Search Results for primitive normativity

... This chapter introduces the concept of “primitive normativity,” a narrative espoused by colonial settlers and officials. The discourse of primitive normativity posited that Kenyan Africans were too “primitive” to practice certain kinds of “deviant” sexuality, including rape, homosexuality...

... Chapter 1 outlines the intellectual history that allowed the narrative of primitive normativity to develop. In particular, it shows how two fields, anthropology and sexology, both revised their notions of the “primitive” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This reevaluation set...

... to colonize a more “primitive” African race but also maintaining that it was white women, not Indians, who were morally and sexually depraved. As both Indians and white settlers framed their demands within the language of trusteeship, Africans were racialized by proxy as sexually normative, and therefore...

... primitive normativity queer studies settler colonial studies ...

... The conclusion offers some reflections of the afterlives of primitive normativity, showing how the notion that African sexuality is essentially (hetero)normative continues to circulate in contemporary Kenyan politics. It suggests some ways in which the book extends current scholarship in queer...

... Having established that primitive normativity was viewed as an essential feature of “authentic” African life, chapter 6 shows how this discourse was used to discredit the Mau Mau rebels of the 1950s. The chapter focuses especially on issues of erotic consumption, both the consumption...