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The Gay Oral History Project in Zimbabwe: Black Empowerment, Human Rights, and the Research Process*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Marc Epprecht
Marc Epprecht*
Affiliation:
Trent University
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This paper discusses an attempt to apply historical research directly to the development of a culture of human rights and democracy in Zimbabwe. The research concerns sensitive and controversial issues around sexuality, race, and nationalism that are important in and of themselves. What I would like to argue here, however, is that the method used to design and carry out the research project is at least as interesting. This holds true from the point of view of both professional historians like myself and community activists—two perspectives that are often difficult to reconcile in practice. In this project, “ivory tower” and “grassroots” are brought together in a mutually enriching relationship that offers an alternative model to the methods that currently predominate in the production of historical knowledge in southern Africa.

Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) is a non-government organization that was founded in 1990. It provides counseling, legal and other support services to men and women struggling with issues of sexuality. It also strives to promote a politics in Zimbabwe that would embrace sexual orientation as a human right. Toward the latter goal it has lobbied government for changes to current laws that discriminate against homosexuals and which expose gay men and women to extortion (so far, in vain). With somewhat more success, it has lobbied the police directly to raise awareness of the extortion issue. GALZ also publishes pamphlets, a newsletter, and other information designed to educate Zimbabweans in general about homosexuality and homophobia. Through these efforts it seeks to challenge popular stereotypes of homosexuals as Westernized perverts who spread diseases and corrupt children. One recent publication included detailed historical research that showed how homosexual practices—including loving and mutual homosexual relationships—have been indigenous to the country throughout recorded history, and probably from time immemorial.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 26 , January 1999 , pp. 25 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1999

Footnotes

*

I gratefully acknowledge financial assistance in preparing this paper from the South-South Exchange Programme for Research in the History of Development (SEPHIS), the University of Zimbabwe (UZ), and Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ).

References

1 Epprecht, Marc, “Homosexual ‘Crime’ in Early Colonial Zimbabwe,” The Avid Queer Reader (January 1998), 22–24Google Scholar, an extended academic version of which is published as “‘Good God Almighty, What's This!: Homosexual ‘Crime’ In Early Colonial Zimbabwe” in Murray, Stephen O. and Roscoe, Will, eds. Boy Wives And Female Husbands: Studies In African Homosexualities (New York, 1998).Google Scholar See also idem., “The 1907 Commission of Enquiry into “Unnatural Vice' in South Africa,” Galzetle (Winter 1998), 4-5 as well as GALZ, Sahwira: Being Gay And Lesbian In Zimbabwe (Harare, 1995).Google Scholar

2 As I have noted elsewhere, I use racial and ethnic designations as they are found in common parlance in polite society in Zimbabwe, but without accepting any of their essentialist implications. The same precaution applies to gays, queers, queens, straights, and so on, who may or may not be quite what the labels proclaim but who exist in the discourse of the gay community I intend to respect. This, and what follows, reflect my understanding of events as an individual GALZ member, and is not an official view. Comments or queries may be directed to GALZ, Private Bag A6131, Avondale, Harare, Zimbabwe.

3 GALZ, “Outreach Programme,” unpublished document, July 1997.Google Scholar

4 Francis, , Gazette, 1/3 (September 1997), 2.Google Scholar

5 SEPHIS, based at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam.

6 See Journal of Southern African History 23/2 (June 1997)Google Scholar, for a stark illustration of this tendency.

7 Personal communication with founder/editor Carole Pearce, 15 October 1998.

8 Note that some outstanding scholarship swims determinedly against the tendencies I have described: Barnes, T. and Win, E., To Live a Better Life (Harare, 1992)Google Scholar, and Raftopoulus, B. and Phimister, I., Keep on Knocking (Harare, 1997)Google Scholar come immediately to mind, as well as the journalism of Iden Wethereil at The Zimbabwean Independent or Patricia McFadden at SAPEM. See also the “Rethinking Nationalism” seminar series launched in February 1998 by the Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies (and introduced by Professor Bhebe, whence I drew my paraphrase above). This series promises to take up some of the intentions of an earlier frustrated attempt to organize a national, politically-engaged cadre of historians and history teachers (viz., the Zimbabwe Historical Association, born and apparently deceased after a single newsletter in 1996).

9 This is an argument I put forward in Epprecht, Marc, “The ‘Unsaying’ of Indigenous Homosexualities in Zimbabwe: Mapping a Blindspot in an African Masculinity,” Journal of Southern African Studies 24(1998), 631–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also cogently argued by Amory, Deborah P., “‘Homosexuality’ In Africa: Issues And Debates,” Issue 25/1(1997), 5–10.Google Scholar Among the most succinct and accessible explications of queer theory are Blumenfeld, Warren J., ed., Homophobia: How We All Pay The Price (Boston, 1992)Google Scholar, and Hennessy, Rosemary, “Incorporating Queer Theory On The Left” in Callari, Antonio, Cullenberg, Stephen, and Biewener, Carole, ed., Marxism In The Postmodern Age: Confronting The New World Order (New York, 1995) pp. 266–75.Google Scholar On method see also Geiger, Susan, “What's So Feminist About Doing Women's Oral History?” Journal of Women's History 2(1990): 305–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stringer, Ernest T., Action Research: A Handbook for Practioners (Thousand Oaks CA, 1996)Google Scholar; and Wolf, Diane L., ed., Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork (Boulder, 1996).Google Scholar

10 “From Ian Phimister,” Zimbabwean Review 3/4(Oct. 1997), 31.Google Scholar

11 For the record, informants were to be given ZW$50 and interviewers ZW$100 for each completed interview (at the time, approximately US$2.80 and $5.60 respectively). The project coordinator would earn ZW$800 month (US $44.80). From a separate budget GALZ agreed to “hire” me as chief researcher for ZW$1000 per month plus an economy class one-way air fare from Harare to Toronto, my base after leaving the UZ in May 1998. By comparison, local researchers typically earn ZWS100-300 per day, and foreign consultants for non-government organizations from US$100 to 500 per day.

12 Ms. Dzobo lived with her husband, a high school teacher, in the resettlement village where my partner Allison Goebel had been conducting her own research. “Mai Simba” had extended many generous welcomes to Goebel and had insinuated herself into the research projects. Not only did she positively enjoy the work, but was so good with her informants that word of mouth quickly spread. Widows, in particular, came from miles around to tell her their stories. Who can say what cathartic or other effects this had for the women, but it certainly appeared to fit with the empowering model of research. It was on that basis that I offered Ms. Dzobo the chance to seek out local men and women with homosexual encounters in their past. Her tact in doing so and then in asking the boldest of questions made her interviews among the richest of all the researchers on the project. She plans to use her earnings to invest in an income-generating project.

13 Interview with Rodgers Bande by Marc Epprecht, Harare, 20 July 1998.