, Kenya emerged as yet another international sexual destination, and among other forms of sexualized entertainment (see Omondi 2003; Schoss 1995), 3 its draw relied intensively on eroticized representations of the Maasai and Samburu. In Kenya, the Maasai became, as Edward Bruner put it, “the quintessential pastoralists and the moran (junior warrior) [became] the quintessential Maasai” (2005, 35). In December 2004, the Lifestyle magazine of Nairobi’s Daily Nation announced a global tourist “mania” for the Maasai morans. 4 There is, as such, a great awareness evidenced in the Kenyan public discourse with regard to the almost mesmerizing qualities of the Maasai image in opening tourist wallets. In this sense, the same article observes how this “moran mania” quickly gave rise to a “lucrative business,” and 110 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 how consequently “scores of morans — genuine and fake alike — are flooding the coastal beaches to make a living from the trade” (Obonyo and Nyassy 2004, 2). Among the Samburu of northern-central Kenya, this context was generating new opportunities for earning cash while perform - ing a long-standing (post)colonial paradigm that accentuated the relative “cultural relatedness” of the Samburu to the Maasai. The fact that Samburu people are identified in various circumstances with the better-known Maasai, Kasfir shows, plays out in “both historical reality and current cultural politics” (2002, 371). 5 Like the Maasai, the Samburu are a Maa-speaking ethnic group of semi- nomadic pastoralists. And whereas the Maasai live mostly in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania, the Samburu inhabit predominantly the semi-arid lands of the north-central savannah of Kenya. Most of the Samburu people raise cattle, and to a lesser extent goats, sheep, and in some areas, camels (Spencer 1965, 1973). By the mid-twentieth century, many have also taken up agricul - ture, livestock trade, or migratory wage labor (Konaka 2001; Fumagalli 1977; Holtzman 2003). Here, the relative freedom associated with the status of the lmurrani (moran) is important for understanding why migration is prominent mainly among this age-grade. The period during which a man is lmurrani (plural: ilmurran ) is a time interval of up to fifteen years, into which a boy is initiated with circumcision, and which ends with the initiation of a new age-set. During this period, the young men are forbidden to marry, and have to spend most of their time outside the domestic unit of their parents. 6 Some ilmur - ran herd the cattle of their fathers away from home. Others, espe - cially those who went to school, orient this period of their lives towards earning cash. Some become soldiers, watchmen, or police officers all over Kenya; but others seek to profit from tourism and orient themselves towards the tourist niche that has developed on the coast (Holtzman 2003). Whether it is done through cattle raids, wage labor, or tourism, an lmurrani is expected by his father to have at least some cattle ready for a bride price once he becomes a junior elder. When I began my fieldwork in 2005, David was a Lmooli lmur - rani (member of the age-set initiated in 1990; now, in his late twen - ties). His family was living on some hills close to the town of Meiu: “Mombasa Morans” 111

Maralal in the Samburu District (Northern Kenya). Since his father had died four years prior, David was living with his siblings and his mother in the compound of his father’s brother and his two wives. He had finished secondary school a couple of years before, and ever since, had been coming daily to Maralal where he waited for tourists and travelers to hire him as a tour guide. The money he earned in these circumstances was spent mostly on food, cattle vaccines, and clothing for himself and his family. In August 2005, a new age-set (the Lkishami ) was to be initiated, and David was preparing to become a junior elder. However, he had neither enough cattle for a bride price, nor any stable source of income. His years of being an lmurrani had not allowed for any accumulation of wealth. Becoming a junior elder would subject him to the social pressures surrounding marriage; and David’s inability to respond financially to these demands would put him in a difficult position. David’s was not an atypical case. Numerous young men found themselves in similarly contradictory situations. 2005 had been a year of particular economic hardship for many Samburu. First, the initiation of the Lkishami age-set was making high economic demands on families who had sons to be circumcised. The emuratare (circumcision) ceremonies called for livestock to be sacrificed, for high amounts of sugar and rice to be bought, new clothing, and ritual fees. Many families had to move long distances to the lorora (cere - monial compound) of their clan. There, the elders in charge of the ceremonies would demand money and alcohol. Second, with the initiation of the Lkishami age-set, their predecessors, the Lmooli, would become junior elders and would have to marry. Preparing bride prices of eight to sixteen cattle for each Lmooli son, sometimes as many as three to six to a polygynous family, placed an additional demand on local domestic economies. Third, the summer of 2005 marked a time of general crisis on the national labor market. Numerous workers’ strikes that took place across the country proved ineffectual. In a public speech broadcast in early June 2005 on a national radio station, President Mwai Kibaki threatened workers who would not return to work with immediate replacement. As such, for many young Samburu men, the lack of capital coming with the crises on the national labor market, and the demands for invest - ment in the age-grade ceremonies framed a particular situation of economic hardship and social tension. 112 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

David’s critique of his murata (age-mate), quoted in the begin - ning, should be understood within this context. It was meant to question the morality of wealth accumulated “overnight.” Not unlike accusations of witchcraft, so well documented in the differ - ent postcolonies of Africa south of the Sahara (Comaroff and Comaroff 1999), the criticism of the sexual morality of local men engaging in sexual relationships with white female tourists has to be seen as responding to the production of new inequalities. Attacking the sexual morality of men enriched through their rela - tionships with white women became a discursive genre of gossip and scandal widespread among the inhabitants of Maralal. At the time that David was leveling his critique, others had already come to form a new local “elite” displaying the material advantages of such relationships. For the past ten years, men had built themselves large villa-type houses on the edge of Maralal, in an area known as belonging to the “Mombasa morans” (and proba - bly some officials). Many of these men opened hotels and pubs in the heart of Maralal. They also opened stores, or built commercial spaces for rent. Furthermore, most of them owned TVs and VCRs, cell phones, cars, large cattle herds, and had at some point traveled to Europe. All these were symbolic markers of wealth and socio- economic prestige. This accumulation of wealth and economic prestige, in its turn, placed these men in an ambiguous position, sometimes attracting relatives and friends that could benefit from their wealth, at other times becoming the target of moral criticism directed primarily at their sexuality.

