Intersectionality in student movements: Black queer womxn and nonbinary activists in South Africa’s 2015–2016 protests

Abstract

abstractThis research attempts to capture and contextualise a historical moment among black queer womxn and gender nonbinary activists involved with the 2015–2016 student protests at the University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape. Black queer womxn and nonbinary people constituted leadership within both movements, contrary to many existing articles and narratives, and were actively addressing and resisting the country’s historically androcentric and heteronormative social activism environment. To contribute to decolonising research, this article places nonbinary and black queer womxn’s experience at the centre of inquiry, a starting point from which all other knowledge can be produced. It explores a July 2016 focus group that uncovered the internal dynamics of the Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall movement spaces, how these dynamics relate and differ with regards to proximity to whiteness, the manifestation and practicality of intersectionality, and the potential sculpting of a distinctly South African intersectionality. This moment marks the convergence of both black and queer liberatory programmes, as black queer womxn and nonbinary people are creating both epistemological and material possibilities for expanding liberation.