NGOs, and (anti)-LGBTI activism: insights from Ghana and the United Nations

Kwaku Adomako, member of the thematic group "Gender, Sexuality and Intersectionnality", will discuss how Ghanaian activists in transnational pro-and-anti-LGBTI advocacy networks compete to influence local political and legal dynamics.

In lockstep with events that transpired in Uganda in 2009, Ghana joined numerous countries in Africa after introducing anti-LGBTI legislation in its Parliament in 2021. Like Uganda in 2009, these legal developments followed an international conference held in 2019, in part by US-based Evangelical activists on the supposed “threat” that LGBTI organising posed to the so-called “traditional family.” Ghana then saw an intensification of political homophobia from 2021 until today. Despite impediments to passing the desired legislation to criminalize them, LGBTI activists assert that the ensemble of their opponents’ efforts had severely altered the political and social landscape of the country.

This talk discusses how Ghanaian activists in transnational pro-and-anti-LGBTI advocacy networks compete to influence local political and legal dynamics. The presentation explores how they make their social movements (as well as their corporeal ones) legible to their “Western” funders. It uses the New Yorker ballroom lexicon captured in Paris is Burning (and later on popularised by RuPaul’s Drag Race) to explain the work that activists do in rendering both senses of the word “movement” legitimised by international partners.

Kwaku Adomako puts observations in Ghana in dialogue with scholars who warn that these transnational networks risk reinforcing colonial legacies. These legacies previously positioned economically wealthy “Western” countries as purveyors of “civilisation.” Now we see colonial echoes as they are positioned as purveyors of “development,” “human rights,” and “pro-family” protections.

Bio of the speaker

Kwaku Adomako recently completed his PhD in social sciences at the University of Lausanne’s Centre for Gender Studies. He co-founded the Swiss Association of Gender Studies Research Network on Globalization, Race, and Alterity within and beyond the University (GRAU). While a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bern, he is studying the “social life of documents” as they shape the lives of transnational workers in the Swiss international and education sector while revealing the pitfalls of “diversity and inclusion.”

Practical information

Registration for online attendance is open until November 12. The registration link can be found below. 

For those attending in person, please confirm your attendance by emailing ides unil ch.