Introduction to Special Issue: Sexuality and Generational Identities in Sub-Saharan Africa

But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.

--M. Proust, Swann's Way

Memories of the past are often embodied in everyday actions and things. Much as the narrator of Proust's novel poignantly reminisces about the past by way of the lime-flower tea prepared by a great-aunt, so older African women and men also remember the past by comparing it with the present. They note how things associated with the past--a particular article of clothing, a specially prepared meal--and former practices have changed. Alternately, young people may view their present in contrast to an imagined past. The papers in this special issue examine these particular perspectives on the past with respect to one aspect of everyday life, sexuality, focusing on people's comparisons of their own behavior with that of others--fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, grandparents, and grandchildren. The assumption that older people would see the past as preferable to the present is not always borne out, reflecting an appreciation of contemporary contingencies. At the same time, there are differences among younger generations in the ways that they discuss their choice of sex partners and spouses as well as in their decisions about childbearing and contraception, both in comparison with their parents' and grandparents' pasts and with what they envision for the future. These papers draw broadly on various aspects of sexuality, including partner choice, contraception, childbearing, and disease prevention in Guinea, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Throughout Africa, women and men, old and young are considering the relationship between modernity and sexuality, sometimes in contradictory ways. For example, some older women may view their own western education, acquired in the 1940s and 1950s, as unquestionably beneficial. They may say that it strengthened their domestic positions, through increased literacy skills, expanded employment options, and freedom in selecting a spouse. Yet they may assess young women's present access to education as a mixed blessing. In the past, young women's unchaperoned forays outside the home in order to attend school might have led them to risk the possibility of pregnancy and a dangerous abortion, or perhaps an early marriage. More recently, adolescent sexuality associated with school attendance may be related to an even greater danger from disease, particularly HIV-AIDS. While many older and younger African women and men may agree that the social acceptability of multiple sexual partners (particularly for men) and the economic necessity of multiple sexual partners (particularly for women) may explain the practice of what is perceived as risky behavior, few people are sure about how to change this situation. For older women, neither an unmitigated return to the "traditional," nor a wholehearted embrace of a "modern" way of life offers unambiguous answers for those who yearn to protect the younger generation from harm. The papers presented here use several methods to analyze these views of sexuality, including life histories, interviews, focus group discussions, materials from the popular press and media, and archival documents. They explore the ways that sexuality has been reinterpreted over time, as well as the implications of shifts in the moral authority of elders (reflecting changes in the political economy), relating these changes to the sexual behavior of young women and men. Finally, they consider how new constructions of sexuality are associated with changing gender relations.

While sexuality is discussed in all of the papers, it is important to note that the term sexuality is part of a larger configuration of various aspects of...