STRATEGIES OF CONTESTING HETERONORMATIVE SEXUALITY CONSTRUCTS BY QUEER MEN: A STUDY OF STORIES OF OUR LIVES AND THEY CALLED ME QUEER

Abstract

This study examined the strategies of contesting heteronormative sexuality constructs by gays as depicted in The Nest Collective’s Stories of Our Lives and They Called Me Queer by Kim Windvogel and Kelly-Eve Koopman. These two narratives entail confessions of personal life experiences of people who self-identify as gays in Kenya and South Africa. The objectives of this study were: to examine how gay men construct their identities in response to dominant heteronormative discourses in the selected texts, to evaluate how satire serves as a tool of contestation in the selected texts and to analyze how narrative perspectives function as devices for understanding the gay experience in the selected texts. The research questions that guided this study were: In which ways do gays construct their identities amidst the dominant heteronormative sexuality discourses in the selected texts? How is satire deployed as contestation tool in the texts? To what extent are narrative perspectives a device for navigating gay experience? This study employed the Queer theory which counters maltreatment and prejudice against a sexual minority and advocates for ‘consciousness-raising’ and ‘coming out’ hence declaration of gay identity publicly. The study adopted qualitative research methodology and the corresponding interpretive approach by critically analyzing the selected texts and other academic literature in supporting the discussion and interpretations. These two texts were purposively sampled to comparatively study them as representation of two contexts in Africa, yet comparable. This study found that queer men in Kenya and South Africa deploy satire and the first person narrative voice as contestation tool in heteronormative societies as they grapple with queer realities and advance queer agency. It contributes to the African queer theory studies and to the existing body of knowledge in queer Literature.