[...]... contribute to the emerging fields of sexuality and post-coloniality, sexuality and individual subjectivity, and national and regional identities Two of the essays focus on the southern African region, a key site in which tensions between national and regional identities, and sexualities, continue to play themselves out The contrasting experiences of the Republic of South Africa and Zimbabwe are illustrated... around sexuality in South Africa will be important to understand new aspects of post-colonialism and sexuality, for example, the capacity of affect within colonial 'deployments of sexuality' , extensions of the Christian ideal of love in post-colonial and same-sex contexts, 136 and attendant legal entailments and transformations 2 CONSTITUTING THE GLOBAL GAY ISSUES OF INDIVIDUAL S U B J EOT I V I T V AND. .. culture 'The idea that homosexuality is alien to "traditional culture" is invariably dismissed as a myth' by African lesbian and gay people For gay and lesbian Africans, colonial institutions like industrialization, urbanization, mining and the attendant demands of labour markets radically restructured 'the family' and have hidden the full history of sexuality in African history And moreover, preserved... paradigm' and 'a particular historical moment' - as well as the more specific notion of apartheid as both 'a specific historical logic [and] a mode of identity formation'.123 Through a particular combination of the historical and the epistemological in the political present, lesbian and gay South Africans expand the subjectivities within colonialism's sight and negotiate the times and places, modes and means... of the colonized individual and the rights-bearing citizen and, as one Pride Parade placard read, claiming a 'Right to Love'.43 ANCESTRAL LOVE AND COLONIAL FANTASIES Recently the Coalition and several lesbian and gay activist/intellectuals have expanded their assertion of apartheid discrimination to encompass an earlier and broader colonial oppression They disassociate homosexuality from colonialism... and sexualities, but in a European context: Ireland In this case, transnational law — the law of the European Union — has played an important role in social change in a national culture in which the construction of sexuality has been closely bound up with a colonial history All of these contributions underscore the importance of recognizing national and regional specificities in the deployment of sexuality, ... necessary if deployments of colonialism and post-coloniality by 'local elites' are not to lead to uncritical re-inscriptions of colonial modalities and a 'consecration of hegemony' I am here concerned with everyday negotiations of Africanness, post- colonialism, and sexuality by African lesbians and gay men themselves Beyond the rhetoric of activists, intellectuals and lawyers, the self-fashioning of the... South Africa about (homo )sexuality envision law, in its capacity as an epistemological regime, as a primary site for the articulation of post-colonialism and sexuality The postcolonial imperatives for indigenization and historicization combine with liberal rights discourses to condition a colonial history and post-colonial future with regard to 'sexual orientation.' REAL LOVE AND NATIONAL FANTASIES The... 'Secrecy and silence are identified as effective ways of keeping homosexuality out of the public domain "If you ask the old people, homosexuality has been there It's just that it was the community's secret."' Thus, epistemological regimes in society and history are portrayed as hiding a history of homosexuality and contributing to the myth of its non-existence in African 'culture' Black lesbian and gay... imperative to locate and resuscitate pre-colonial tradition dominates the politics of sexuality in southern Africa South Africa's inclusion of 'sexual orientation' in the equality clause of its 1996 constitution nationalized a debate about homosexuality and colonialism between an ethno-nationalist perspective that sees homosexuality as foreign to Africa and one insisting on the presence of homosexuality throughout . alt="" LAW AND SEXUALITY This page intentionally left blank LAW AND SEXUALITY THE GLOBAL ARENA CARL S T Y C H I N D I D I H E R M A N E d i t o r s UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS M. construction of the lesbian and gay subject in law. For example, these essays contribute to the emerging fields of sexuality and post-coloniality, sexuality and individual subjectivity, and . to the study of law and sexuality. For example, the relationship between law and (post-)coloniality is explored by several of our contributors - from both First and Third World