Haley McEwen

This article takes a decolonial approach to unpacking contemporary efforts of the US conservative “pro-family” movement's anti-LGBTIQ+ and anti-feminist agendas in Africa. Beginning with the colonial history of the gender binary and hierarchy, it first discusses how the notion of the nuclear family ideal became fused with notions of race, racial hierarchy, and civiliza- tion. Its second half discusses the rise of the international pro-family movement and the colonial ideology that the movement reproduces, focusing on campaigns and networks in Africa. It identifies and examines three key elements of pro-family ideology that demonstrate the ways in which the movement reproduces colonial power relations: efforts to define, universalize, and politicize a particular conception of the family. Analysis concludes that these components of pro-family advocacy reveal that the movement’s opposition to inclusive sex- and gender-based rights for LGBTIQ+ indi- viduals reinforces Western epistemic power and authority over families and recapitulates colonial-era power relations between Global Norths and Souths.

This dissertation submitted for the fulfillment of the requirements for a Doctor of Philosophy (by publication) in Sociology in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2018. I declare that this research is my own unaided work. It has not been submitted before for any other degree, part of a degree or examination at this or any other university. August 2018

This paper examines space, identity and power in Prince Albert, a small town in the South African Karoo, through analysis of white representations of urban and social change in the town since the end of apartheid. In doing so, this analysis seeks to contribute to the growing stream of critical philosophy concerned with the relationship between racialised systems of inequality and ways of knowing. By representing Prince Albert as ‘tranquil’ and ‘charming’, semigrant power elites in the town legitimate their dominance and control over the town’s resources through spatio-temporal “epistemologies of ignorance.” Through analysis of semi-structured in-depth interviews with white residents and government and planning documents, this paper demonstrates the ways in which concepts of heritage and tourism, as Western ideological constructs that serve elite white interests, can be antagonistic to the broader South African national move towards Transformation.

This paper is based on a study of four white families living in the town of Newcastle, South Africa, and focuses on the institutional apparatuses of welfare in the town almost two decades after apartheid. Beginning with a reading of the production of the category of the ‘poor white’ during the first half of the twentieth century, we then discuss the particular rise and fall of Newcastle as an industrial town. We focus on contemporary welfare in the town and the interaction between whites receiving welfare and welfare officials. in the midst of moral evaluations of character, it becomes clear to officials that models of individual reformation and transformation are inadequate to realise substantially improved lives. in these conditions, officials join white recipients in invoking ‘reverse racism’ to explain the continued reliance of these white families on welfare and their inability to improve their conditions, regardless of ‘improvements in character’. Such a claim, we argue, portr...

abstract queer & trans Art-iculations: Collaborative Art for Social Change, as an exhibition, opened up a public space for critical engagement with the idea of the gender binary and the lives of people who do not conform to heteropatriarchal social norms and expectations. Coordinated by the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies (WiCDS) and hosted by the Wits Art Museum (WAM), a primary agenda was to exhibit the work of two self-proclaimed art activists, Zanele Muholi and Gabrielle Le Roux, in order to create awareness around the discrimination of lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) communities. Art activism being the goal, it was necessary to provide a platform whereby audiences could contemplate and then respond to the information provided by Muholi and Le Roux. An audience Talk-back Station, or Comments Wall, created by WAM Education Curator Leigh Blanckenberg and WiCDS Research Coordinator Haley McEwen, where visitors could respond to prompting questions, ask their own questions, or respond in creative ways was constructed in the gallery space to complement the exhibition and provide space for visitor dialogue with the joint-exhibition. The intention of the wall was for multiple views, opinions and experiences to be expressed and heard. This Article will examine visitor engagement with the Comments Wall, and through an evaluation of the responses, will consider how, if at all, the exhibition impacted on visitors in terms of its ability to promote critical awareness of gender and sexuality as social justice issues.

Less than thirty years ago, South Africa still had laws strictly prohibiting “interracial” intimacy. In this study, participants shared stories of living in Cape Town with a partner of a different “race” and invoked spatial metaphors, of boundaries and border crossing, describing their experiences in cartographical, “landscaped” language. This article reflects on how these metaphors relate to deeper social dynamics that shape the lives of those in “race”—trangressing relationships, and their own sense of agency in managing the correlative inner landscape. We suggest that these relationships are symbolic sites where society performs processes of ongoing racialization.

ABSTRACT This article argues that the normative construction of ‘family’ in heteronormative ‘nuclear’ terms is infused with power relations, and therefore must not be taken for granted as an analytical category or concept. Not only a site where racialised and patriarchal western notions of sexed and gendered hierarchies have been naturalised and institutionalised, the ‘nuclear family’ model was positioned as a signifier of modernity, civilisation and progress within eurocentric knowledge construction that served colonial interests. This discussion reviews decolonial thinking on the nuclear family, as well as anti-imperialist literature on the colonial history of the nuclear family ideal. These perspectives are brought into conversation with current developments in which the nuclear family model is being reinvigorated by the conservative US-based ‘pro-family’ movement. The ‘family’, it is concluded, is entangled in multiple relations of geo-political power that should be taken into account in research and the production of knowledge around kinship in African contexts.

Contestations over the rights of sexual minorities and gender-nonconforming people in Africa are profoundly shaped by two discourses that both emerge from polarized domestic political debates in the United States: a human rights–centered discourse of “LGBT*I” identity politics that promotes visibility and equal protections and privileges for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, and intersex individuals; and a Christonormative “family values” agenda that promotes the heterosexual nuclear family as the foundation of civilization. Analysis considers these contemporary discourses in relation to entangled colonial constructions of white supremacy and heteropatriarchy used to justify the conquest and exploitation of Africa. This article takes particular interest in the power relations that are (re)constituted through these discourses so as to uncover the underlying interests at stake within them. Through consultation with critiques advanced within critical race and critical queer theory, and c...

The enforcement of racial segregation during apartheid was aimed not only at regulating public spaces, residential areas and the workforce, but also at shaping the subjectivities of individuals who were socialised to see themselves through the lens of a white racial hierarchy. The ideology of white supremacy and superiority that informed apartheid policy was largely justified using Christonormative epistemologies that sought to legitimate the racial hierarchy as having basis in Holy Scripture and as an extension of God’s will. At the same time, apartheid policy fragmented religious communities, entrenching race as a central component of spiritual subjectivities. Twenty years after the end of apartheid, the legacy of apartheid continues to shape the lives and opportunities of all people living in South Africa, despite many gains made in working towards a non-racial, non-sexist democracy. While much scholarly attention has been paid to postapartheid contexts of work, residency and rec...

Contestations over the rights of sexual minorities and gender-nonconforming people in Africa are profoundly shaped by two discourses that both emerge from polarized domestic political debates in the United States: a human rights–centered discourse of “LGBT*I” identity politics that promotes visibility and equal protections and privileges for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, and intersex individuals; and a Christonormative “family values” agenda that promotes the heterosexual nuclear family as the foundation of civilization. Analysis considers these contemporary discourses in relation to entangled colonial constructions of white supremacy and heteropatriarchy used to justify the conquest and exploitation of Africa. This article takes particular interest in the power relations that are (re)constituted through these discourses so as to uncover the underlying interests at stake within them. Through consultation with critiques advanced within critical race and critical queer theory, and critical philosophical arguments on the epistemic dimensions of racialized, sexed, and gendered oppressions, it is argued that these discourses advance U.S. hegemonic interests and reinscribe Western hegemony. It is concluded that struggles for equality among sexual minorities and gender-nonconforming people must be approached as part-and-parcel of decolonial struggles to dismantle white supremacist and Western structures of oppression.