Importance Of Media Profiling Of The LGBT Community In Africa By Ashley Currier

Africa has been publically battling human rights violations and homophobia, both political and culturally, targeted at the LGBT community in Africa. This battle has gained worldwide media coverage and garnered support to help fight confront the contention and contempt felt through the community. In Africa under the apartheid homosexual acts were punishable by death and years within prison. Black lesbians were under a constant threat of being raped and activists were injured and even murdered; as was the case with David Kato. Heightened media coverage allowed for some assistance to spill into Africa organizations, nonetheless it did not always help the situation, as discussed by Ashley Currier discusses the strategies used by local organizations and the social movements they …show more content…
She explores the fundamentals and inner working of the LGBT movement and the organizations behind it, as they work towards progression through social and political change within the local environments. Her focus is particularly on several of the LGBT organizations in South Africa and Namibia as they navigate through their decisive actions to maintain visibility within the community or retreat into invisibility as they come into contact with a variety of political, social, and cultural situations, as well as working to undue the notion that homosexuality was un-African. In looking into the various organizations and their strategic decisions and the reasoning behind those decisions, Currier shows us that “activists’ quest for (in)visibility cuts across different elements of social movements, including resources, emotions, frames, collective identities, tactics, and strategies…” while “recognizing the visibility and invisibility as movements qualities have enabled scholars to unearth and understand other social movement processes” (Currier, pg.