Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T06:23:33.306Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Female Sexuality as Capacity and Power? Reconceptualizing Sexualities in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2015

Signe Arnfred
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

The article argues for an approach to studies of sexuality in Africa that considers the subject of female sexuality from the perspective of capacity and power. Based on data from Mozambique, and informed by conceptual frameworks as well as by research findings from other African countries, the article investigates preparations of the erotic female body such as body tattoos, hip belts of glass beads, and elongated labia. It also discusses how “traditional” sexual capacity-building has been transferred from rural contexts into urban settings, empowering young women in love relationships with older, richer men.

Résumé:

L’article fait valoir une approche des études sur la sexualité en Afrique qui considère le sujet de la sexualité féminine du point de vue de la capacité et de la puissance. Il est basé sur des données en provenance du Mozambique, et éclairé par des cadres conceptuels ainsi que par les résultats de recherches provenant d'autres pays africains. Ce faisant, il examine les préparatifs du corps érotique de la femme tels que les tatouages du corps, les ceintures de hanche en perles de verre, et les lèvres allongées. Il explique également comment le renforcement des capacités “traditionnelle” sexuelle a été transféré de contextes ruraux en milieu urbain, donnant aux jeunes femmes plus de pouvoir dans les relations amoureuses avec des hommes plus âgés et plus riches.

Keywords

Female sexualitysexual pleasuretattoosmissangaslabia elongation
Type
ASR FORUM ON WOMEN AND GENDER IN AFRICA: PART 1
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , December 2015 , pp. 149 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alpers, Edward. 1972. “Towards a History of the Expansion of Islam in East Africa: The Matrilineal Peoples of the Southern Interior.” In The Historical Study of African Religion, edited by Ranger, Terence and Kimambo, I. N., 172–202. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Amadiume, Ifi. 1987. Male Daughters, Female Husbands. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Arnfred, Signe. 2009. “Africa Feminists on Sexualities.” Canadian Journal of African Studies 43 (1): 151–59.Google Scholar
Arnfred, Signe. 2011. Sexuality and Gender Politics in Mozambique. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Arnfred, Signe. 2014. “Issues of Gender in Contexts of Development and State. The Case of Mozambique.” Paper presented at IESE 4th National Conference, Maputo, August.Google Scholar
Arnfred, Signe, ed. 2004. Re-thinking Sexualities in Africa. Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute.Google Scholar
Bagnol, Brigitte, and Mariano, Esmeralda. 2011. “Politics of Naming Sexual Practices.” In African Sexualities, edited by Tamale, Sylvia, 271–87. Nairobi: Pambazuka Press.Google Scholar
Bagnol, Brigitte, and Mariano, Esmeralda. 2012. Gender, Sexuality and Vaginal Practices. Maputo, Mozambique: DAA, FLCS, UEM.Google Scholar
Bakare-Yusuf, Bibi. 2013. “Thinking with Pleasure: Gender, Sexuality and Agency.” In Women, Sexuality and the Political Power of Pleasure, edited by Jolly, Susieet al, 28–41. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
De Matos, Alexandre Valente. 1968. “Cerimónias da iniciação das raparigas: Mutuali e Malema, Província de Nampula.” Maputo: Universidade Eduarco Mondlane.Google Scholar
Diop, Cheikh Anta. 1978 (1959). The Cultural Unity of Black Africa: The Domains of Patriarchy and Matriarchy in Classical Antiquity. Chicago: Third World Press.Google Scholar
Epprecht, Marc. 2004. Hungochani: The History of a Dissident Sexuality in Southern Africa. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geffray, Christian. 1990. Ní père, ni mere—Critique de la parenté: le cas Makhuwa. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Gengenbach, Heidi. 2003. “Boundaries of Beauty: Tattooed Secrets of Women’s History in Magude District, Southern Mozambique.” Journal of Women’s History 14 (4): 106–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Groes-Green, Christian. 2011. “Philogynous Masculinities: Contextualizing Alternative Manhood in Mozambique.” Men and Masculinities 15 (2): 91–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Groes-Green, Christian. 2013. “‘To Put Men in a Bottle’: Eroticism, Kinship, Female Power and Transactional Sex In Maputo, Mozambique.” American Ethnologist 40 (1): 102–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jolly, Susie, et al 2013. Women, Sexuality and the Political Power of Pleasure. London: Zed Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendall. 1999. “Women in Lesotho and the (Western) Construction of Homophobia.” In Female Desires, Same-Sex Relations and Transgender Practices across Cultures, edited by Blackwood, Evelyn and Wieringa, Saskia, 157–78. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Lorde, Audre. 1984. Sister, Outsider. Berkeley, Calif.: The Crossing Press.Google Scholar
Ly, Abdoulaye. 1999. “Brief Notes on Eroticism among the Lawbe, Senegal.” CODESRIA Bulletin 3 & 4: 46–47.Google Scholar
Manuel, Sandra. 2014. “Maputo Has No Marriage Material: Sexual Relationships in the Politics of Social Affirmation and Emotional Stability amongst Cosmopolitans in an African City.” Ph.D. diss., School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London.Google Scholar
Mama, Amina. 1996. Women’s Studies and Studies of Women in Africa during the 1990s. Working Paper Series 5/96. Dakar: CODESRIA.Google Scholar
McFadden, Patricia. 2003. “Sexual Pleasure as Feminist Choice.” Feminist Africa 2. http://agi.ac.za.Google Scholar
Nyamnjoh, Francis. 2005. “Fishing in Troubled Waters: Disquettes and Thiofs in Dakar.” Africa 75 (3): 295–324CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nzegwu, Nkiru. 2011. “‘Osunality’ (or African Eroticism).” In African Sexualities, edited by Tamale, Sylvia, 253–70. Nairobi: Pambazuka Press.Google Scholar
Organização da Mulher Moçambicana (OMM). 1984. “Resolução Geral da Conferéncia Extraordinária da OMM.” Revista Tempo no 737, Maputo.Google Scholar
Oyewùmí, Oyèrónké. 1997. The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Parikh, Shanti A. 2005. “From Auntie to Disco: The Bifurcation of Risk and Pleasure in Sex.” In Sex in Development, edited by Adams, Vincanne and Pigg, Stacy Leigh, 125–58. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Poewe, Karla. 1981. Matrilineal Ideology: Male-Female Dynamics in Luapula, Zambia. Maryland: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Sexy Uganda. 2011. Directed by Sunny Bergmann. Pittsburgh: Viewpoint Production.Google Scholar
Sheldon, Kathleen. 2002. Pounders of Grain: A History of Women’s Work and Politics in Mozambique. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Spronk, Rachel. 2012. Ambiguous Pleasures: Sexuality and Middle Class Self-Perceptions in Nairobi. Oxford: Berghan Books.Google Scholar
Spronk, Rachel. 2014. “Sexuality and Subjectivity: Erotic Practices and the Question of Bodily Sensations.” Social Anthropology 22 (1): 3–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tamale, Sylvia. 2005. “Eroticism, Sensuality and ‘Women’s Secrets’ among the Baganda: A Critical Analysis.” Feminist Africa 5: 9–35.Google Scholar
Tamale, Sylvia, ed. 2011. African Sexualities: A Reader. Nairobi: Pambazuka Press.Google Scholar
Undie, Chi-Chi, et al 2007. “Metaphors We Love By: Conceptualizations of Sex among Young People in Malawi.” African Journal of Reproductive Health 11 (3): 221–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar