Description
Book SynopsisRachel Spronk has written a well composed, highly interesting and maybe even path-breaking book... It is innovative in its focus on sexuality as bodily experience and implications for ''the gendered sense of self'' of these young men and women [and] is also innovative in terms of methodology; first and foremost by its focus on a group of young professional men and women. Signe Arnfred, Roskilde University
Spronk''s theoretical take on this theme is seminal and challenging. She convincingly shows that a constructivist approach - emphasizing the social and historical construction of people''s practices and views on sex and sexuality - is highly relevant to understanding how people navigate their lives. But she emphasizes also its limitations because her informants'' insistence that the natural, bodily power of sexual feelings has to be brought in as well. Peter Geschiere, University of Amsterdam
Among both male and female young urban professionals in Nairobi, sexuali
Trade Review
“…an interesting and well-written book… a strong contribution to the scholarship of African sexualities and gender, due not least to its clear focus and methodological approach…I would recommend it to anyone interested in gender and sexualities in the African context.” · African Affairs
“Throughout the book, Spronk develops a nuanced analysis of the ways in which sex and relationships are handled as topics of interest within the various forms of media that circulate in Nairobi…[Her] rich ethnographic insights mean that readers interested in sexuality in Africa and in postcolonial subjectivities in Africa more generally will find Spronk’s book a useful and rewarding contribution.” · Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
“Rachel Spronk has written a well composed, highly interesting and maybe even path-breaking book… It is innovative in its focus on sexuality as bodily experience and implications for ‘the gendered sense of self’ of these young men and women [and] is also innovative in terms of methodology; first and foremost by its focus on a group of young professional men and women.” · Signe Arnfred, Roskilde University
"Spronk’s theoretical take on this theme is seminal and challenging. She convincingly shows that a constructivist approach – emphasizing the social and historical construction of people’s practices and views on sex and sexuality – is highly relevant to understanding how people navigate their lives. But she emphasizes also its limitations because her informants’ insistence that the natural, bodily power of sexual feelings has to be brought in as well.” · Peter Geschiere, University of Amsterdam
Table of Contents INTRODUCTION
- Hip and ambitious in Nairobi
- Conceiving sexuality
- Interfaces of pleasure and anxiety
- Structure of the book
PART I: THE STUDY OF SEXUALITY
Sexuality research in Kenya
- Health approaches to sexuality
- Sexuality research in the context of AIDS in Africa
The dynamics of sexuality: the focus of this study
- Anthropology and sexuality
- The social construction of sexuality, and its limits
- Sex as embodied experience
- Historicising sexuality
Methodological aspects of sexuality research
- Researching sex and sexuality: research places and practices
- Researching sex and sexuality: collection and validity of data
- An unmarried with partner, non-Kenyan, white female young professional
PART II: YOUNG PROFESSIONALS: EMBLEMS OF SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION
Sexuality and societal transformations
- Gender and sexuality in colonial times
- Gender and sexuality in postcolonial times
- Social transformation and moral anxiety
The young and ambitious in Nairobi
- Classifying young professionals
- Hesitations about ethnicity and issues of belonging
- Living independently and single
- Nightlife and dating
Young urban professionals and the formation of a contemporary identity
- Explorers of a modern identity
- Young professionals’ position towards customary ways of living
- ‘Westernization’
- Africanness
- Conclusion
PART III: SOCIETY IN FLAMES: SEXUALITY IN THE CONTEXT OF AIDS
AIDS as a context of life
- Africanist perspectives on AIDS and sexuality
- Policies of the government and nongovernmental organizations
- The definition of ‘risk groups’
- The medicalization of sexuality
- Christian perceptions of AIDS and sexuality
- The remoralization of sexuality
Sexuality and contemporary lifestyles
- AIDS as the disease of ‘immorality’
- The public emergence of the intimate
- Intimacy as part of lifestyle
- Conclusion
PART IV: AMBIGUOUS PLEASURES: SEXUAL DESIRE, CAREER, AND FEMININITY
Female sexuality in Nairobi, Kenya and beyond
Pamela, Martha, Njeri, Tayiani and Dorcas
- The importance of dating
- ‘Playing hard to get’
- To give and to receive sexual pleasure
- Chastity and the realization of sexual pleasure
- Boundaries of sexual pleasure
Between sexual allure and limited availability
- Appropriating sexual pleasure
- Sexual pleasure and conventional expectations
- Communicating ambiguity
- Embodying transformations
- Conclusion
PART V: AMBIGUOUS PLEASURES: SEX, RICHES AND MASCULINITY
Male sexuality in Nairobi society, Kenya and beyond
Alex, Eric, Tom, Maurice and Ongeri
- Men’s sexual début
- Circumcision as constitutive to masculinity
- Sex as a skill—being a ‘good lover’
- Love in relation to sexual drive
- Sex and having ‘arrived’
Moving between sexual prowess and restrained potency
- Sexual desire as a physical craving
- Balancing too much and too little sex
- The waning dominant patriarchal ideology
- Accommodating change
- Conclusion
PART VI: SIGN OF THE TIMES: MEDIA AND THE THERAPEUTIC ETHOS OF ROMANTIC LOVE
Romantic love and the twin spheres of consumption and mass media
Representing romantic love: films, television and advertisements
- Television
- Advertising
- The privileging of the image
The manifestations of romantic love: music
- Practicing romantic love: dating
- Practices of mediation: magazines
- The therapeutic discourse on relationships
Sign of the times: imaginations and practices of romantic love versus ‘westernization’, or the perils of modernity
CONCLUSION: SEXUALITY AND ITS AMBIGUOUS PLEASURES
Researching sexuality in Africa
The pleasures and anxieties of sexuality
Middle-class lifestyles and self-perceptions
Sex and sophistication – self and embodiment
Bibliography
Index