Representing Bodies, Embodying Representations Up until now, I have drawn out some of the general characteristics of the context of “moran mania.” Now, I turn to a more concrete discussion of the role of the body in certain neo-imperial represen - tations, that is, specific visual idioms inherited from a colonial era and recoded in the postcolonial tourist industry. I will also address some embodied effects of such representations . The moral criticism targeting men who enriched themselves through relationships with female tourists is a discourse generated by and generative of bodily dispositions. When David spoke of his age-mate, the tone of his voice trembled with disgust, the features of his face strained with resentment. He had guided many female Meiu: “Mombasa Morans” 113 tourists around the district in the past, but never had sexual rela - tionships with any of them. Ultimately, as he came to find out, he was “too short” and “too chunky,” and thus could barely pass as a “Samburu warrior.” The possibility or impossibility of participat - ing in the enactment of neo-imperial fantasies within the “moran mania” phenomenon presupposed, as such, not only a mere perfor - mance of specific bodily representations, but also the embodiment of the effects of such a performance. And it is these particular embodied effects that are omitted in discussions of (female) sexual tourism, when the body is treated merely in terms of its objectification (commodification). With the sexual travel of women to the Caribbean, it is argued, local men become exoticized objects of desire. Carefully performing the Rasta body style, they play out onto a “cultural” attraction (Albuquerque 1998, 91; Pruitt and LaFont 1995, 425) that turns them into “embodied commodities” (Sanchez Taylor 2000; see also Phillips 1999, 199-200). “Sellers of `cultural experiences,’” Sanchez Taylor observes, “have to be the bearers of very specific racialized and gendered identities” (2000, 48). Nonetheless, one needs to ask: what are the effects of assuming these identities, of trying to embody these cultural images? In these studies, the effects of the commodification of bodies remain under-theorized, whereas the representations of bodies are also dehistoricized. In Kenya, it was a specific political and histor - ical context that required the representations of Maasai or Samburu bodies to be performed in certain ways, at the same time that this performance materialized its effects in embodied disposi - tions and moral criticisms. First, it shall be noted that representations of bodies are not free-floating signifiers, but culturally and historically situated discursive productions. The aesthetics of the current representa - tions of the Maasai or Samburu bodies has to be understood as being based on politically informed discourses, inheriting certain hege - monic paradigms from colonial representations. If, on one hand, this new aesthetics emerged in response to the dialogue between national politics and the demands of the global market, on the other hand, there was a certain historical continuity in the ways in which the Maasai or Samburu bodies were envisioned. The commodification of (post)colonial representations for tourist 114 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 consumption is a reinvention of old colonial paradigms, some of which go back to the second half of the nineteenth century. Early travel accounts and colonial ethnographies set the path for what was to become a metropolitan fascination with the “change-reluc - tant” Maasai / Samburu (Kasfir 1999, 2002; Hughes 2006). Furthermore, coffee table books, postcards, films, and movies concretized this image, inscribing it into a colorful visual arche - type, with “nostalgia being voiced for physical perfection itself” (Kasfir 1999, 73). The imperative of physical perfection was contin - uously carved out in the social relations of this aesthetic phenom - enon, and ultimately determined what bodies were eligible to partake in its benefits (Meiu 2008). Second, these representations are actively challenged in differ - ent contexts, especially when the question of who is legitimized to perform the persona of the Maasai / Samburu moran is posed in terms of ethnicity and bodily aesthetics. With a general awareness in Kenyan public discourse of the ongoing “moran mania” came a certain sense of chaos associated with the unfolding of the phenom - enon, along with a certain anxiety among Kenyan authorities. 