This book explores the interactions between armed conflict, gender and sexualities in times of social suffering, caused by violent political transitions to democracy. It documents how those interactions occur in particular contexts and the concepts created to explain them. In particular, the book focuses on the concept of “political homophobia” and the ways in which it has been constructed.
The book is located in a critical political context. State-sponsored discrimination against individuals and collectives, because of their sexual orientation and gender identities, has occurred for decades in different parts of the world. If homophobia was once defined as the fear of homosexuality, increasingly homophobia has become the use of homosexuality to produce fear for political purposes.
Such uses are now more recognised in the international arena as matters of concern. The documentation of homophobic violence in armed conflicts and politics is a priority for activism and the advancement of human rights. However, with mobilisations and recognition, new dichotomies between countries have appeared. Gay rights are now included in the agendas for post-conflict reconstruction.
This book discusses both the long-term invisibility of homophobic violence in the analysis of armed conflicts and the effects of the strategies used to render visible what was not seen before. In order do to that, the book connects the studies of gender and sexualities with the studies of political conflict and conflict resolution, using case studies from South Africa and Colombia. Although, advanced production of knowledge on the topic has been done in both of these areas of knowledge, such analyses have occurred in isolation from each other.
An important exception is feminist scholarship on gender and sexual violence in wars. Feminist researchers and activists have brought gender and sexuality to the centre of analysis of armed conflicts and political transitions. Their analyses are still marginalised from mainstream literature on international relations, conflict resolution and transitional justice.
The reason for selecting the two countries, South Africa and Colombia, for this analysis was not to make a formal comparison. Instead, their diversity was seen as essential in order to achieve knowledge from their particular histories. Both countries have experienced severe conflicts and sincere attempts at reconciliation. In each case, excessive violence has become normalised and incorporated into everyday life—but it has also been resisted and transformed.
In the case of Colombia, issues of gender and sexuality have been at the core of recent attempts for non-violent conflict resolution of one of the oldest armed conflicts in Latin America. Sexism and homophobia were pivotal in social mobilisations against a peace agreement between the Colombian government and Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia Ejercito del Pueblo (FARC EP), the main guerrilla movement, in 2016. The inclusion of a gender perspective in the peace agreement was seen by the opposition as expression of some ideologia de género (gender ideology) intended to erase gender differences, destroy the family and promote homosexuality in schools.
In the case of South Africa, the legacies of apartheid and the rights of its victims are still topics of constant debate. With the transition to democracy, new forms of gender and sexual violence appeared. South Africa was one of the first countries to implement protective legal measures for sexual orientation as a result of the transition to democracy. South Africa has been a point of reference for knowledge about reconciliation. Colombia has learnt from several international experiences of peace building, and is developing its own knowledge on the topic. Due to the implementation of transitional justice instruments in Colombia, there is a legal and political interest in documenting cases of homophobic violence and in the restitution of rights to their victims. Putting both cases together is also a way to contribute to those dialogues.
This book aims to produce knowledge that contributes to theory building and processes of advocacy. It provides new information, and offers a systematic analysis useful for NGOs and state institutions. The analysis that will be presented later has a particular focus on forms of activism, political organisation and social policies. That not only adds a fresh perspective to a topic usually approached via the denunciation of human rights abuses on individuals, but also becomes of benefit to grassroots organisations, practitioners and policy makers.
Methodologically, this book analyses problems of documentation, memory and case construction that are of relevance in the field of human rights and gender in post-conflict reconstruction. The methodology used, comparing in-depth case studies and combining archival research with interviews and fieldwork, offers an alternative for a topic often discussed from within one discipline, or within the context of a single country. The methodology will be of interest to practitioners looking to gather evidence on human rights abuses and to those writing reports on gender and sexual violence for policy activism.
Data for the in-depth case studies was mainly gathered through research in archives and databases, and through the personal narratives of participants who had experiences involving violence. Both methods of data collection required travelling to the respective countries. Fieldwork was conducted between October 2012 and May 2013. Travelling provided the opportunity to engage in many informal conversations and to witness events related to the particular histories and cultural contexts of both countries.
