Serena Owusua Dankwa's remarkable book Knowing Women: Same-Sex Intimacy, Gender, and Identity in Postcolonial Ghana offers a refreshing perspective on the representation of same-sex intimacy in Africa. In her book, the author sets out to examine the complex ways in which women who are engaged in same-sex relationships (“knowing women,” in Dankwa's words) “appeal to same-sex passion and intimacy as a knowledge that is acquired through practice and invigorated by passing it on.”1 Dankwa shuns putting sexuality at the center of her analysis, instead emphasizing how the relations between “knowing women” are embedded in complex dynamics involving love, power, friendship, and the erotic.
Over the last two decades, scholars from various disciplines have begun to throw into relief the issue of same-sex intimacy on the African continent. However, many of these scholarly contributions focus on humanitarian and global health issues, and almost none, at least in/on West Africa, on...