7 This anxiety was evidenced in relation to the diffuse image of those who stood to benefit from “the trade.” Nairobi’s Daily Nation (Sunday Lifestyle) observes: As the moran mania grows, the fake ones have become a source of both envy and loth [sic].... Luckily for the fake operator, virtually all tourists polled by Lifestyle could not tell the bogus moran from the genuine ones although some admit having had intense interactions with the locals.... Mrs Brigit Wurth, a tourist from Germany, confesses her ignorance over the true identity of the moran . “I have interacted with a number of them, most of whom asked me to assist them to go to Europe. But I couldn’t tell a fake from a genuine moran,” says the 67- year-old woman (Obonyo and Nyassy 2004, 3) Genuine morans, fake morans, and ignorant tourists. The concern with the “authenticity” of the men benefiting from this “moran mania” phenomenon emerged at a time when individuals crossed ethnic identity boundaries in order to take up this highly ethni - cized persona. The ones benefiting from this phenomenon would soon, the concern went, no longer be identifiable in terms of ethnicity. Therefore, the article also provides advice on “How to Meiu: “Mombasa Morans” 115 tell a fake from a genuine Maasai moran” (2004, 3): A true moran has a distinct look, facial appearance and dress that the fake moran must ape. The change to “moranism” involves braiding the hair and dying it red with ochre. The candidate adorns himself in a red-white shuka, multi-colored chokers, earrings and bracelets, with a club to match. For a rare perfectionist, knocking out the two front teeth on the lower jaw is a must (Obonyo and Nyassy 2004, 2). Fake morans can appropriate bodily decorations, earrings and bracelets, they can even go as far as “knocking out the two front teeth” in order to “ape” moran identity for ignorant tourists. But, it seems to be implied that there is something deeper, something that they cannot appropriate, and that makes them “fake” to begin with. And that is an essential ethnicity. And if, for these Kenyan journal - ists, the signs through which the “true moran” could be both recog - nized and “aped” were more about bodily adornments, for many tourists these signs were also about the forms of the body itself. Thus, the Samburu whose bodies did not match the image of the tall, slim, and “light-colored” moran persona, were often thought not to be Maasai or Samburu. Participating in tourism and develop - ing relationships with white women was not a choice equally avail - able to everyone. The aesthetic paradigms that framed the image of the Maasai / Samburu male body within the “moran mania” discussed above determined decisively what bodies were eligible to compete for its material advantages. The (post)colonial visual arche - type of the tall, slim Maasai / Samburu warrior as it materialized in the social relations surrounding this phenomenon, had created its abject others: namely, short bodies, fat bodies, or any bodies that did not fit the stereotypical vision. The issue of who gets to benefit from the tourist niche became an embodied matter: for only certain bodies will have been eligible to employ the aesthetics of this post - colonial persona. During my research, numerous Samburu men whose bodies did not match these paradigms complained to me that they could not “pick up” tourists on the coast. Others told me of how, when a German film company came to Maralal to shoot The White Masai in 2003, many were rejected at a pre-selection because they were “not tall enough,” “not slim enough,” or “not light- colored” to pass as “Samburu” (Meiu 2008, 18). Finally, this essentialized body/ethnicity equation, playing out 116 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 onto neo-imperial fantasies, became itself a motif of the moral crit - icism directed at the “Mombasa morans” in their home communi - ties. As the postcolonial imaginaries of the Samburu moran phrased their limits in terms of bodily aesthetics and excluded abject bodies from contexts of wealth accumulation, those men whose bodies were left out transposed this issue into their criticism of a morally weak form of neo-imperialism. They ridiculed thus their age-mates’ participation at the enactment of a primitivist spectacle for sexual purposes. As David sarcastically put it: The muzungu mamas want the morans that are dressed with kangas [body cloth] and have spears. They don’t want the ones who have pants and shirts. They say that the ones with kangas walk freely and have big dicks.... They want the ones that have long hair dyed with ochre. The boy probably went here to school and used to wear pants, but there [in Mombasa] they put on the kanga and take the spear to find wazungu [white people]. The criticism of the immorality of a certain objectification of “tradi - tion” revealed a particular cultural logic. According to Samburu men who did not participate in the sexual tourism of the coast, the objec - tification of “tradition” within nationalist propaganda (schools and district festivals) constituted a way of “dignifying” Samburu cultural identity, at the same time that in Mombasa it represented a “vulgar” way of performing primitivist fantasies for sexual purposes. Nevertheless, as was often the case, many young men would partic - ipate alternatively in both forms of objectification. In short, the strategic performance of postcolonial imaginaries of Maasai / Samburu bodies by Samburu men is not a mere theatri - cal play enacted on the “stages” of tourist resorts but, foremost, a moralized process effecting in embodied dispositions. Moreover, the objects of representation — the representations of bodies — are historically and politically phrased paradigms that transpose their limits unto the actors’ embodied dispositions, and reshape these as they announce which bodies are eligible to compete for the mater - ial advantages of tourist performances.

