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Sex, Sexuality and Negotiating Africanness in Nairobi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2011

Rachel Spronk
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Abstract

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

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

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

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