Zethu Matebeni

Last updated

Zethu Matebeni
Born1 May 1978
NationalitySouth African
EducationWits Institute for Social & Economic Research (WISER)
Occupation(s)Academic and Activist

Zethu Matebeni is a sociologist, activist, writer, documentary film maker, Professor and South Africa Research Chair in Sexualities, Genders and Queer Studies at the University of Fort Hare. She has held positions at the University of the Western Cape and has been senior researcher at the Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA) at UCT. [1] She has been a visiting Professor Yale University and has received a number of research fellowships including those from African Humanities Program, Ford Foundation, the Fogarty International Centre and the National Research Foundation. [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Matebeni was born on May 1, 1978, in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. She studied Sociology at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and completed her Master of Arts in Sociology at the University of Pretoria [2] and an interdisciplinary Phd [3] completed at the Witwatersrand Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER) at University of the Witwatersrand. Her published doctoral project is entitled Black Lesbian Sexualities and Identity in South Africa. [4]

Activist work

Zethu has been involved in LGBTQ activism since the early 1990s. Having been part of Uthingo Womyn's Group (one of the few lesbian feminist collectives in South Africa) and later part of Free Gender, a black lesbian organisation in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. Within the academic space she has been involved with the #RhodesMustFall movement at the University of Cape Town as well as one of the founding members of the Black Academic Caucus at the same institution. Her films and curated works including Jo'burg TRACKS: Sexuality in the City, and a book project Reclaiming Afrikan: queer perspectives on sexual and gender identities similarly engage with LGBT activism. Her first co-production Breaking Out of the Box: Stories of black lesbians (2011) has been shown both within South Africa and abroad. Her work with documentary films also includes writing the short film Rise. [3]

Academic work and publications

She has published on queer issues, sexuality, gender, race, HIV and AIDS, African film, cinema and photography. She is an active member of the Black Academic Caucus through which she published a few thought pieces, some of which are listed below.

Books

Book chapters

Journal articles

Other writing

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

Queer studies, sexual diversity studies, or LGBT studies is the study of topics relating to sexual orientation and gender identity usually focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender dysphoric, asexual, queer, questioning, and intersex people and cultures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biphobia</span> Aversion to bisexual people

Biphobia is aversion toward bisexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being bisexual. Similarly to homophobia, it refers to hatred and prejudice specifically against those identified or perceived as being in the bisexual community. It can take the form of denial that bisexuality is a genuine sexual orientation, or of negative stereotypes about people who are bisexual. Other forms of biphobia include bisexual erasure.

Sheila Jeffreys is a former professor of political science at the University of Melbourne, born in England. A lesbian feminist scholar, she analyses the history and politics of human sexuality.

Feminist sexology is an offshoot of traditional studies of sexology that focuses on the intersectionality of sex and gender in relation to the sexual lives of women. Sexology has a basis in psychoanalysis, specifically Freudian theory, which played a big role in early sexology. This reactionary field of feminist sexology seeks to be inclusive of experiences of sexuality and break down the problematic ideas that have been expressed by sexology in the past. Feminist sexology shares many principles with the overarching field of sexology; in particular, it does not try to prescribe a certain path or "normality" for women's sexuality, but only observe and note the different and varied ways in which women express their sexuality. It is a young field, but one that is growing rapidly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lesbophobia</span> Irrational fear of, and aversion to, lesbians

Lesbophobia comprises various forms of prejudice and negativity towards lesbians as individuals, as couples, as a social group, or lesbianism in general. Based on the categories of sex, sexual orientation, identity, and gender expression, this negativity encompasses prejudice, discrimination, hatred, and abuse; with attitudes and feelings ranging from disdain to hostility. Lesbophobia is misogyny that intersects with homophobia, and vice versa. It is analogous to gayphobia.

Corrective rape, also called curative rape or homophobic rape, is a hate crime in which somebody is raped because of their perceived sexual orientation. The common intended consequence of the rape, as claimed by the perpetrator, is to turn the person heterosexual.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jiz Lee</span> American pornographic performer

Jiz Lee is an American pornographic performer, considered a major star of queer porn. Lee is an advocate for the ethical production and consumption of pornography and for the labor rights and sexual autonomy of adult entertainment performers.