Embodying Movement In order to better capture the embodied effects of these neo-imperial fantasies, one needs to look at the ways in which the performance of such imaginations is part of an alternating or switching of Meiu: “Mombasa Morans” 117 contexts. Emphasizing the embodied effects of movement between the Kenyan coast and the home communities of the Kenyan north is a fundamental step in understanding the way in which the inter - play between local, national, and global phenomena are subjectively mediated. The Samburu men migrating seasonally to coastal resorts participate to multiple social contexts and therefore also come to embody the effects of moving between these contexts. Studies of sex tourism — although about movement — tend to focus mainly on the interaction of individuals within a clearly territorialized tourist site. The “liminal” space of sex tourism, the place where hosts and guests interact as two sets of “liminal” bodies (Ryan and Hall 2001), that is, outside the contexts of their respective everyday lives, is nevertheless conceptualized as a place. This place becomes the stage of interaction upon which the analyst focuses almost exclusively (see Pruitt and LaFont 1995; Dahles and Bras 1999; Albuquerque 1998; Phillips 1999; Sanchez Taylor 2000, 2001; Jeffreys 2003). For some analysts, this “stage” of tourist inter - action (generally the tourist resort) is itself structured by narrative plots of interaction. Klaus de Albuquerque (1998), for example, classifies the interaction of female tourists with local men in Barbados and Jamaica into clear-cut story plots. Here, local men are “setting the stage,” “sizing up potential clients,” “approaching” and “priming the female client,” “initiating sex,” and eventually “maintaining contact.” Interactions begin with the female tourist’s arrival, reach their peak through the actual “sexual exchange,” and end more or less with her departure. With few exceptions (Wagner and Yamba 1986), discussions of female sexual tourism fail to look at the actors as subjects in multiple contexts, and thus tend to decontextualize the “stages” of tourist interactions. Herein, power is conceptualized merely in terms of statuses, and interaction in terms of exchange. This reverberates with what Povinelli and Chauncey criticize as a more general “troubling aspect of the liter - ature on globalization” tending “to read social life off external social forms — flows, circuits, circulations of people, capital, and culture — without any model of subjective mediation” (1999, 445). This subjective mediation, the mediating subject, is necessarily the product of multiple contexts, and hence the movement between these contexts is fundamental to its formation (see Gupta and Ferguson 1997). Before returning to issues of subjectivity and 118 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 embodiment, I will draw out briefly some of the dynamics of move - ment among the Samburu men of northern Kenya. In the Samburu District, the history of labor migration is rela - tively short. Although, some forms of exchange and trade have always entailed travel throughout northern Kenya, the Samburu economy was largely self-sufficient and locally autonomous until the first half of the twentieth century when the British colonial government introduced taxes and grazing scheme fees (in 1930), thus generating a need for cash (Fumagalli 1977, 210; Konaka 2001, 64; Spencer 1973, 187). Among the Lkimaniki age-set, circumcised in 1948, only a few men worked for wages in the military or the police. Due to insufficient administrative resources, throughout the 1940s and 1950s, the colonial government designated the Samburu District a “special and closed district,” exit or entry being granted only to a few individuals (Holtzman 2003, 228). After Kenya’s independence in 1963, numerous employment opportuni - ties emerged, especially in the urban areas. Thus, throughout the 1970s, the number of Samburu wage earners working as watchmen, policemen, soldiers, or teachers has increased significantly (Sperling 1987). Among the Lkuroro age-set initiated in 1976, for example, 81.8 percent of the Samburu ilmurran participated at one point or another in paid labor (Holtzman 2003, 229). Recurring seri - ous droughts in 1979-80, 1983-84, and 1994, and cattle disease in 1970 and 1976 often reduced herds by half (Konaka 2001, 65). This led to a more rapid adoption of agricultural work in some areas (especially the Loroghi and Laikipiak plateau), a strategic engage - ment in cattle trade, and a more intensive search for employment, especially during the period of ilmurran -hood. It was then, with the Lkuroro age-set, and its successor, the Lmooli age-set initiated in 1990, that earning cash became a notably significant alternative to cattle husbandry. Even under these circumstances, the money earned in wage labor was often invested in the cattle herds back home. The seasonal migration of young Samburu men to the tourist resorts of the coast, especially to the town of Mombasa (but also, to a lesser extent, to Malindi) began with the spectacular growth of the Kenyan tourist industry in the 1980s. This circular pattern of migration raised important moral questions among the Samburu. If on one hand, the coastal towns were understood to facilitate new Meiu: “Mombasa Morans” 119 possibilities of earning cash, on the other hand, their association with the “degrading” and “corruptive” forces of modernity was seen to pose a certain threat to local “culture” (as an essentialized idiomatic concept). Elders feared that, with their return, young men would bring back home some of Mombasa’s disruptive immoral forces. In the 1990s, the wealth of the Samburu men migrating to the coast and engaging in sexual relationships with white women started materializing in the landscape of the home community. New villa-type houses, hotels, and commercial spaces built and owned by these men (with the financial support of their white girlfriends) represented material proof of their long-standing engagement with the coast. The moral criticism of their age-mates, then, discursively imbued the materiality of these buildings with the apparent “immorality” of the sexual practices in which they “originated.” “Whom does this beautiful house belong to?” I would ask one of my friends in Maralal. “It’s of a Mombasa moran,” he would reply. “This is [from] the money he got from his old muzungu mama .” Samburu men migrating to the coast were actively participat - ing in and reshaping the moral geography of their home communi - ties. Their month-long absence from their home community (not unlike the absence of wage laborers) distinguished them from the cattle-herding ilmurran, who were still very present in the social landscape of the district. And, as the seasonal absence of men trav - eling to Mombasa was socially perceptible back home, the growing wealth of some of these very same men became concrete proof of their engagement in “immoral” sexual relationships. Meanwhile, their age-mates’ critique of their wealth as well as of their sexual behavior positioned them into a new moral category within this moral geography. They were now the “Mombasa morans.” In the Samburu District, Mombasa was seen as a place of disor - der and conflict, and therefore the ilmurran traveling there for the first time were advised by the elders to approach the area with much caution (Kasfir 1999, 80-81). In Mombasa, conflicts often arose between Samburu men and Maasai or Giriama men who were all trying to gain or even monopolize access to tourist resorts. In June 2005, for example, five Samburu ilmurran were stabbed to death in Mombasa, in a fight with a group of Giriama men. Similar conflicts often led to men being arrested for short periods of time 120 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

(Hofmann 2005, 9-13). Access to beach resorts was sharply policed, and “beach boys” were allowed only at certain hours and with special permission (Kasfir 2004). Conflicts also emerged among the Samburu ilmurran themselves over their white girlfriends. Here, envy and competition often led to serious fights between age- mates. Some ilmurran — mostly from among those who were fluent in both English and Swahili — might also have engaged in marijuana trade, and therefore had to deal with conflicts emerging within the marijuana distribution network (Hofmann 2005, 292, 296-97). Finally, although customary law prohibits alcohol consumption during the period of ilmurran -hood, some Samburu men often drank alcohol in places where their age-mates could not see them. As such, migration to the coast thus involved changes in social relations, which needed to be managed carefully if they were not to lead to serious conflicts or even death. The ilmurran’s migration to the coast also represented an embodied experience of displacement. Migration presupposed, first, a movement from the semi-arid environment of Kenya’s northern savannah to the equatorial tropics of the coast. This meant, for one thing, a high exposure to malaria. A second change was related to the general social and moral landscape. Whereas the northern Samburu District is populated mostly by Samburu, and only a few Turkana, Borana, Somali, and Kikuyu families (living mostly in Maralal), the coast towns are much more cosmopolitan. Here, Indians, Arabs, Swahili people, Giriama, and Kikuyu share the towns with tens of other ethnic groups from all over Kenya. For the fact that these people did not obey the same food and sexual taboos as the Samburu, they were often said to smell “foul,” and suspected of spreading HIV/AIDS (see Kasfir 2004, 326). Third, while in the Samburu District one could get around well only speaking Maa, life on the Coast required basic knowledge of both Swahili and English. Faced with these challenges and differences, the ilmurran who went to the coast for the first time often experi - enced what they called “Mombasa madness”: a form of depression expressed in intensive shaking fits. The devotion of some ilmurran to a circular pattern of migration became thus an embodied reality. Sidney Kasfir carried out ethnographic research among Samburu men in Mombasa in the early 1990s. Her work on the aestheticization and commodification of Samburu male bodies Meiu: “Mombasa Morans” 121

(Kasfir 2004) and of the “souvenirs” associated with them (Kasfir 1999) contains rich ethnographic data. The Lukuroro age-set, Kasfir shows, was the first to migrate seasonally to Mombasa in great numbers. So beginning in about 1981, when most of them reached their early twenties, pairs or small groups of Lkuroro, mainly but not exclusively from blacksmith families, made the seasonal migration all the way to the coast, where they congregated up to a hundred at a time in one small enclave between Mtwapa and Kikambala, a few miles north from Mombasa, among the beach hotels that hold German, Italian, British and American tourists. On the beaches, they sell the spears they have carried on the long journey from upcountry Maralal to coastal Mombasa. Since about 1995, they have been supplanted by the Lmooli age-set, who entered the warrior age-grade beginning in 1990 (Kasfir 1999, 75-76). Kasfir gives an insightful description of the actual trip to the coast. For the trip, the ilmurran dressed in blue jeans, T-shirts, jack - ets, and sneakers, and never in “traditional” attire. They tried to make themselves “indistinguishable from other Kenyan men in the overcrowded matatus [mini-buses]” (Kasfir 1999, 77), and to avoid being