The U.S. Christian Right and Pro-Family Politics in 21st Century Africa

This book will address and uncover the role of US Christian Right ‘pro-family’ groups in mobilizing counter-movements against LGBTIQ+ human rights, reproductive justice, and sexuality education in Africa, and will intervene in the tendency to exceptionalize Africa as a ‘homophobic continent’ following the surge in homophobic and transphobic legislation, hate speech, and violence in recent years. The author employs the lens of decoloniality in an intersectional manner to unpack the multiple forms of hierarchy and oppression that the concept of the nuclear family has historically worked to naturalize in the interests of capitalism, Christo-normativity, and a world system dominated and controlled by the global north. Proceeding from the historical geopolitical context informing nuclear family idealization, the analysis then presents a critical discussion of contemporary pro-family discourses, showing that pro-family narratives that universalize and politicize the notion of ‘family’ are not only constituting agendas that erode LGBTIQ+ and reproductive justice, but reinforce an international order that privileges Euro-American interests despite pro-family claims that their agendas are anti-imperialist. This book will be of interest to scholars in gender, sexuality, and queer studies; postcolonial studies; and international relations. Haley McEwen is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg and a Research Associate of the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She completed her PhD in Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and has been conducting research on the USA and African pro-family movements for over a decade. Her research has been published in Critical Philosophy of Race, Critical African Studies, Development Southern Africa, Culture, Health & Sexuality, and Africa Today as well as in popular media outlets including The Conversation Africa and openDemocracy.