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Understanding Same-Sex Marriage Debates in Malawi and South Africa

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Global Perspectives on Same-Sex Marriage

Part of the book series: Global Queer Politics ((GQP))

Abstract

Using a discursive institutionalist approach, we examine the connection between discourses about same-sex sexualities and institutional outcomes around same-sex marriage in Malawi and South Africa. Beginning in the mid-2000s, politicians in Malawi began politicizing and deriding same-sex sexualities, but in South Africa, lawmakers, at the request of the judiciary, investigated legalizing same-sex marriage. Most Malawian political elites regard same-sex marriage negatively, but many South African political elites and activists favorably view same-sex marriage as a right in this postapartheid nation. In Malawi, elites’ “discursive anxiety” about same-sex marriage in the country conflated same-sex marriage with any lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) rights campaign. In South Africa, LGBTI activists strategically framed marriage in terms of human rights to satisfy Constitutional Court judges of its importance in building South Africa’s nascent democracy.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    Ashley Currier

  2. University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

    Julie Moreau

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  1. Ashley Currier
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  2. Julie Moreau
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. European Studies, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Bronwyn Winter

  2. Sciences Po - OFCE, Center for Political Research CEVIPOF, Paris, France

    Maxime Forest

  3. Sciences Po - CNRS, Center for Political Research CEVIPOF, Paris, France

    Réjane Sénac

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Currier, A., Moreau, J. (2018). Understanding Same-Sex Marriage Debates in Malawi and South Africa. In: Winter, B., Forest, M., Sénac, R. (eds) Global Perspectives on Same-Sex Marriage. Global Queer Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62764-9_5

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