ridiculed in Nairobi where they were seen as “back - ward” and “primitive.” Once in Mombasa, however, they dressed in their shukas (body blankets), and beads, for they knew that in jeans and shirts they stood far less chance of attracting tourists (Kasfir 1999, 77). These shifts in clothing types point to a strategic alternate distancing and reappropriating of an objectified “culture.” As Kasfir (2004) suggests, the “warrior” became a living “theatre.” And it is only with skilful management of this objecti - fied identity, I argue, that these young men could become success - ful at attracting tourists. The return of a Samburu man to the coast the following year depended very much upon his skills interacting with tourists and others. The strategic management of “tradition,” as reflected, for instance, in the switching of the dress code, was also evident in the back-and-forth shifting of “sexual scripts” employed to strategi - cally respond to the demands of tourism. What the white women desired, sexually or otherwise, constituted a genre of discussion on its own among Samburu men traveling to the coast. Kissing, 122 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 hugging, or holding hands with women were only some of the sexu - alized behaviors that an lmurrani would never adopt publicly back home, in Maralal, but would do so in Mombasa. Samburu men traveling to the coast operated as mediating subjects within a moral geography synthesizing local, national, and global processes. Their movement herein, in its turn, inculcated particular bodily dispositions.

Masculinities, Moralities, and “Mombasa Morans” The reconfiguration of Samburu masculinities in relation to white women’s sexual travel was phrased, as such, within this particular moral geography, and was animated by the new embodied disposi - tions that it inculcated. The “Mombasa morans” came to form a different masculinity, one discursively set apart from other masculinities by moralized notions of wealth and sexuality. An emphasis on the moral criticism phrased in terms of their sexual - ity can help capture the complex circumstances under which masculinities are reshaped in relation to each other. In Maralal, for example, one encounters a variety of “sexual scripts” (Gagnon and Simon 1973) or sets of socially prescribed sexual behaviors. Distinct sexual scripts correspond more or less to different masculinities. Thus, school-educated Samburu men aim for the embodiment of “modern” masculinities different from those of the men who spend their lives, herding cattle “in the bush.” More specifically, the masculinities of the wage laborers, the teachers, the missionaries, the merchants, and so on involve not only slightly different patterns of dress and behavior, but also, and quite importantly, different sexual scripts, phrased in moral contrasts to each other. Among the Samburu, masculinities were reconfigured within a certain moral geography, and with particular reference to wealth and new sexual scripts. At some general level, Samburu men distinguished themselves as either “traditional” or “modern” (idiomatic terms), and deroga - torily called each other respectively “bush” ilmurran and “plastic” ilmurran. Unlike the former, the latter went to school, spoke more than one language, and had a quite different dress code. Dorothy Hodgson (2003) identifies a similar primary distinction of masculinities among the Maasai of Tanzania. Hodgson (2003, 119- 21) shows, for example, how the Maa term ormeek (modern), Meiu: “Mombasa Morans” 123 initially designating non-Maasai men, had been derogatorily attached by Maasai elders to those Maasai men who attended school and worked for cash. Later on, the term ormeek acquired rather positive meanings, with elders blaming themselves for their ignorance when it came to bureaucracy and the state. “In contrast to earlier meanings of ormeek ,” Hodgson observes, “such differ - ences are more external and not mutually exclusive: one can both speak Swahili and speak Maa, or one can wear red cloth in the morning, put on pants to go to town, then return in the evening to home and the red cloth again” (2003, 223). Similar usages can now be found among the Samburu. In my interviews with Samburu men, these categories were often invoked when individuals constructed themselves in opposi - tion to each other. Simon explained: These people in the bush don’t know how to have sex. Boom, boom, boom, and everything is finished. They don’t even kiss. Now, I went to school and I kiss my wife. But them, if they come to Maralal and see on TV someone kissing, they turn around and spit: “The wazungu [white people] are not normal” they say. During my research, Simon was a Lmooli lmurrani, awaiting the status of a junior elder. He had had several relationships, in Mombasa, with women from Europe, traveled several times to Germany, invited by these women, and recently settled down in Maralal with a Samburu wife. 8 He owned a hotel and a large house there. Throughout our interview, Simon, not unlike the other school-educated men I interviewed, reinforced the distinction between “bush” ilmurran and “modern” ilmurran (like himself) in order to position his sexuality in a relationship of superiority to that of the “ignorant people in the bush.“ “Bush” ilmurran , Simon explained, get most of the stimulation through the tip of their palms and from having their loins touched. It is in this sense that one can often see an lmurrani rubbing his palms against his loins as he talks to a girl. Also, during the sexual act ( neciaman or nárà ), the man would rub his palms against a special set of beads that a girl hangs around her loins to provide stimulation. “But us,” he pointed out, “we went to school. We don’t do that.” “The morans in the bush, when they come, they make some loud growls,” Mohammad (another school educated man) told me laughing, “and you can hear 124 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009 them from the other hill.” Meanwhile, however, these “modern” men would occasionally and nostalgically identify their sexuality with the “heroism” of being an lmurrani in the “bush.” “They can reach up to seven or even ten orgasms in one night,” Simon explained. “If you stay at the lale (cattle compounds in the forest) for a long time, and you take seketet or surukoi (wild plants), you can do that.” In this way, the morality of different sexual scripts, of various bodily ways of pleasure, was an active discursive differen - tiator as these “modern” men both distinguished themselves from or occasionally identified with their relatives in the “bush.” The sexual body acted in this discourses not only as a figure of discur - sive distinction, but also -- and most importantly — as a figure generative of bodily dispositions (e.g. alternating contemptuous dissociation or nostalgic identification). School education, herein, was invoked to mark the decisive break between these two general categories of masculinity. Simon added that “before you go to school, you look at people kissing, and you say: how stupid, how disgusting. When you come back, you can’t believe how stupid your people are (because they don’t kiss).” The boarding school played an important role in framing particular sexualities and notions of gender, yet the articulation of different forms of “modern” masculinity was determined by the various occupations men adopted after graduation, especially in the years of ilmurran -hood. As such, the various types of masculinity emerg - ing from boarding schools, all known as “modern,” were further differentiated in the process of making a living. The missionary Samburu men, for example, would distinguish themselves from wage laborers or “Mombasa morans,” among others, through a moral discourse on sexuality. Moses, who had graduated from the Good Shepherd Seminary of Maralal (a Catholic school) spoke to me about the “ignorance” of the people in the bush, and about the “sinful degradation” of the “adulterous” wage laborers, and “Mombasa morans.” Paradoxically or not, he would often look up at his cousin who had married a Norwegian woman and settled down with her, and would ask him for financial support. Similarly, other Samburu men also distinguished themselves from the “Mombasa morans” through moral discourses on sexual - ity. Many would criticize the sexual immorality of men sleeping with white women in Mombasa, both in terms of age and in terms Meiu: “Mombasa Morans” 125 of race transgressions. “In our culture,” David argued, “you can’t marry older women. It’s like marrying your own mother. The Mombasa morans sometimes marry women that could be their grandmothers.” Mohammad also explained: Here if a woman is my mother’s age, I call her yieyo [mother]. If she is my grandmother’s age, I call her ngoko [grandmother]. One time when this one old, ugly British woman came to see her moran, I went over to her to say hi. I said politely “How are you grandma?” She got so furious. “Don’t call me grandma ... I’m not your grandma” [laughing]. The generic use of the “old,” “ugly,” white woman in these moral critiques was not arbitrary. Both age and race were used to signify immoral transgressions. On the coast, Samburu men engaged most often, but not exclusively, in relationships with women older than themselves. And if some women were their seniors by only a few years, some indeed would be in their fifties or sixties. Moreover, their “whiteness” indexed perverted sexuality. Neville Hoad suggests that discursive attacks on Western sexualities, in Africa, “can be seen as responses to ... prior attributions of primitiveness [to Africans], and as a reversal of the racist charge of retardation and/or degeneration” (2007, 56): These attacks consistently locate the origin of perversion (and, with greater political urgency, AIDS) in the West. While Christian dogma, with its rhetoric of universal brotherhood of man, can and has mitigated against some of the racism in these imperialist formations, and the sign of “marriage,” Christian or not, can render the other grave threat to Christian sexual norms (polygamy) somewhat recuperable, imperial “civilized” sexual norms can remain in place and can paradoxically be defended as authentically African (2007, 56-57). These attacks on Western sexuality constitute a response to the “register of sexual `perversion’” attributed to Africa in the context of the HIV/AIDS pandemic (see Comaroff 2007). White women then tended to be perceived through a similar prism of immorality rendering their sexuality un-Christian and un-African. When I once described my research to a man in Nairobi, he furi - ously pointed out: You know, people say AIDS comes from Africa. It’s not true. It is women like these that have money, and come and sleep with 126 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

these poor men who brought AIDS to Africa. And whereas the origin of perversion (here, HIV/AIDS) was explic - itly placed in the West, those men who engaged in sexual relation - ships with these women were nevertheless seen as participating in the same un-Christian, and un-African perversion. This moral criticism of the sexuality of men sleeping with older white women was constitutive of a stigma that was conta - giously transferred to the wealth they accumulated. “I better stay poor my whole life,” David assured me, “rather than sleep with ugly women for money.” At the same time, the same stigma became essential, along with the stigmatized wealth, in the differ - entiation of other masculinities from the “Mombasa morans.”

