A presentation by Dr Kapya Kaoma, Distinguished Professor at St. John’s University College, Zambia. This event is part of the Fundamental Rights Research Colloquium hosted by the Centre for Fundamental Rights.
Dr Kaoma's article engages with the question of human rights appropriation in the specific context of sexuality politics in Africa. Noting prior contestations around human rights, in the context of Africa’s democratization, it demonstrates the earlier exclusion of human rights for Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual, Trans, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI+) persons or sexual and gender minorities from the developing African human rights framework. In contemporary debates, such exclusions continue based on three interconnected predispositions—postcolonial, cultural and religious—which enforce the “othering” narratives that sacralize discrimination or violence based on gender identity and sexual orientation. The article deploys the analysis of appropriation in describing the arguments made by anti-gay advocates who are allied with the U.S. Christian Right, the Vatican and Islamic leaders in their opposition to sexual rights (transnational groupings that ironically complicate their own “foreignization” of sexual orientation and gender identity). Since African politics and religion are intricately linked, politicians denounce LGBTQI+ rights to retain political power. The article concludes by suggesting that a better way to address anti-LGBTQI+ hostility and exclusion would be to use the concept of ubuntu, rather than a Western language of rights which is perceived as individualizing, as a way of vernacularizing and Africanizing LGBTQI+ rights.
The Kapya Kaoma Th.D is a Zambian Anglican Priest, Visiting Researcher at Boston University, Distinguished Professor at St. John’s University College in Zambia, and Rector of Christ Church Waltham, USA. Most noted for his pro-LGBTQ+ activism in the face of repressive anti-gay legislation in Africa, Dr. Kaoma is the first scholar to expose the relationship between the U.S. Christian Right and rise in religious informed African anti-gay politics. Dr. Kaoma has received several honors including the 2014 International Human Rights Award of the Lesbian and Gay Association Mexico City. His many publications include: A Call to Love; Christianity, Globalization, and Protective Homophobia; Colonizing African Values; and Globalizing the Culture Wars.
Prior registration is required. Registered attendees will receive the dial-in details as well as a draft paper, on which the presentation is based, via e-mail prior to the event.
