Queering the Archives

Welcome to Documenting Queerness Archive!|Queerness outside a Western Gaze- Part I|

Are there any ways we can historicise and queer our West African history outside a western Euro-American lens?

Why are both labelling precolonial indigenous non-heteronormativity as LGBT AND claiming queerness is western actually active forms of coloniality?

Here's where to find us:

Host: Afua Brantuo

🔗 https://afuabrantuo.com/

Script Researcher and Editors: awo dufie föfie & PreciousGift Ebunoluwa

https://linktr.ee/awodufie

https://shorturl.at/gU1Ci

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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Recommended Further Readings:

Sthembiso Pollen Mkhize and Anele Mthembu (2023) ‘Unpacking pervasive heteronormativity in sub-Saharan Africa: Opportunities to embrace multiplicity of sexualities’, Progress in Human Geography, 47(3), pp. 377–391. Available at:https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325231166402.

Adriaan van Klinken (2017) Queer Studies and Religion in Contemporary Africa: Decolonizing, Post-secular Moves, The Scholar & Feminist Online. Available at: https://sfonline.barnard.edu/queer-studies-and-religion-in-contemporary-africa-decolonizing-post-secular-moves/.

Hiskey, D. (2010) How ‘Gay’ Came to Mean ‘Homosexual’, Today I Found Out. Available at: https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/02/how-gay-came-to-mean-homosexual/.

Tamale, S. (2013) ‘Confronting the Politics of Nonconforming Sexualities in Africa’, African Studies Review, 56(2), pp. 31–45.

awo dufie fofie (2025) The Indigenous Queer Vision for a Decolonial West Africa, The Republic. Available at: https://rpublc.com/april-may-2025/indigenous-queer-vision-west-africa/.

Offenses Against the person's act: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/24-25/100/contents

‌Ololade Faniyi (2025) A Queer Dream of New and Unassimilable Things, The Republic. Available at: https://rpublc.com/february-march-2025/a-queer-dream/ (Accessed: 30 January 2026).

Cantoni, J. E. O (2008) Victorian Fashion: A Middle Class Makeover, WSU Collection. Available at: https://westcollections.wcsu.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/86266f0a-5596-4f2c-beb1-3dc89d07cc41/content

‌Sanders D. (2008) 377 and the unnatural afterlife of British British Colonialism in Asia. Available at: https://www.sxpolitics.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/article-douglas-sanders.pdf