Sex, sexuality and negotiating Africanness in Nairobi

bibliographic database
Line

Periodical article

Title:	Sex, sexuality and negotiating Africanness in Nairobi
Author:	Spronk, Rachel
Year:	2009
Periodical:	Africa: Journal of the International African Institute
Volume:	79
Issue:	4
Pages:	500-519
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Kenya
Subjects:	urban youth sexuality identity
External links:	https://doi.org/10.3366/E0001972009001041 http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/africa_the_journal_of_the_international_african_institute/v079/79.4.spronk.pdf
Abstract:	This article presents two themes: how young professionals in Nairobi, Kenya, personally experience sexuality and issues of cultural belonging or identification; and how these issues are interrelated in their lives. The author identifies ways in which 'young professionals' as a social group are in the vanguard in respect of societal reconfigurations of gender, sexuality and culture in Kenya. She argues that this group embodies postcolonial transformations concerning reconfigurations in gender, sexuality and culture. She works 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, she explores how sexuality has become central to self-expression and how cultural self-identification is an ambiguous concern for young urban professionals in the country. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract]