7- Multiple Discourses On Sexuality Implications For Translating Sexual Wellness Concept Into Action Strategies In A Kenyan Context
African Sociological Review,
Vol. 13 No. 1 (2009): African Sociological Review
Abstract
This Paper attemps to map, drawing mainly from HIV and AIDS prevention interventions, the multiple discourses on sexuality. The aim is to provide a picture of the challenges and opportunities in transforming the concept of sexual wellness currently being articulated. This is
a move from the commonly held view of sexuality as a threat to health, to one promoting sexual
wellness or positive view of sexuality. A postcolonial conceptual perspective is used to help grasp
the multiple-realities emerging from the historical influences on Africa and for reflexivity on the ambivalences and representations of Africa and African culture including sexuality.
Keywords
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- Ahlberg, B.M. 1994, Is there a Distinct African Sexuality? A Critical Response To Caldwell et al. Africa, 64(2):220-242.
- Ahlberg, B. M. Kimani, V.N. Kirumbi, L.W. Kaara, M.W. Krantz, I. 1997, The Mwomboko Research Project. The Practice of male circumcision in Central Kenya and its implications for the transmission and prevention of STD/HIV in Central Kenya. African Sociological Review 1(1):66-81.
- Ahlberg, B.M. Dare we dream of a future without AIDS? Challenges and opportunities for responsive social science research. In Helena Flam and Marcus Carson, eds. 2008, Rule Systems Theory: Explorations and Applications. Berlin/New York. Peter Lang (forthcoming) Ainslie, D.C. 2002, AIDS and sex: Is warning a moral obligation? Health Care Analysis. 10:49-66.
- Ani, M., 1994, Yurungu: An African-centred crique of European cultural thought and behaviour.
- Trenton NJ. AfricanWorld Press Inc p636.
- Arnfred, S. (ed), 2003, Re-thinking sexualities in Africa. Uppsala, The Nordic African Institute Bader, E. Reproductive rights: Abstinence only education. Z Magazine Online, 18(1):1-6, January 2005. Available from: http://zmagazine. zmag.org/jan2005/baderpr0105.html. Accessed 2006-09-14 Baldwin, P. 2005, Disease and democracy: the industrialised world faces AIDS. Berkeley, University of California Press Becker, H. 2003, Efudula: Women’s intiation, gender and sexual identities in colonial and post-colonial Northern Namibia. In Arnfred S (ed), Re- thinking sexualities in Africa. Uppsala, The Nordic African Institute.
- Beyer, P. 1994, Religion and globalization. London, Sage Publications Birdsall, K. Faith-Based Responses to HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation CADRE. Available from: www.cadre.org.za/pdf/FBO-report.pdf. Accessed 2007-12-12
- Bujo, B. 1990, Do we still need the ten commandments? A fundamental question in today’s African world, Nairobi, St. Pauls Publications.
- Caldwe l, J.C, Caldwell P and Quiggin P. 1989, The social context of AIDS. ev. 15(2):185-233.
- Chamberlain, P. 2006, Undoing Reproductive Freedom: Christian right NGOs target the United Nations.
- A Report From Political Research Associates. www.publiceye.org. Chambers I. 1999. History after humanism: responding to postcolonialism. Postcolonial Studies 2(1):37-42.
- CHANGE (Centre for Health and Gender Equity). 2005, Implications of U.S. policy restriction for programs aimed at commercial sex workers and victims of trafficking worldwide. Policy Brief, November. www. genderhealth.org.
- Chaves, M. 1994, Secularization as declining religious authority. Social Forces, 72 (3): 749-774.
- Chernus, I. 2007, The theology of American empire.Available from: www.alternet.org/module/prin tversion/63785. Accessed November 8. Accessed 2007-12-12
- Cornwall, A. and Brock, K. 2005, What do buzzwords do for development policy? A critical look at ‘participation’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘poverty reduction’. Third World Quarterly 26(7):1043-1060.
- Davies, C., 1982, Sexual taboos ans social boundaries. American Journal of Sociology. vol. 87, July 1981-May.
- Ellingson, S. Tebbe, N. Van Haltsma, M. Laumann, E. O. 2001, Religion and the politics of sexuality. Journal of Contemporally Ethnography, 30 (1):3-35.
- Epstein, H. 2005, God and the fight against AIDS. The New York Review of Books, 52(7).
- Feffer, J. 2007, Spreading the word. Foregn Policy In Focus (FPIF) Available from: www.fpif.org/fp ifxt/4835 Accessed 2007-12-29.
- Feldman, D.A., 2003, Reassesing AIDS priorities for Africa: ABC vs ACCDGLMT. AIDS & Anthropology Bulletin. The Newsletter of the AIDS and Anthropology Research Group. 15(2):5-8.
- Genovesi, V.I., 1996, In pursuit of love: Catholic morality and human sexuality.
- Collegiville; The Liturgica Press.
- Green, C. E. 2003. Rethinking AIDS prevention: Learning from successes in developing countries.
- Praeger Publishers Godia, J. 2004, Tragedy of three condoms a year. The Sunday Standard.
- September 2.
- Hallinan, C. 2007, The religion of divide and conquer. Foreign Policy in Focus. Available from: www.fpip.ord/fpiftxt/4607. Accessed 2007-12-12.
- Harmon-Snow, K.A.B., D, 2007, Three cheers for Eve Ensler: Propaganda, white collar crime, and
- sexual atrocities in Eastern Congo Zilable from: www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=14128§ionID=2. Accessed 2007-12-12
- NGO: US evangelical missions in Kenya. Journal Hearn, of religion in Africa 32(1):32-60.
- Hoodbhoy, M. Flayherty, M.S. and Higgins, T.E., 2005, Exporting despair: The human rights implications of US restrictions on foreign health care funding in Kenya. Fordham International Law Journal 29(1):1-26.
- Horgan, J 1991,Exporting Misery: A U.S. Abortion Ruling Affects Women’s Health World-wide. Scintific American, 265(2):16.
- JAL. 1979,The rejection of the marriage bill in Kenya. Journal of African Law, 23(2):109-114.
- Johnson, S. 2004, The myth of Ham in the nineteenth-century American Christianity. New York, Palgrave Macmillan p187.
- Jones, N. 2008, Undoing what keeps us bound. RH Reality Check. Available from:www.rhrealitych eck.org/node/6149/print Accessed 2007-12-12.
- Kalinaki, D.K., 2005. AIDS activists criticise Museveni over abstinence call. The East African. Dec 27, 2004-Jan 2.
- Kamau, A. Bornemann, R. and Laaser, U. 2006, Psychosocial influences on adolescent sexuality and identity in rural Kenya. Health Sociology Review: The International Journal of Health Sociology, 15 (3).
- Kamau, A., 2007, The owners of the body are not involved: examining adolescents’ access, provision and use of preventive reproductive helth services in Central Kenya. Germany, VDM Verlag Dr Muller, Saarbrucken.
- Klein, M. 2007, The shock doctrine. London, Penguine Books.
- Konchansky, G.E. and Herrmann, F., 2004, Shame and scandal: Clinical and Canon Law perspectives on the crisis in the priesthood. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 27:299-319.
- Kroeger, K., 2003, Anthropologists debate paradigm shifts in AIDS prevention.
- AIDS & Anthropology Bulletin. The Newsletter of the AIDS and Anthropology Research Group. 15(2):1-2.
- Kuppan, I. and Quintal, A. 2006, Churches speak out against marriage bill. The Daily News.
- Leichter, H. M., 1991, Free to be Foolish:Politics and Health Promotion in the United States and Great Britain. Princeton University Press 228-232.
- Levine, C. 1991, AIDS Prevention and Education: Reframimg the Message. AIDS Education and Prevention, 3(2):147-163.
- Lutz, C. A. and Abu-Lughod, L. 1990, Language and the politics of emotion. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
- Maes, Y., 1999, The cannibal’s wife: a memoir. New York, Herodias Inc. y’s 25 years of unfulfilled potential. Los Angeles
- Times, October 17. l, M. and Taylor, N.,Marsha 2006, Tackling HIV and AIDS with faith-based communities: Learning from attitudes on gender relations and sexual rights within local evangelical churches in Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Gender and Development, 14(3):363-374.
- Mbembe, A., 1992, Provisional notes on postcolony. Africa 62(1):3-34. Mbembe, A. and Nuttall, S., 2004. Writing the world from an African metropolis. Public Culture, 16(3):347-372.
- McClintock, A., 1992, The Angel of progress: Pitfalls of the term “Post- colonialism. Social Text, 31/32:84-98.
- Messer, D.E., 2004a, Global AIDS and ’Thoelogy of A Few’. National Catholic Reporter 2(31), November 30. NCRonline.org.
- Messer, D.E., 2004b, Breaking the conspiracy of silence: Christian churches and the global AIDS cricis. Minneapolis, Fortress Press.
- Mitchell, B.M. and Salsbury, R.E., 1996, Multicultural education: An international guide to research, policies and programmes. Greenwood Publishers.
- Mugambi, J.N.K., 1989, African heritage and contemporary Christianity. Longman, Kenya.
- Narayan, U., 2000, Essence of culture and a sense of history: A feminist critique of cultural essentialism. In Narayan U. and Harding, S. Decentering the center: Philosophy for a multicultural, postcolonial, and feminist world. Indiana University Press p330.
- Okello, R., 2005, Health: The divergence of AIDS, and sexual and reproductive rights. IPS-Inter Service News.http://www.ipsnews.net/ print.asp?idnews=25397. Patient, D. Blessing the condoms in Mozambique. AF-AIDS 2001, Available from:: http://archives. healthdev.net/af-aids. Accessed
- -05-30. accessed 11.01.2007
- Pisan E. 2008. The wisdom of whores: bureaucrats, brothels and the business of AIDS. London, Grant Books.
- Preston, R.H., 1987, The future of Christian ethics. London, SCM Press Ltd p280.
- Rabinow, P. (ed) 1984, The Foucault reader: An introduction to Foucault’s thought, with major unpublished material. London, Punguin Books.
- Ratele, K. 2003, Kinky politics. In Arnfred S (ed), Re-thinking sexualities in Africa. Uppsala, The Nordic African Institute.
- Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. WE AFFIRM: Religious organisations support Reproductive Choice. Available from: www.reressed, 2007-12-29
- Robins, S. 2005, From “medical miracles” to normal(ised) medicine: AIDS treatment, activism and citizenship in UK and South Africa. IDS Working Paper 252.
- Rosengarten, M. Imrie, J. Flowers, P. Davis, M.D. Hart, G.J. 2004, After the euphoria: HIV medical technologies from the perspective of their prescribers. Sociology of Health & Illness 26(5):575-596.
- Sears, A. 1991, AIDS and the Health of Nations: The Contradictions of Public Health. Critical Sociology, 18(2):31-51.
- Shiva, V. 2004, How to end poverty: Making poverty history and the history of poverty. ZNET Commentary. www.zmag.org/Sustainers/ Content/2005-05/11Shiver.cfm. Accessed 2005-11-14.
- Shivji, I.G., 2007, Silences in NGO discourse: The role and future of NGOs in Africa. Oxford, Fahamu: ISBN: 978-0-9545637-5-2.
- Sindig,S.W.,2005, Does ‘CNN’(condoms, Needles and Negotiation) work better than ‘ABC’ (Abstinence, Being Faithful and Condom Use) in Attacking the AIDS Epidemic? International Family Planning Perspectives, 31(1):38-40.
- Squire, C., 1993, Women and AIDS: Psychological perspectives. London, Sage Publications,. Time Magazine. The marrying kind. August 1979. Available from: www.time.com/time/magazine/article /0,9171,948747,00.htmlaccessed 2007-12-24.
- Urban, H. 2005, The secrets of the Kingdom: Spiritual discourse and material interesting the Bush administration. Discourse 27(1):141-166.
- Wamue, G.N. 2001, Revisiting our indigenous shrines through Mungiki. Africa 100((400):453-467.
- Wanyeki, L.M. 1996, Kenya-Population: Church burns condoms and AIDS materials. Inter-Press News Services (IPS). Available from:www.aegis. com/news/ap/1996/AP960808. html Accessd 1999 12-12.
- Weekly Review, December 20, 1979
- Weekly Review, February 21 1980.
- Weekly Review, June 20, 1986
- WHO, 2002. Sexual health definitions, Geneva, World Health Organisation. Wilson, B. R. 1989, Morality in the Evolution of the Modern Social System. al of Sociology, 36(3):315-332.
References
Ahlberg, B.M. 1994, Is there a Distinct African Sexuality? A Critical Response To Caldwell et al. Africa, 64(2):220-242.
Ahlberg, B. M. Kimani, V.N. Kirumbi, L.W. Kaara, M.W. Krantz, I. 1997, The Mwomboko Research Project. The Practice of male circumcision in Central Kenya and its implications for the transmission and prevention of STD/HIV in Central Kenya. African Sociological Review 1(1):66-81.
Ahlberg, B.M. Dare we dream of a future without AIDS? Challenges and opportunities for responsive social science research. In Helena Flam and Marcus Carson, eds. 2008, Rule Systems Theory: Explorations and Applications. Berlin/New York. Peter Lang (forthcoming) Ainslie, D.C. 2002, AIDS and sex: Is warning a moral obligation? Health Care Analysis. 10:49-66.
Ani, M., 1994, Yurungu: An African-centred crique of European cultural thought and behaviour.
Trenton NJ. AfricanWorld Press Inc p636.
Arnfred, S. (ed), 2003, Re-thinking sexualities in Africa. Uppsala, The Nordic African Institute Bader, E. Reproductive rights: Abstinence only education. Z Magazine Online, 18(1):1-6, January 2005. Available from: http://zmagazine. zmag.org/jan2005/baderpr0105.html. Accessed 2006-09-14 Baldwin, P. 2005, Disease and democracy: the industrialised world faces AIDS. Berkeley, University of California Press Becker, H. 2003, Efudula: Women’s intiation, gender and sexual identities in colonial and post-colonial Northern Namibia. In Arnfred S (ed), Re- thinking sexualities in Africa. Uppsala, The Nordic African Institute.
Beyer, P. 1994, Religion and globalization. London, Sage Publications Birdsall, K. Faith-Based Responses to HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation CADRE. Available from: www.cadre.org.za/pdf/FBO-report.pdf. Accessed 2007-12-12
Bujo, B. 1990, Do we still need the ten commandments? A fundamental question in today’s African world, Nairobi, St. Pauls Publications.
Caldwe l, J.C, Caldwell P and Quiggin P. 1989, The social context of AIDS. ev. 15(2):185-233.
Chamberlain, P. 2006, Undoing Reproductive Freedom: Christian right NGOs target the United Nations.
A Report From Political Research Associates. www.publiceye.org. Chambers I. 1999. History after humanism: responding to postcolonialism. Postcolonial Studies 2(1):37-42.
CHANGE (Centre for Health and Gender Equity). 2005, Implications of U.S. policy restriction for programs aimed at commercial sex workers and victims of trafficking worldwide. Policy Brief, November. www. genderhealth.org.
Chaves, M. 1994, Secularization as declining religious authority. Social Forces, 72 (3): 749-774.
Chernus, I. 2007, The theology of American empire.Available from: www.alternet.org/module/prin tversion/63785. Accessed November 8. Accessed 2007-12-12
Cornwall, A. and Brock, K. 2005, What do buzzwords do for development policy? A critical look at ‘participation’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘poverty reduction’. Third World Quarterly 26(7):1043-1060.
Davies, C., 1982, Sexual taboos ans social boundaries. American Journal of Sociology. vol. 87, July 1981-May.
Ellingson, S. Tebbe, N. Van Haltsma, M. Laumann, E. O. 2001, Religion and the politics of sexuality. Journal of Contemporally Ethnography, 30 (1):3-35.
Epstein, H. 2005, God and the fight against AIDS. The New York Review of Books, 52(7).
Feffer, J. 2007, Spreading the word. Foregn Policy In Focus (FPIF) Available from: www.fpif.org/fp ifxt/4835 Accessed 2007-12-29.
Feldman, D.A., 2003, Reassesing AIDS priorities for Africa: ABC vs ACCDGLMT. AIDS & Anthropology Bulletin. The Newsletter of the AIDS and Anthropology Research Group. 15(2):5-8.
Genovesi, V.I., 1996, In pursuit of love: Catholic morality and human sexuality.
Collegiville; The Liturgica Press.
Green, C. E. 2003. Rethinking AIDS prevention: Learning from successes in developing countries.
Praeger Publishers Godia, J. 2004, Tragedy of three condoms a year. The Sunday Standard.
September 2.
Hallinan, C. 2007, The religion of divide and conquer. Foreign Policy in Focus. Available from: www.fpip.ord/fpiftxt/4607. Accessed 2007-12-12.
Harmon-Snow, K.A.B., D, 2007, Three cheers for Eve Ensler: Propaganda, white collar crime, and
sexual atrocities in Eastern Congo Zilable from: www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=14128§ionID=2. Accessed 2007-12-12
NGO: US evangelical missions in Kenya. Journal Hearn, of religion in Africa 32(1):32-60.
Hoodbhoy, M. Flayherty, M.S. and Higgins, T.E., 2005, Exporting despair: The human rights implications of US restrictions on foreign health care funding in Kenya. Fordham International Law Journal 29(1):1-26.
Horgan, J 1991,Exporting Misery: A U.S. Abortion Ruling Affects Women’s Health World-wide. Scintific American, 265(2):16.
JAL. 1979,The rejection of the marriage bill in Kenya. Journal of African Law, 23(2):109-114.
Johnson, S. 2004, The myth of Ham in the nineteenth-century American Christianity. New York, Palgrave Macmillan p187.
Jones, N. 2008, Undoing what keeps us bound. RH Reality Check. Available from:www.rhrealitych eck.org/node/6149/print Accessed 2007-12-12.
Kalinaki, D.K., 2005. AIDS activists criticise Museveni over abstinence call. The East African. Dec 27, 2004-Jan 2.
Kamau, A. Bornemann, R. and Laaser, U. 2006, Psychosocial influences on adolescent sexuality and identity in rural Kenya. Health Sociology Review: The International Journal of Health Sociology, 15 (3).
Kamau, A., 2007, The owners of the body are not involved: examining adolescents’ access, provision and use of preventive reproductive helth services in Central Kenya. Germany, VDM Verlag Dr Muller, Saarbrucken.
Klein, M. 2007, The shock doctrine. London, Penguine Books.
Konchansky, G.E. and Herrmann, F., 2004, Shame and scandal: Clinical and Canon Law perspectives on the crisis in the priesthood. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 27:299-319.
Kroeger, K., 2003, Anthropologists debate paradigm shifts in AIDS prevention.
AIDS & Anthropology Bulletin. The Newsletter of the AIDS and Anthropology Research Group. 15(2):1-2.
Kuppan, I. and Quintal, A. 2006, Churches speak out against marriage bill. The Daily News.
Leichter, H. M., 1991, Free to be Foolish:Politics and Health Promotion in the United States and Great Britain. Princeton University Press 228-232.
Levine, C. 1991, AIDS Prevention and Education: Reframimg the Message. AIDS Education and Prevention, 3(2):147-163.
Lutz, C. A. and Abu-Lughod, L. 1990, Language and the politics of emotion. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Maes, Y., 1999, The cannibal’s wife: a memoir. New York, Herodias Inc. y’s 25 years of unfulfilled potential. Los Angeles
Times, October 17. l, M. and Taylor, N.,Marsha 2006, Tackling HIV and AIDS with faith-based communities: Learning from attitudes on gender relations and sexual rights within local evangelical churches in Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Gender and Development, 14(3):363-374.
Mbembe, A., 1992, Provisional notes on postcolony. Africa 62(1):3-34. Mbembe, A. and Nuttall, S., 2004. Writing the world from an African metropolis. Public Culture, 16(3):347-372.
McClintock, A., 1992, The Angel of progress: Pitfalls of the term “Post- colonialism. Social Text, 31/32:84-98.
Messer, D.E., 2004a, Global AIDS and ’Thoelogy of A Few’. National Catholic Reporter 2(31), November 30. NCRonline.org.
Messer, D.E., 2004b, Breaking the conspiracy of silence: Christian churches and the global AIDS cricis. Minneapolis, Fortress Press.
Mitchell, B.M. and Salsbury, R.E., 1996, Multicultural education: An international guide to research, policies and programmes. Greenwood Publishers.
Mugambi, J.N.K., 1989, African heritage and contemporary Christianity. Longman, Kenya.
Narayan, U., 2000, Essence of culture and a sense of history: A feminist critique of cultural essentialism. In Narayan U. and Harding, S. Decentering the center: Philosophy for a multicultural, postcolonial, and feminist world. Indiana University Press p330.
Okello, R., 2005, Health: The divergence of AIDS, and sexual and reproductive rights. IPS-Inter Service News.http://www.ipsnews.net/ print.asp?idnews=25397. Patient, D. Blessing the condoms in Mozambique. AF-AIDS 2001, Available from:: http://archives. healthdev.net/af-aids. Accessed
-05-30. accessed 11.01.2007
Pisan E. 2008. The wisdom of whores: bureaucrats, brothels and the business of AIDS. London, Grant Books.
Preston, R.H., 1987, The future of Christian ethics. London, SCM Press Ltd p280.
Rabinow, P. (ed) 1984, The Foucault reader: An introduction to Foucault’s thought, with major unpublished material. London, Punguin Books.
Ratele, K. 2003, Kinky politics. In Arnfred S (ed), Re-thinking sexualities in Africa. Uppsala, The Nordic African Institute.
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. WE AFFIRM: Religious organisations support Reproductive Choice. Available from: www.reressed, 2007-12-29
Robins, S. 2005, From “medical miracles” to normal(ised) medicine: AIDS treatment, activism and citizenship in UK and South Africa. IDS Working Paper 252.
Rosengarten, M. Imrie, J. Flowers, P. Davis, M.D. Hart, G.J. 2004, After the euphoria: HIV medical technologies from the perspective of their prescribers. Sociology of Health & Illness 26(5):575-596.
Sears, A. 1991, AIDS and the Health of Nations: The Contradictions of Public Health. Critical Sociology, 18(2):31-51.
Shiva, V. 2004, How to end poverty: Making poverty history and the history of poverty. ZNET Commentary. www.zmag.org/Sustainers/ Content/2005-05/11Shiver.cfm. Accessed 2005-11-14.
Shivji, I.G., 2007, Silences in NGO discourse: The role and future of NGOs in Africa. Oxford, Fahamu: ISBN: 978-0-9545637-5-2.
Sindig,S.W.,2005, Does ‘CNN’(condoms, Needles and Negotiation) work better than ‘ABC’ (Abstinence, Being Faithful and Condom Use) in Attacking the AIDS Epidemic? International Family Planning Perspectives, 31(1):38-40.
Squire, C., 1993, Women and AIDS: Psychological perspectives. London, Sage Publications,. Time Magazine. The marrying kind. August 1979. Available from: www.time.com/time/magazine/article /0,9171,948747,00.htmlaccessed 2007-12-24.
Urban, H. 2005, The secrets of the Kingdom: Spiritual discourse and material interesting the Bush administration. Discourse 27(1):141-166.
Wamue, G.N. 2001, Revisiting our indigenous shrines through Mungiki. Africa 100((400):453-467.
Wanyeki, L.M. 1996, Kenya-Population: Church burns condoms and AIDS materials. Inter-Press News Services (IPS). Available from:www.aegis. com/news/ap/1996/AP960808. html Accessd 1999 12-12.
Weekly Review, December 20, 1979
Weekly Review, February 21 1980.
Weekly Review, June 20, 1986
WHO, 2002. Sexual health definitions, Geneva, World Health Organisation. Wilson, B. R. 1989, Morality in the Evolution of the Modern Social System. al of Sociology, 36(3):315-332.