Comparative colonialisms for queer analysis: comparing British and Portuguese colonial legacies for same-sex sexualities and gender diversity in Africa – setting a transnational research agenda

Abstract

ABSTRACTComparative analysis of colonialisms is of critical importance, and hence this article proposes and instigates such systematic comparative research with respect to same-sex sexualities and gender diversity. We offer a historical sociological comparison of the Portuguese and British empires analysing relevant regulation, in relation to two African contexts: Mozambique, which decriminalised same-sex sexual acts in 2015, and Kenya, where criminalisation persists. Through a comparative methodology, we illuminate important differences in the regulation of same-sex sexualities and gender diversity, that have contemporary legacies: (a) the difference in timing of criminalisation of same-sex acts and its impacts in the emergence of homosexuality in colonial governance; (b) the differences in transboundary moral regulation, between colonial ideologies and between Protestant and Catholic mission practices; and (c) the difference in racialised perceptions of homosexuality as a mainly European desire (in Portuguese colonialism) or as sometimes seen as potentially occurring universally (in British colonialism). Identifying such differences can assist those aligned with queer politics to understand and engage coloniality in the present.