Postcolonial Mozambique decriminalized homosexual acts in 2015. This legal reform was not a response to litigation or public pressure, but came from a parliamentary initiative and lobbying by a few organizations. Subsequent public opinion polls show that Mozambique is an outlier in Africa in its relatively tolerant behaviors and attitudes toward non-heterosexual relationships.
What are the cultural and historical specificities toward gender and sexual dissidence in Mozambique that might explain its distinctive path, and what can we learn from them? Queer Mozambique provides a lively response to these questions.
Contributors employ different modes and styles ranging from photographs to storytelling to text interpretation to tell stories of Mozambique's distinctive cultures of sexual and gender dissent and fluidity, from the South African mine compounds of the late nineteenth century to the current LGBTIQ+ movement and the formation of new sexual and gender identities, such as those of the manas trans women.
The first book in English on queer issues in a Portuguese-speaking African country, Queer Mozambique not only assembles and interprets empirical evidence for the Anglophone reader, but also brings new debates and theories from the Global South. It aims at a truly global dialogue between international and Mozambican scholars of queer studies.
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Examining sexual and gender dissidence in Mozambique, from colonial histories to contemporary LGBTQIA+ movements, Queer Mozambique foregrounds Lusophone African perspectives and Global South queer theory.
Foreword: From silence to documentation: A personal journey through
Mozambique's Queer Histories Danilo da Silva
Introduction Marc Epprecht and Francisco Miguel
Chapter 1 A century of writing on queer lives in Mozambique: Towards an
understanding of tolerance Francisco Miguel and Marc Epprecht
Chapter 2 Mozambican mens and boys sexual relationships in the migrant
labour system in South Africa and Zimbabwe, ca. 1860s1950s: Voices from
Mozambique Marc Epprecht
Chapter 3 Legal regulation of non-heteronormative sexualities and genders in
Mozambique: From the criminalisation of vice against nature to the
challenges of promoting LGBTQI+ human rights Gustavo Gomes da Costa Santos
and Matthew Waites
Chapter 4 Queer memories: An implicated (literary) archive of the Colonial
War in Mozambique Nicola Biasio
Chapter 5 The modernity of tradition: Gay healers and matriliny in northern
Mozambique Daria Trentini
Chapter 6 The changing lexicons of homosexuality and gender identity in
southern Mozambique Francisco Miguel
Chapter 7 We must stop using the Bible as a knife: Creating religious safe
spaces for LGBT+ people of faith in Mozambique Maria Judite Chipenembe,
Agnaldo Bata, and Agustão Zitha
Chapter 8 Manas: A Photo Essay Ditte Haarløv Johnsen
Contributors
Index
Francisco P V Miguel (Author) Francisco P V Miguel holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Brasília. He is a FAPESP postdoctoral fellow based jointly at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil and the Department of Global Development Studies at Queen's University, Canada.
Marc Epprecht (Author) Marc Epprecht is Professor in the Department of Global Development Studies at Queen's University. He is a visiting research professor at the History Workshop at University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Danilo da Silva (Author) Danilo da Silva is founding executive director of LAMBDA, Mozambique's national LGBTI organization.
Agnaldo Bata (Author) Agnaldo Bata holds a master's degree in social sciences: urban worlds and social inequalities from Université Paris 8 and is a researcher, writer and a co-founding member of the Health and Society Research Center.
Nicola Biasio (Author) Nicola Biasio holds a PhD in Women's and Gender Studies at the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Culture of the University of Bologna. He is also a literary translator and has translated works by Djamila Ribeiro and Yara Nakahanda Monteiro into Italian.
Maria Judite Chipenembe (Author) Maria Judite Chipenembe is a lecturer at the Department of Sociology, Eduardo Mondlane University. She is a gender and social inclusion specialist at the Mozambique Compact Development Office (GDCI-II) in Maputo.
Gustavo Gomes da Costa (Author) Gustavo Gomes da Costa is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE). He is also Affiliate Researcher at the Department of Sociology in the University of Glasgow.
Ditte Haarløv Johnsen (Author) Ditte Haarløv Johnsen is a documentary maker and photographer. Her award-winning documentaries: One Day, Homeless and Days of Hope, have been screened at numerous international film festivals. Her two photo series Manas and Maputo Diary, which both span over two decades, are the cornerstone of her photographic practice.
Daria Trentini (Author) Daria Trentini is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Drake University. She is the author of At Ansha's: Life in the Spirit Mosque of a Healer in Mozambique (2021).
Matthew Waites (Author) Matthew Waites is a Reader in Sociological and Cultural Studies at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow. He is co-editor with Corinne Lennox of Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the Commonwealth: Struggles for Decriminalisation and Change (2013).
Agostão José Zitha (Author) Agostão José Zitha is a member of the Church of the Nazarene and the National Director of Programmes in the Christian Council of Mozambique.
