Amphibious Subjects : Sasso and the Contested Politics of Queer Self-Making in Neoliberal Ghana / / Kwame Edwin Otu

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910583597303321
• Autore: Otu Kwame Edwin
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: University of California Press, 2022; Berkeley, CA : , : University of California Press, , [2022]; ©2022
• ISBN: 0-520-38186-6
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (216 p.)
• Collana: New Sexual Worlds ; ; 2
• Classificazione: SOC002010SOC064010
• Disciplina: 306.7609667
• Soggetti: Effeminacy - Ghana - Accra; Gender identity - Ghana - Accra; Homosexuality - Ghana - Accra; Human rights - Anthropological aspects - Ghana - Accra; Sexual minorities - Ghana - Accra; Sexual minority community - Ghana - Accra; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Nota di contenuto: Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introducing Amphibious Subjects -- Part One Setting the Scenes -- 1. Situating Sasso: Mapping Effeminate Subjectivities and Homoerotic Desire in Postcolonial Ghana -- 2. Contesting Homogeneity: Sasso Complexity in the Face of Neoliberal LGBT+ Politics -- Part Two Amphibious Subjects in Rival Geographies -- 3. Amphibious Subjectivity: Queer Self-Making at the Intersection of Colliding Modernities in Neoliberal Ghana -- 4. The Paradox of Rituals: Queer Possibilities in Heteronormative Scenes -- Part Three. Becoming and Unbecoming Amphibious Subjects in Hetero/Homo Colonial Vortices -- 5. Palimpsestic Projects: Heterocolonial Missions in Post-Independent Ghana (1965–1975) -- 6. Queer Liberal Expeditions: The BBC’s The World’s Worst Place to Be Gay? and the Paradoxes of Homocolonialism -- Conclusion: Queering Queer Africa? -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org.Amphibious Subjects is an ethnographic study of a community of self-identified effeminate men—known in local parlance as sasso—residing in coastal Jamestown, a suburb of Accra, Ghana's capital. Drawing on the Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Gyekye's notion of ";amphibious personhood,"; Kwame Edwin Otu argues that sasso embody and articulate amphibious subjectivity in their self-making, creating an identity that moves beyond the homogenizing impulses of western categories of gender and sexuality. Such subjectivity simultaneously unsettles claims purported by the Christian heteronationalist state and LGBT+ human rights organizations that Ghana is predominantly heterosexual or homophobic. Weaving together personal interactions with sasso, participant observation, autoethnography, archival sources, essays from African and African-diasporic literature, and critical analyses of documentaries such as the BBC's The World’s Worst Place to Be Gay, Amphibious Subjects is an ethnographic meditation on how Africa is configured as the ";heart of homophobic darkness"; in transnational LGBT+ human rights imaginaries.