Queering love Sex, care, capital, and academic prejudices

This chapter deals with Stella Nyanzi’s call and queer the production of knowledge regarding sexuality in African societies by broadening the scope beyond sexual orientation and focus on the deviations and divergences that a sexual life course can take. It focuses on the role of money in relation to love and affection to tease out how “African contemporary realities suggest innovative analytical directions that are of global heuristic value for sexuality studies”. The area of global health has become one of the major drivers of research on sexuality in Africa and particularly through the extensive research on Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. The principle meaning of the economy of love therefore includes emotional qualities of love – how people are lovesick, desirous, and considerate – in other words, how desire, fondness, and sensations are interconnected with the material qualities of love – how people care and how this is expressed through capital.