![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This article builds on Michael Warner’s theory of “damaged publicness” to examine virtual queer counterpublics in Uganda. Online spaces have become a viable platform for LGBT Ugandans, locally known as kuchus, to network, organize and gain visibility. Gay “hook-up” apps, like Grindr, Scruff, and online chatrooms such as Planet Romeo provide opportunities for users to express what often cannot be expressed in public. I investigate these virtual LGBT counterpublics ethnographically through fieldwork in Kampala from June 2015 to June 2016. I argue that Uganda’s virtual queer spaces, however “private” or “public” are counterpublics, a form of space ownership bringing legitimacy to the being of “deviant” and utilized to meet specific social, cultural and economic needs.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 The name of the bar has been changed to ensure the security of the space.
2 Deriving from the Swahili word “makuchu,” meaning same, “kuchu” is a localized term to loosely mean LGBT, queer, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and so on. For more on the term “kuchu” see Tamale, “Out of the Closet.”
3 Keith uses they/them/theirs pronouns.
4 Warner, “Publics and Counterpublics,” 49.
5 Berlant and Warner, “Sex in Public,” 558.
6 Mutch, “Agency Behind the Veil”.
7 Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere,” 64.
8 Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere,” 67.
9 Warner, “Publics and Counterpublics,” 11–12.
10 Grindr has turned off the geotag setting for all of eastern Africa, which would show users’ distances from one another. Instead, the application displays all profiles of users who are “proximate.” For Ugandan users this often reaches users in Kenya, South Sudan, Rwanda, and parts of Burundi and Tanzania.
11 Warner, “Publics and Counterpublics,” 63.
12 Berlant and Warner, “Sex in Public,” 558–9.
13 Protocol for this larger ethnographic study received IRB approval from North Carolina State University in May 2015.
14 Tamale, “Out of the Closet,” 3.
15 See: Bryan, “And That's How I Survived Being Killed,” 49.
16 See: Ashford, “Queer theory”; Crooks, “The Rainbow Flag and the Green Carnation”; Gosine, “Brown to Blonde at Gay.com”; Mitra and Gajjala, “Queer Blogging in Indian Digital Disaporas”; McLelland, “Virtual Ethnography”; and Miller, “‘They’re the modern-day gay bar’.”
17 Ifekandu, “The Fallout of Nigeria’s Anti-Gay Law,” 86.
18 Valois, “Virtual Access,” 157.
19 Hoad, “African Intimacies.”
20 LGBT, LGBTI, LGBTQ, and LGBTQIA used here are reference to the popularized acronyms representing the “lesbian,” “gay,” “bisexual,” transgender,” “intersex,” “queer,” and “asexual,” identities.
21 Rosser, West and Weinmeyer, “Are Gay Communities Dying.”
22 Ifekandu, “The Fallout of Nigeria’s Anti-Gay Law.”
23 “Meet Uganda's Transgender (Bad Black),” Morning Flavour Entertainment (WBS) Uganda. September 4, 2015. Accessed June 10, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxi4jcYvjyo.
24 Personal interview with a transgender woman from Kampala who wished to remain anonymous, September 6, 2015.
25 Ifekandu, “The Fallout of Nigeria’s Anti-Gay Law,” 86.
26 GayUganda stopped publishing articles in 2011, restarted in 2016 and stopped again in 2017. Accessed May 9, 2018. http://gayuganda.blogspot.com/
27 Sebaspace stopped publishing articles and the website is now inaccessible. Last accessed August 3, 2016. https://sebaspace.wordpress.com/.
28 Nyong’o, “Queer Africa and the Fantasy of Virtual Participation,” p. 51.
29 See for the original Tumblr post: http://his-catness-tchalla.tumblr.com/post/29139644356/this-weekend-activists-in-uganda-a-country.
30 See for the original Tumblr post: http://his-catness-tchalla.tumblr.com/post/29139644356/this-weekend-activists-in-uganda-a-country.
31 In Uganda, HIV prevalence among sex workers is higher than the highest national value of HIV prevalence among the general population at over 30%. Further in additional 2014 reporting, researchers found transgender women who sell sex have some of the highest-recorded HIV prevalence rates and therefore a new disaggregation has been included in the UNAIDS reporting structure. See UNAIDS, “The GAP Report 2014.”
32 The African Development Bank found that Uganda’s youth unemployment rate could be as high as 83% in a 2013 report, “Accelerating the AfDB’s Response to the Youth Unemployment Crisis in Africa.”
33 Turner, Backward Glances, 9.
34 Personal field notes, 20 September 2015.
35 Gudelunas, “There’s an App for that,” 361.
36 Gosine, “Brown to Blonde at Gay.com: Passing White in Queer Cyberspace.”
37 Personal interview with Luswatabrayo, a transgender woman living in Kampala, November 15, 2015.
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid, September 15, 2015.
40 Ibid, September 15, 2015.
41 Ibid, September 18, 2015.
42 Ibid, September 17, 2015.
43 Ibid September 15, 2015.
44 Date has been changed to ensure anonymity of the user.
45 Personal interview, with a gay man in Uganda via online private Facebook message, September 16, 2015.
46 Personal interview, with a gay man in Kenya via online private Facebook message, September 16, 2015.
47 The Guardian, “‘Seeds of hate’ sown as Tanzania starts LGBT crackdown,” August 8, 2016. Accessed August 9, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/08/seeds-of-hate-sown-as-tanzania-starts-lgbt-crackdown.