The book starts with a discussion of the ways anti-homosexual violence and political homophobia are normally conceptualised. This discussion leads not only to theoretical but also to ethical questions. Both are discussed in the same chapter to stress their interconnection, as part of an account on the politics of knowledge.
Chapters 3 and 4 present the case studies separated by country. Chapter 3 argues that anti-homosexual violence in Colombia contributes to the creation of an authoritarian and hierarchical gender and sexual order through the selective use of violence. Throughout the social conflict in Colombia, armed groups have imposed gender and sexual policies to control the lives of women and men in the areas in dispute. This kind of politics centres on socio-political violence that originated in the past and is reorganised under new economic and political projects. It has transformed itself over time, and has changed the daily lives of communities in both war and non-war zones. The case studies illustrate how gender and sexual violence are not a collateral damage from the conflict, but are at its core. The chapter develops a concept of “sexual para-politics,” to emphasise that the violence and its effects result from parallel systems of governance in dispute. These sexual para-politics continuously target travestis and impoverished homosexuals in contexts of socio-economic marginalisation.
Chapter 4 shows how sexuality, anti-homosexual violence and the apartheid regime were intrinsically connected in South Africa. Criminalisation of homosexuality was a key element of the sexual policies enforced by the apartheid regime. In a regime that was patriarchal, militaristic and based on rigid gender and sexual orders, it was impossible to leave homophobia out of the analysis. Apartheid deployed homophobia selectively, rationalised it to fit its interests, regulating sexualities and creating racialised positions of privilege and hierarchy, as well as the space for deviance. The chapter introduces a discussion of the concept of political homophobia, showing its limits for explaining women’s experiences of violence.
Chapters 5, 6, and 7 present different theoretical approaches to the topic of the book. Chapter 5 offers a framework for the analysis of anti-homosexual violence through the discussion of existing literature. It argues that current conceptualisations have been developed in a no-war context and with a direct relation to identity politics. The concept of “political homophobia” has been pivotal in connecting homophobia with political transitions and conflicts. There are, however, problems in the concept, especially its assumptions about purpose. Political homophobia is also a limited concept in understanding women’s experiences of gender and sexual violence.
Chapter 6 explores how homophobia is incorporated into mechanisms of truth telling and memory that characterise political transitions. State-sponsored mechanisms for truth-telling and activist memory work have been pivotal for documenting, denouncing and claiming justice for victims of homophobic violence. They also provide frameworks for what can and cannot be narrated. Other forms of truth-telling tend to be ignored or rendered invisible with such mechanisms. The chapter argues that the discussion regarding social change and justice in political transitions needs to go beyond legal changes and the granting of rights to individuals and groups defined by “sexual orientation” or “gender identity.”
Chapter 7 brings together the main arguments of the book. It calls for understanding political homophobia as a gendered strategy, in particular in its connection with the hegemonic masculinity that produces and reproduces wars and conflicts. Yet, such focus needs to be reviewed. From the struggles for dignity led by individuals and groups, the discussion moves away from the need to produce evidence and explanations to how violence becomes a subjective experience as well as reasons for collective articulation. From that shift, the quest for understanding violence moves from its normalisation as object of study to a reason for collective actions against injustice. The chapter also calls for approaches that take into account the interactions between violence, sexuality and armed conflicts in their historicity, instead of viewing them as isolated objects of study and intervention. In that way, the analytical and political value of these discussions remains relevant for social change.
The book finishes with an appendix that describes the techniques used for data collection and data analysis, as well as the methodological problems faced in this kind of research.
With the location of the topic of the book in the field of sexual politics, I hope to facilitate navigating through descriptions of events of violence and the analysis of political strategies. The question for the destructive and productive power of anti-homosexual violence will be a connecting thread throughout the book. That double power of violence will be used for the analysis of political homophobia in the reinforcement of old, and the emergence of new gender and sexual orders.