A luta continua– black queer visibilities and philosophies of hospitality in a South African rural town

Abstract

In 1996, the inclusion of sexual orientation in the anti‐discrimination clause of South Africa's post‐apartheid constitution alignedLGBT+ rights with the larger struggle against oppression and inequality. In this paper we focus on a small, rural town in the Eastern Cape, a town we call Forestville. How areLGBT+ identities made visible in this town? How do residents respond to the diverse sexualities they encounter? How do they talk about diversity (sexual and otherwise)? The data was collected in the context of a long‐term ethnographic project, which looks at responses to diversity in non‐metropolitan settings. Reconstructing local philosophies of hospitality and looking at affective‐discursive practice, we argue that social life in Forestville shows traces of what Derrida () calls ‘absolute hospitality’. There is a sense of welcome and inclusivity, but, unlike in Derrida's conception, this hospitality is deeply embedded in the speech act of asking, indeed in curiosity. At the same time, hospitality remains fragile; it is always on the border of exclusion and judgment. The article explores Mignolo's () idea of ‘critical border thinking’ as a core episteme for Southern theory and puts academic philosophy and everyday knowledges into dialogue with one another.