Amber L. Hollibaugh was an American writer, filmmaker, activist and organizer concerned with working class, lesbian and feminist politics, especially around sexuality. She was a former Executive Director of Queers for Economic Justice and was Senior Activist Fellow Emerita at the Barnard Center for Research on Women. Hollibaugh proudly identified as a "lesbian sex radical, ex-hooker, incest survivor, gypsy child, poor-white-trash, high femme dyke."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African Gender Institute</span>

The African Gender Institute (AGI) is a feminist research and teaching group that studies issues related to gender in Africa. It has become a department at the University of Cape Town (UCT), administered within the School of African and Gender Studies, Social Anthropology and Linguistics. The AGI has its own staff and has a unique degree of independence from UCT.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of LGBT topics</span> Overview of and topical guide to LGBT topics

The following outline offers an overview and guide to LGBT topics.

Homophobia in ethnic minority communities is any negative prejudice or form of discrimination in ethnic minority communities in the UK and USA towards people who identify as–or are perceived as being–lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT), known as homophobia. This may be expressed as antipathy, contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred, irrational fear, and is sometimes related to religious beliefs. A 2006 study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in the UK found that while religion can have a positive function in many LGB Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) communities, it can also play a role in supporting homophobia.

In 2004, Jane Bennett co-edited Jacketed Women: Qualitative Research Methodologies on Sexualities and Gender in Africa with Charmaine Pereira. Bennett has a BA from the University of Natal, MPhil and EdD from Columbia University. She has an academic background in linguistics, literature, sociology, and feminist theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wei Tingting</span> Chinese LGBT rights activist

Wei Tingting is a Chinese LGBTI+ and feminist activist, writer and documentary filmmaker. She is one of the Feminist Five.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African-American LGBT community</span> African-American population within the LGBT community

The African-American LGBT community, otherwise referred to as the Black American LGBT community, is part of the overall LGBT culture and overall African-American culture. The initialism LGBT stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beverley Palesa Ditsie</span> South African activist

Beverley Palesa Ditsie is a South African lesbian activist, artist, and filmmaker. Ditsie is one of the founders of the gay rights organization Gay and Lesbian Organization of Witwatersrand.

Homosexuality

Floretta Avril Boonzaier is a South African psychologist and Professor of Psychology at the University of Cape Town. She is noted for her work in feminist, critical and postcolonial psychologies, subjectivity in relation to race, gender and sexuality, and gender-based violence, and qualitative psychologies, especially narrative, discursive and participatory methods. She heads the Hub for Decolonial Feminist Psychologies in Africa with Shose Kessi.

Jabulani Chen Pereira is a queer South African activist and visual artist.

Taghmeda Achmat, commonly known as Midi Achmat, is one of South Africa's most well known lesbian activists. Achmat co-founded the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) with her partner and fellow activist Theresa Raizenberg on 10 December 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pumla Dineo Gqola</span> South African academic and gender activist (born 1972)

Pumla Dineo Gqola is a South African academic, writer, and gender activist, best known for her 2015 book Rape: A South African Nightmare, which won the 2016 Alan Paton Award. She is a professor of literature at Nelson Mandela University, where she holds the South African Research Chair in African Feminist Imaginations.

References

  1. "HSRC". www.hsrc.ac.za. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  2. 1 2 "Zethu Matebeni". Open Book Festival. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  3. 1 2 "Staff". huma.co.za. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  4. "Black Lesbian Sexualities and Identity in South Africa". Alibris UK. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  5. Zethu, Matabeni (25 October 2014). Reclaiming Afrikan: Queer Perspectives on Sexual and Gender Indentities. Modjaji Books. ISBN   9781920590499.
  6. Matebeni, Zethu. "Rape? Looks more like genocide". The M&G Online. Retrieved 28 January 2016.