'You Have to Know How to Play, Otherwise They Will Catch You': Young Women and the Navigation of Same-Sex Intimacies in Contemporary Urban Senegal

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Dissertation / thesis

Title:	'You Have to Know How to Play, Otherwise They Will Catch You': Young Women and the Navigation of Same-Sex Intimacies in Contemporary Urban Senegal
Author:	Oudenhuijsen, Loes
Year:	2018
Pages:	111
Language:	English
Type of thesis:	Research Master thesis
City of publisher:	Leiden
Publisher:	African Studies Centre Leiden (ASCL)
Geographic term:	Senegal
Subjects:	gender women lesbianism LGBT homosexuality
External link:	https://hdl.handle.net/1887/64809
Abstract:	This thesis explores how same-sex intimacies are navigated by young women in contemporary urban Senegal. Central to this research are various social spaces where sociality and sexuality are co-constructed among women. The analysis is based on six months of ethnographic fieldwork in urban Senegal, predominantly Dakar, with a focus on participant observation to grasp the tacit knowledge of same-sex intimacies. In particular, this thesis examines the football field, local queer organisations and a variety of other homosocial environments such as the home and queer parties. Through a careful adherence to the Senegalese value of sutura (discretion, modesty), by making use of play, and by displaying respectability, homosocial spaces ranging from the relatively private home to the fairly public football field allow for the occurrence of same-sex intimacies.