Teaching Gender, Sexuality, and the Law in Southern Africa: Locating Historical Narratives and Adopting Conceptual Frameworks

Abstract

This chapter reflects on 10 years of teaching the module "gender law and sexuality" on the LLM in Women's Law at the Southern and Eastern African Centre for Women and Law, where students are drawn from across Eastern and Southern Africa and are mature enough to occupy senior roles in criminal justice, the legal profession and legal resources, and governmental and non-governmental organisations. In addition to explaining the pedagogical exercises that help to to overcome student anxieties about their participation at the start of the class and to illustrate fully the legitimacy of "sexuality" scholarship in a local context, the chapter articulates the careful development of its learning objectives and methods, and explains the role that the class (with active student participation) is playing in the development of sexuality scholarship throughout the region. Students learn about the historical interaction of law, sex, and race in the colonial and post-colonial contexts of the region, and the legacy of these interactions in present-day dynamics of gender and race and the law. They are also introduced to different conceptual approaches to sexuality from different parts of the world, and different theoretical approaches to its research and scholarship, so that they can consider critically how these do or do not fit with their own cultural and political scenarios. This ensures that the course has a 'generative' element and is actively engaged in constructing a platform for the development of local sexuality scholarship. The chapter is also particularly useful in considering the possibilities and limits of the 'universal' applicability of different theories (of sex, gender, and law) within specific cultures. As students are drawn from throughout the Eastern and Southern African region, their analyses of these issues also throw new light on the cultural diversity that exists within the continent.

Keywords: sexuality, law, pedagogy, gender, history, conceptual models, pedagogical exercises, criminal justice, teaching methods