Masculinities, political organizations and political organizing: Queering anti-apartheid struggle

Ratele, Kopano and Malherbe, Nick and Cornell, Josephine and Suffla, Shahnaaz (2023) Masculinities, political organizations and political organizing: Queering anti-apartheid struggle. In: Routledge Handbook on Men, Masculinities and Organizations: Theories, Practices and Futures of Organizing. Taylor & Francis, pp. 276-290. ISBN 9781003193579

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Abstract

In this chapter, we explore the functioning and structuring capacities of masculinity in political organizing in apartheid South Africa, paying particular attention to the flows, complexities, challenges, disturbances, generativities and invitations inhered in different masculinities. More specifically, we focus on the 1980s – one of the most brutally violent periods of the apartheid regime – and what the queering of anti-apartheid struggle meant during this time. Central to our analysis are the life and letters of Simon Tseko Nkoli, who is today the best-known queer anti-apartheid activist. In focusing on Nkoli, we consider how masculinity operates and structures liberation movements, and what progressive enactments of gender might mean for infusing these movements with an intersectional politics that takes seriously the personal-political dialectic. We conclude by reflecting on the relevance of the movements and struggles that Nkoli represented for today’s political organizations that strive towards a necessarily ambitious kind of liberation.

Item Type: Book Section
Dates:
Date
Event
24 November 2023
Published
Uncontrolled Keywords: Simon Nkoli, Queer politics, South Africa, Apartheid, Anti-apartheid, Organization
Subjects: CAH04 - psychology > CAH04-01 - psychology > CAH04-01-01 - psychology (non-specific)
Divisions: Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences > College of Psychology
Depositing User: Gemma Tonks
Date Deposited: 09 Feb 2024 14:26
Last Modified: 11 Jun 2024 13:02
URI: https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/15232

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