Knowing Women
Same-Sex Intimacy, Gender, and Identity in Postcolonial Ghana

A study of same-sex passion, desire, and intimacy among working-class women who love women in West Africa.

Serena Owusua Dankwa (Author)

9781108495905, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 January 2021

320 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.3 cm, 0.62 kg

'This remarkable book deserves a wide audience … Theoretically subtle and accessible and beautifully written … Highly recommended.' C. Higgs, Choice Magazine

Knowing Women is a study of same-sex desire in West Africa, which explores the lives and friendships of working-class women in southern Ghana who are intimately involved with each other. Based on in-depth research of the life histories of women in the region, Serena O. Dankwa highlights the vibrancy of everyday same-sex intimacies that have not been captured in a globally pervasive language of sexual identity. Paying close attention to the women's practices of self-reference, Dankwa refers to them as 'knowing women' in a way that both distinguishes them from, and relates them to categories such as lesbian or supi, a Ghanaian term for female friend. In doing so, this study is not only a significant contribution to the field of global queer studies in which both women and Africa have been underrepresented, but a starting point to further theorize the relation between gender, kinship, and sexuality that is key to queer, feminist, and postcolonial theories. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Prologue: arrival stories
Introduction: freeing our imaginations
1. Tacit erotic intimacies and the politics of indirection
2. Supi, secrecy, and the gift of knowing
3. 'The one who first says 'I love you'': ?baa barima, gender, and erotic subjectivity
4. Sugar motherhood and the collectivization of love
5. 'Doing everything together': siblinghood, lovership, incest, family
Conclusion a fabric that never goes out of fashion
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Family & relationships [VFV], Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Gender studies, gender groups [JFSJ], Feminism & feminist theory [JFFK], Erotic confessions & true stories [BTX]