Female Same-Sex Intimacies in Postcolonial Ghana  
Serena Owusua Dankwa

In collaboration with the University of Ghana Legon, this project set out to explore the subjective life stories of women of different age groups involved in same-sex intimacies. It explores the meanings working-class women attach to and compose within their networks and relationships and it examines how their narratives and desires resist and intersect with the derogatory media representations that frame them. A key to these representations is the term supi, historically referring to the passionate bonds between boarding school girls, whether or not these friendships included erotic intimacies. While previous studies have focused on matrilineal kinship structures and gender relations with regard to women’s autonomy and socio-economic coping strategies, this project broadens the spectrum of affective ties Ghanaian women engage in and draws the following conclusions:

Identity: West Africa has seen an emergence of urban subcultures of men looking to construct globally-recognized gay identities. The growing access to transnational media flows and the HIV/AIDS pandemic have played a major role in the forming of these local gay spaces. Attracting only few women, such spaces represent and serve primarily the needs of men, equipped with the resources and networks for tapping into global funds. Thus, the collaboration with a gay NGO proved tricky. Mastering the “International Gay” vocabulary, its male leader appealed to me to raise the lesbian consciousness of the NGO’s declining women’s wing. Yet, women are not only less visible than men, but are less interested in understanding and fixing their intimacies along the lines of a sexual identity and rather conceptualize it as a tacit form of knowledge.

Ethnicity/Class: Same-sex practice is stereotypically assumed to be prevalent among the Fante – a coastal sub-division of the Akan language group – and the urban Ga on the coast. The notion that Ga people lack discretion and are inclined to indecent (sexual) conduct is attributed to their early exposure to European colonialists on the coast. Yet, if the Ga are indeed less secretive than the Akan, this rather suggests that Ghana’s moral economy of silencing sexual and social transgressions is less compelling among more marginal language groups. A similar argument can be made about class affiliation: The higher a woman’s social age and status, the less likely she is to reveal her same-sex passions, whereas younger women of a lower socio-economic status are more willing to engage in such discussions and seem to have less too loss than a “respectable“ women of a higher social status.

Religion: Besides the liberalization of the media in the 1990s, the rise of Pentecostal-Charismatic churches that actually created sexuality as a subject of public discourse (if only in its negation) plays a major and ambivalent role in recent homophobic debates in Ghana. Sermons that warn against supi lesbianism often result from women’s confessions teased out by pastors. Without downplaying the psychological stress religious discourse may cause, it is striking how pragmatically these sermons are accommodated by some women: for instance by pointing to the inconsistencies in the supposedly Christian life-styles of the pastors themselves, or by arguing that same-sex desire cannot be that wrong since it was already mentioned in the Bible, which to them gives evidence to the practice’ historicity rather than its evilness.

Discretion: Women’s discretion about their intimate secrets enables family members to (consciously) overlook their daughters’, wives' and mothers' divergences from sexual norms. Conforming to social codes of conduct is particularly important for women living in densely populated compounds with high levels of social control, where they depend on the passive complicity of neighbors, friends and families. Therefore, in Accra’s impoverished Ga neighborhoods, where derogatory supi representations are particularly salient, women consider the naming of their practice as a condition leading to its suppression. Thus, rather than appropriating and politicizing the term supi, they take issue with the act of attaching any generic name to their intimate passions and relationships; rather than challenging homophobic attitudes, the term supi in particular is held responsible for the practice’ negative representation.

Age/Gender: In the context of material scarcity all serious bonds, whether sexual or not, are marked by the desire or the obligation of catering to each other’s basic needs. Courtship and power dynamics within same-sex relations, just as in heterosexual couples, circle around socio-economic negotiations; the resulting dependencies are read as signs of passion and commitment. As the hierarchies are less fixed and less openly displayed within same-sex couples, the role divisions are highly contested. Roles are structured by status differences that are creatively voiced through a range of gender and age metaphors (“husband/wife”, “king/queen”, “mother/daughter”). These findings challenge previous anthropological classifications of age- or gender-stratified “institutionalized homosexualities” that tended to overlook the performativity involved in actually making same-sex arrangements fit the social matrix of a specific society.

 

Research Partners
Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy                 
and         
Institute of African Studies
University of Ghana, Legon                                   
P.O. Box LG 73                                                                                
Accra, Ghana
Dr. Akosua Adomako Ampofo
adomako@ug.edu.gh                                            

Doctoral Candidate
Serena Owusua Dankwa
Oetlingerstr.72
CH-4057 Basel
serena@saoas.org