This thesis explores how same-sex intimacies are navigated by young women in contemporary urban Senegal. Central to this research are various social spaces where sociality and sexuality are co...Show moreThis thesis explores how same-sex intimacies are navigated by young women in contemporary urban Senegal. Central to this research are various social spaces where sociality and sexuality are co-constructed among women. The analysis is based on six months of ethnographic fieldwork in urban Senegal, predominantly Dakar, with a focus on participant observation to grasp the tacit knowledge of same-sex intimacies. In particular, this thesis examines the football field, local queer organisations and a variety of other homosocial environments such as the home and queer parties. Through a careful adherence to the Senegalese value of sutura (discretion, modesty), by making use of play, and by displaying respectability, homosocial spaces ranging from the relatively private home to the fairly public football field allow for the occurrence of same-sex intimacies. This thesis makes use of Henrik Vigh’s (2006; 2009) conceptualisation of social navigation to understand how enacting same-sex desires is a twofold process of balancing personal desires and social expectations. The social environment is an ambiguous terrain in which expectations of proper womanhood, marriage, and parenthood need to be calibrated even as such expectations may change over time due to processes of globalisation, economic recession, or governmental changes, as well as with age, as new expectations and responsibilities arise as people grow from youth into (social) adults. This thesis will demonstrate how women navigate their same-sex intimacies in different ways in various social spaces, drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s (1991 [1974]) conceptual triad of social space. In these social spaces, gender is enacted relationally, and shifting notions of masculinity (jump) and femininity (sexy) attest to the ambiguity and fluidity of gender constructs. Together, these social spaces and the same-sex intimacies that they enable form a loosely connected community of practice (O’Mara 2013) that combines a specific lexicon (jump and sexy) with tacit understanding of same-sex intimacies. By examining how young women navigate existing spaces and create alternative spaces in trying to secure decent lives for themselves, this thesis shows how these different spaces form central loci of urban social reproduction. In these spaces, symbolic manifestations of gendered bodies coalesce into a network of queer women. Examining corporeal and erotic interactions between women helps theorise how these performative aspects of life contribute to the intersubjective meaning-making of sexuality and a sense of being at home in the world.Show less
Research master thesis | African Studies (research) (MA)
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For many Malawians the concept of home is strongly associated with the rural areas and one’s (supposedly rural) place of birth. This ‘grand narrative about home’, though often reiterated, doesn’t...Show moreFor many Malawians the concept of home is strongly associated with the rural areas and one’s (supposedly rural) place of birth. This ‘grand narrative about home’, though often reiterated, doesn’t necessarily depict lived reality. Malawi’s history of movement and labor migration coupled with contemporary rapid urbanization makes that the amount of people whose lives do not fit this grand narrative, is increasing fast. In the current context of extreme poverty, destitution and devastation – the latter due to the flash floods of January 2015 – slum areas in Blantyre city are growing and so is the number of street children and youth. Some of them are taken in by organizations such as the Samaritan Trust; a street children shelter. This program aims at taking street youth home by ‘reintegrating’ them in their (rural) communities. When asked, the majority of (former) street youth adhere to the grand narrative and state their home to be in a rural village. Yet at the same time, this home is a place they intentionally left and do not wish to (currently) return to. Hence they are generally depicted as ‘homeless’. I wondered: how do (former) street youth in Blantyre, Malawi, engage with ‘the grand narrative about home’ in trying to imagine their ‘becoming at home’ in the city? My thesis departs from the idea that (the search for) home is an integral part of the human condition. During eight months of ethnographic fieldwork in Blantyre, Malawi, I used qualitative methods – mainly interviews and participant observation – to come to an understanding of the meaning of home for (former) street youth. Some of them, the street girls, currently reside at Samaritan Trust and the former street youth are boys who formerly resided there. Their home-making practices in relation to a marginalized socio-economic position in an overall challenging economic context point towards more fluid and diverse constructions of home that exist alongside the grand narrative without rendering it obsolete. Under pressure, (former) street youth paradoxically attempt to solidify home – even though home remains fluid in practice. These attempts assist in coping with life in liquid modernity while they are at the same time fraught with contradictions, especially when these solidifications are themselves solidified in policies. These policies subsequently hamper (former) street youth’s becoming at home in town by following the grand narrative and thus confining their homes to rural areas. I conclude that home can best be seen as a fluid field of tensions (re)created in the everyday, thus leaving space for both (former) street youth’s roots and routes. An alternative way in which (former) street youth try to become at home in the city is by searching for a romantic partner to co-construct this (future) home with.Show less
