The U.S. pro-family movement and sexual politics in Africa

Abstract

This Doctoral dissertation (by publication) is based on a research project investigating the growing influence of the conservative U.S. based pro-family movement and the anti-gay and anti-feminist ‘family values’ agenda that the movement is working to advance in African contexts. Why this socalled ‘pro-family’ movement is promoting its agendas across the continent, and how the movement is mobilized through ideological work and network building, I argue, are questions that need to be addressed in order to understand rising levels of intolerance towards sexuality and gender diversity across the continent. I draw upon research into the mobilization of the pro-family movement in the United States since the 1960s, and its entry into international politics from the 1990s, discussing the ways in which pro-family ideology reproduces modern/colonial forms of power despite its current claim of being an ally to formerly colonized nations. In order to understand the impact of the activities and discourses of the pro-family movement in African contexts, this project engages with research and theory on sexuality, gender diversity, and intolerances towards these across the continent. A range of pro-family texts produced by U.S. and Africa based conservative activists are critically analyzed in relation to a theoretical framework informed by a critical theoretical framework shaped by critical diversity literacy, and takes a critical decolonial perspective on the modern/colonial construction of the nuclear family ideal. Analysis, which is reported in four academic articles, reveals the ideological work of the pro-family movement to articulate modern/colonial notions of ‘family values’ for African audiences. I conclude that the pro-family movement is working to (re)enforce a dominant lifecourse imaginary that centers the nuclear family. In doing so, they seek to normalize other relations of power and to reinforce the authority, and ultimately the geo-political dominance of, the West and U.S. in particular.