Dr Gibson Ncube

Project Title: Queer, Muslim and African: Abdellah Taïa’s literary work as an ethnography of the conflict between religion and non-normative sexuality in Africa

Abstract

This project is interested in interrogating queer Muslim experiences in Morocco through an examination of the literary work of Abdellah Taïa. Drawing on Didier Fassin’s concept of “fiction writing as ethnography”, this study traces the different changes that highlight the conflict faced in assuming a queer identity whilst embracing Muslim religion. This project is primarily concerned with interrogating “African knowledges” especially in relation to African queer subjectivities and communities that are every so often marginalised in, or even left out from, mainstream processes of knowledge production in African academic and societal circles. By centering on Morocco, this study also seeks to acknowledge the contribution of North African in the cultural, political and intellectual of the African continent. Importantly, this study is interesting in how Islamic queer knowledge offers perspectives that counter Western epistemologies particularly relating to queer politics and LBGT rights which in Africa essentially operate in secular, if not anti-religious and unambiguously anti-Islamic basis.

Twitter: @gib_zzz

Working with: Prof. Adriaan van Klinken