Queering the Archives

Hello!

You're welcome to the Documenting Queerness Archive! |Queerness outside a Western Gaze- Part II|

In our last episode we interrogated how both claiming indigenous non-heteronormativity and queer history is LGBT history as well as claiming that queerness is a western import are both reproducing coloniality and violence.

In this episode, we talk about global homophobia and the colonial project.

Today homophobia (or harboring prejudice against non-heteronormativity) has become a well established fact but where does it come from and historically how was it weaponised by colonialism to justify dehumanizing and plunder?

Here's where to find us:

Host: awo dufie föfie

Script Researcher and Editors: awo dufie föfie & Afua Brantuo

🔗 https://afuabrantuo.com/

🔗 https://linktr.ee/awodufie

We would love to hear back from you. Send us all your questions and thoughts on West African Non-heteronormativity anonymously here: https://ngl.link/transtalks or join in on our Substack conversations.

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Link 🔗 https://www.paypal.me/KehindeAwolesi (Reference: DQ-ARCHIVE)

Recommended further reading

Msibi, T. (2011) ‘The Lies We Have Been Told: On (Homo) Sexuality in Africa’, Africa Today, 58(1), p. 55. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2979/africatoday.58.1.55.

Grimes, W. (2017) ‘George Weinberg Dies at 87; Coined “Homophobia” After Seeing Fear of Gays’, The New York Times, 22 March. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/22/us/george-weinberg-dead-coined-homophobia.html.

Corpus Iuris Civilis: The Digest and Codex: Marriage Laws DIGEST Book XXIII. Title II. On the Marriage Ceremony. Available at: https://faculty.uml.edu/ethan_spanier/Teaching/documents/CP9JustinianicLaws.pdf.

Keene, J.L. (2020) ‘Spiritual Fornication’: Monasticism and Sexual Depravity in Reformation England, Jhu.edu. Available at: https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/items/fba67490-ea20-4aab-a957-fc66881106f8 (Accessed: 15 February 2026).

Evans, R. (2011) The Victorians: Gender and Sexuality, www.gresham.ac.uk. Available at: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/victorians-gender-and-sexuality.

Kathleen Ann Myers, Scott, N.M. and FernándezG. (2007) Fernández de Oviedo’s chronicle of America : a new history for a New World. University Of Texas Press.

Heywood, L.M. (2017) Africa’s Warrior Queen. Harvard University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv24w64p5.

Epprecht, M. (2008) Heterosexual Africa?, Ohio University Press eBooks. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1353/book.7004.

Evans, E.E. (1970) ‘Sexual Inversion among the Azande’, American Anthropologist, 72(6), pp. 1428–1434. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/672861.

Amadiume, I. (2015) Male Daughters, Female Husbands. Zed Books Ltd.

Oyewumi, O. (1997) The invention of women : making an African sense of Western gender discourses. Minneapolis ; London University of Minnesota Press.

Kwame , E.O. (2022) ‘1. Situating Sasso: Mapping Effeminate Subjectivities and Homoerotic Desire in Postcolonial Ghana’, University of California Press eBooks, pp. 23–48. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520381865-003.

Malidoma Patrice Somé (1994) Of Water and the Spirit. Tarcher.

Gaudio, R.P. (2009) ‘Allah Made Us’. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444310535.

Amengo-Otengo, R. (2021). Marriage Without Sex? Same-Sex Marriages and Female Identity among the Nankani of Northern Ghana. Ghana Journal of Religion and Theology.

Herzog, W. (1989) Wodaabe - Die Hirten der Sonne. Nomaden am Südrand der Sahara, IMDb. Available at: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0098669/ (Accessed: 15 February 2026).