Know your history: Toward an eternally displaceable strategic essentialism

Queer Africans in diaspora often reclaim histories obscured by colonialism. Implicit in gay Nigerian activist Bisi Alimi's influential archival work is an anti-colonial, but strategically essentialist, claim of a historical place for queer African peoples. I submit "historical place"...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of international and intercultural communication 2021-10, Vol.14 (4), p.305-319
Main Author: Olaniyan, O. M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activism
anti-colonialism
Black diaspora
Black people
Colonialism
Diaspora
disidentification
Epistemology
Essentialism
Identity
Imagination
queer Africans
Sexuality
Strategic essentialism
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Summary:Queer Africans in diaspora often reclaim histories obscured by colonialism. Implicit in gay Nigerian activist Bisi Alimi's influential archival work is an anti-colonial, but strategically essentialist, claim of a historical place for queer African peoples. I submit "historical place" and "(dis)placing" to understand queer disidentifications with historical construction. The risks of strategic essentialism can become epistemological opportunities for identity building. My analysis first traces how strategic essentialism persuasively constructs historical place and then explores how (dis)placing unsettles epistemological constructions of queer African identity. Advocating for a recognition of multiplicity, I encourage scholars to understand (dis)placing as complex vernacular discursive strategy that produces further possibilities for belonging and anti-colonial imagination.
ISSN:1751-3057
1751-3065
DOI:10.1080/17513057.2021.1957139