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Abstract
An initiative to market Cape Town as a premier gay and lesbian tourist destination has steadily gathered steam over the last decade. I set out to study this phenomenon thereby adding to conversations about the normalization and globalization of queerness. Rather than straightforwardly presenting my findings, however, this paper considers queer theorizing as an inductive process by detailing the answers I did not find in the field and the questions I did. Based on my close readings of queer theory, I went looking for resistance and therefore queerness in the normalized space of ‘gay Cape Town’. I was disappointed. But I did not instead find outright capitulation. Rather, in this process of queer's commodification, I found anxieties, cracks and fissures beneath a veneer of assured mainstreaming. I found an undetermined process that did not represent either ‘un-African-ness’ or ‘global queer homogeneity’ or ‘African-ness’ and ‘local queer heterogeneity’. I found not an un-queering through commodification, but a queer commodity struggling to gain a foothold in a nation in which the terrain for gay and lesbian politics has drastically changed in such a way that the market cannot be ignored. To grapple with these findings, I argue for a more ambivalent approach to queer theorizing.
Au cours de la dernière décennie, le projet mis sur pied pour faire de Cape Town une destination importante du tourisme gai et lesbien a pris de l'ampleur. Mon étude de ce phénomène permet d'ajouter une voix aux discussions entourant la normalisation et la globalisation du monde queer. Au lieu de présenter sommairement mes conclusions, le présent article envisage la théorisation de l'homosexualité comme un processus inductif permettant d'exposer plus en détail les réponses que je n'ai pas pu obtenir du terrain ainsi que les questions qui en sont ressorties. Sur la base de lectures attentives des théories queer, je suis parti à la recherche de résistances et donc du monde queer dans l'espace normalisé du «Cape Town gai». J'ai éprouvé de la déception, sans pour autant y découvrir une capitulation totale. Au contraire, j'ai trouvé, en filigrane du processus de la marchandisation queer, de l'anxiété, des failles et des fissures sous la surface polie d'une démarginalisation certaine. J'ai trouvé un processus indéterminé qui ne représentait ni la «non-africanité» et le «queer homogène mondialisé», ni l' «africanité» et le «queer hétérogène local». Je n'ai pas trouvé que le monde queer s'éclipsait devant la marchandisation, plutôt une marchandise queer qui éprouvait des difficultés à trouver une véritable assise à l'échelle nationale où les questions politiques qui touchent les gais et lesbiennes ont subi des changements drastiques à un tel point qu'il soit impossible d'ignorer le marché. Aux prises avec ces résultats de recherche, ma position s'articule autour d'une approche plus ambivalente pour théoriser la question queer.
Una iniciativa para promocionar la Ciudad del Cabo como un destino turístico principal para los gays y lesbianas se ha puesto en movimiento en la última década. Yo me propuse estudiar este fenómeno con el fin de ampliar discursos sobre la normalización y la mundialización de la homosexualidad. Sin embargo, en lugar de presentar mis conclusiones de forma sencilla, en este papel considero la teorización sobre ‘lo queer’ como un proceso inductivo por detallar las conclusiones que no encontré en el campo y las preguntas que ahí se plantearon. Basándome en mi interpretación estudiada de la teoría ‘queer’, fui en busca de resistencia y por consiguiente ‘lo queer’ en el espacio normalizado de ‘la zona gay de la Ciudad del Cabo’. Me quedé decepcionada. Pero en su lugar no encontré la capitulación total. Más bien, en este proceso de mercantilizar a los ‘queer’, descubrí ansiedades y fisuras debajo de una capa muy asegurada de ‘hacerse convencional’. Descubrí un proceso no decidido que no representaba ni el ‘no ser africano’ ni la ‘homogeneidad mundial de ‘queer’ y tampoco representaba el ‘africanismo’ o la ‘heterogeneidad ‘queer’ local’. Descubrí que lo ‘queer’ no se hacía menos ‘queer’ por hacerse mercancía sino más bien una mercancía ‘queer’ que luchaba por afianzarse en una nación donde el terreno para la política gay y lesbiana ha cambiado tanto que el mercado no puede ser ignorado. Para lidiar con estas conclusiones sugiero que hace falta un enfoque más ambivalente hacia la teorización ‘queer’.
Acknowledgements
I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council during this research. My thanks also go to Michael Brown for his very helpful editorial advice, to three anonymous reviewers for their close readings and constructive criticisms of an earlier draft of this paper, and to Sue Parnell for guidance and assistance in Cape Town.
Notes
1 Currently ranked fifth among preferred destinations for gay tourists in the international gay travel guide Spartacus, the mandate of the Mother City Queer Project—and one which Cape Town tourism and other gay and lesbian tourist promoters are on board with—is to make Cape Town the ‘queerest city in the world’.
2 South Africa became the first country in the world to constitutionally enshrine non-discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation in 1996.
3 Draft document ‘Tourism marketing strategy and institutional proposals for the Western Cape, Cape Town and regions’, posted at: < http://www.jmi.co.za/tourdocs/FinalTourismMarketingStrategy_part1.doc> (accessed 9 January 2003). Additionally, the national tourism marketing board, South African Tourism, has recently expressed an interest in developing a ‘Gay South Africa’ strategy.
4 One example: Uganda's former Education Commissioner, Fagil Mandy, advised parents to closely monitor their children's dealings with ‘penpals’ because ‘you know those penpals abroad teach our children lesbianism and homosexuality because most of them are older and they convince our children’. Source: New Vision (Citation2001).
5 By participating in meetings, attending events, and conducting interviews with staff and/or board members.
6 See < http://www.mcqp.co.za>.
7 Advertisement for GALACTTIC in Cape Gay Guide (Citation2002: 95).
8 Heterosexual women who socialize predominantly with gay men.
9 To protect the identity of informants, they will be identified only by affiliation except where comments were made in public forums.
10 A suburb of Cape Town.
11 The Triangle Project recently closed its satellite office in Guguletu and moved its staff into an office in Mowbray. While a staff member described this location as a compromise between being ‘in’ and ‘out’ of town, it is still much more accessible from ‘in’ town. Also, the MCQP party relocated from the River Club in Observatory to the centre of Cape Town in 1998—first to the Artscape theatre and this year to the Castle of Good Hope—as party creator Andre Vorster sees a location in the city as pivotal in making the party a civic event. Likewise, all the MCQP festival events took place in the city centre. And GALACTTIC, while it has members in tourist areas, such as the winelands, surrounding Cape Town has no member businesses in any townships.
12 Cape Town Press Club Speech, 15 November 2002.
13 ‘Lekker’ is an Afrikaans word literally meaning ‘nice, pleasant’.
14 Nor do scholars concerned not just with African sexualities but with ‘queer globalizations’ more broadly. See for instance: Altman (Citation2001), Cruz-Malave and Manalansan (Citation2002) and Hawley (Citation2001).
15 Of which there is much in South Africa. A recent study of intolerance in South Africa found that at least two-thirds of the South African public express ‘negative attitudes’ toward homosexuals. See Gibson and Gouws (Citation2003).
16 Based on a speech given by Evert Knoesen, Director of the Equality Project in Cape Town, 16 December 2002.
17 See, for example, articles by Chari, Corbridge, Merrifield, Raman, and Welker (2003) in the forum on Empire in Antipode 35: 178-201.
18 South Africa's status as the first nation in the world to include non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in its constitution is cited without fail in the marketing of Cape Town as a gay and lesbian tourist destination.