ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on pan-Africanist discourses in contemporary Africa specifically in relation to the politics of sexual and gender diversity. It begins by examining the populist use of Pan-Africanist rhetoric in narratives mobilizing against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) identities and rights. The chapter proceeds by discussing emerging counter-narratives employed by LGBTI activists, communities, and allies, in which Pan-Africanist thought is used to reimagine Africa from queer perspectives. It examines the strategic invocation of transatlantic black memory and black traditions of thought within these Pan-Africanist queer counter-narratives and explores their political significance. The chapter foregrounds and explores how, in the words of Hakima Abbas and Amina Mama, “Pan-Africanism as theory and praxis is in constant dialectic with other African political and intellectual thought including socialism, Black consciousness, Black nationalism, African queer thought and activism, as well as in polemic counter-position with present-day manifestations of imperialism.