Conclusion For David, as for many of his age-mates, ridiculing those men who slept with “ugly,” “old” white women “for money” was both a way of discrediting the morality of “Mombasa morans” and a way to express an embodied disposition produced in response to a particu - lar moral geography and the late reconfiguration of Samburu masculinities. For those Samburu men whose bodily forms had placed them at an advantage over their fellow age-mates, in the sense of allowing them to play out certain neo-imperial fantasies, relationships with white female tourists constituted an opportunity of upwards economic mobility. Migrating to the coast of the Indian Ocean, embodying the performance of postcolonial representations of their bodies, and committing to a pattern of circular migration, these Samburu men came to be repositioned within the moral imagination of their home communities. As their accumulated wealth became the object of envy, their “foul” sexuality became the object of public criticism. These types of moral discourses on sexuality, prevalent in the everyday life of Maralal, were orches - trated by specific bodily dispositions that shaped and distinguished different types of masculinity among the Samburu. Meiu: “Mombasa Morans” 127 Notes 1 This article is based on ethnographic research undertaken in 2005, both in the town of Maralal (Samburu District) and in the coastal town of Mombasa. The data was gathered through participation in and observation of the everyday life, and formal and informal interviews with Samburu men of different backgrounds. 2 Immediately after Independence, the government of Kenya encouraged the development of the tourist industry, establishing for this purpose, in 1965, the Kenyan Tourist Development Corporation. And if, from 1972 to 1982, the number of visitors stagnated at 350 000 per annum, throughout the 1980s the number increased twofold, reaching in 1989 a total of 700 000 visitors per annum (Schoss 1995, 36-38). 3 Kenyan coastal towns constitute relatively heterogeneous sexual desti - nations. First, they appeal to female tourists not only through the primi - tivist spectacle of Maasai and Samburu men, but through a highly nuanced co-presence of various “beach-boys” and “gigolos” (Schoss 1995). Second, coastal towns are also known for male sexual tourists. Although it is very rare that Maasai or Samburu women engage in relations with male tourists, female sex work is generally widespread on the coast. Third, child sex tourism is part of the dynamics of the destination, and in spite of state struggles towards its abolition, it persists in underground networks (Omondi 2003). 4 The word moran was adopted in English and Swahili during the colonial era from the Maa lmurrani (plural: ilmurran ), meaning “young man" or "warrior.” The term is widely used in Kenya to refer to both Maasai and Samburu young men that have undergone circumcision, and became part of the “warrior” age-grade of their communities. 5 The occasional merging of Maasai and Samburu identities is a generalized phenomenon in postcolonial Kenya. Both the Samburu and the Maasai are Maa-speaking pastoralists. They share numerous similarities in terms of material culture, rituals, kinship, and age-grade system. Although initially part of the same group, since the relocation of the Maasai to the parts of southern Kenya and northern Tanzania, the Samburu Maa-speakers of Northern Kenya shaped their own distinct identity. Despite the current almost mythical antipathy of the Samburu towards the Maasai, the Samburu often continue to contextually identify as Maasai or as a “clan” thereof, in circumstances where such a link could prove beneficial (see Kasfir 2002). 6 Holtzman suggests that lminong, or the prohibition of ilmurran eating food seen by women, prescribes the removal of the young men from the domestic economy in order to reduce competition over the otherwise limited resources of food (2003, 234). 128 cjas / rcea 43: 1 2009

7 This concern has most probably to do with controlling tourist cash by maintaining the travelers in well-defined tourist networks (hotels, lodges, restaurants, and safari trails). In these discourses, beaches emerge as dangerous spaces of interference where tourists can interact with local “beach boys,” and where tourist money can uncontrollably be extracted by individuals who are not officially members of the tourist industry. Being no longer able to pinpoint exactly where the morans frequenting these beaches come from generates a certain sense of anxiety. Moreover, the uncontrolled presence of locals on tourist beaches is seen as diminishing the tourists’ sense of security. Further research needs to be undertaken in this direction. 8 Simon’s case was one of the few instances where an lmurrani was permit - ted to marry before actually becoming a junior elder. Although the elders of some clans began allowing such early marriages, other elders, predomi - nantly from the Lmasula clan, radically forbid marriages before the end of ilmurran -hood.