Somewhere over the rainbow nation: gay, lesbian and bisexual activism in South Africa - Ryan Richard Thoreson

This study addresses the apparent paradox that South Africa's gay, lesbian and bisexual (GLB) movement, although opposed by the vast majority of the population, has progressed much faster since democratisation in 1994 than other GLB movements worldwide. Why have the movement's legal victories - especially on same-sex marriage, which is little-discussed in the scholarly literature - not been overturned by a hostile public? My answer considers the political alignments of the post-apartheid era, the tactical responses of the movement and its opponents, and the attempts of both sides to site their arguements within the broader masterframes of liberation of tradition. The GLB movement has succeeded because stable political alignments allow it to concentrate on lobbying and litigation, where it has compellingly argues that its own agenda dovetails with that of the ruling elite. The countermovement, in contrast, has focused on electoral politics, has lacked internal cohesion, and has been unable to craft a message that resonates with the beliefs and values of post-apartheid nationalism - weaknesses that to date have impeded popular opposition from interfering with the GLB movement's legal victories and that are likely to continue doing so unless elite alignments change.
From: Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 34 no. 3 (2008)

Journal of Southern African Studies - September 2008

• ‘The Story in which the Children are Sent to Throw the Sleeping Sun into the Sky’: Power, Identity and Difference in a /Xam Narrative - Michael Wessels
• Costly Mythologies: The Concentration Camps of the South African War in Afrikaner Historiography* - Elizabeth Van Heyningen
• The Carnegie Commission and the Backlash against Welfare State-Building in South Africa, 1931–1937 - Jeremy Seekings
• Memories as Weapons: The Politics of Peace and Silence in Post-Civil War Mozambique - Victor Igreja
• The ‘Intimate Politics’ of Fieldwork: Monica Hunter and her African Assistants, Pondoland and the Eastern Cape, 1931–1932 * - Andrew Bank
• ‘A South African Revolutionary, but a Lady of the British Empire’: Helen Joseph and the Anti-Apartheid Movement - Barbara Caine
• The Hole in Rhodesia's Bucket: White Emigration and the End of Settler Rule* - Josiah Brownell
• ‘With Hard Work and Determination You Can Make it Here’: Narratives of Identity among German Immigrants in Post-Colonial Namibia* - Heidi Armbruster
• Urban Violence in Colonial Africa: A Case for South African Exceptionalism - Gary Kynoch
• ‘Absent Breadwinners’: Father–Child Connections and Paternal Support in Rural South Africa - Sangeetha Madhavan; Nicholas W. Townsend; Anita I. Garey
• African Independent Churches in Post-Apartheid South Africa: New Political Interpretations* - Barbara Bompani
• Somewhere over the Rainbow Nation: Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Activism in South Africa - Ryan Richard Thoreson
• The Politics of Black Economic Empowerment in South Africa - Roger Tangri; Roger Southall
• The Cold War and the End of White Supremacy in Southern Africa - Zachary Kagan-Guthrie

Review of African Political Economy - No. 117 (2008)

• Scrambling to the bottom? Mining, resources and underdevelopment - Ray Bush
• Regulation and legitimacy in the mining industry in Africa: where does Canada stand? - Bonnie Campbell
• Liberalisation of the gold mining sector in Burkina Faso - Sabine Luning
• Copper mining agreements in Zambia: renegotiation or law reform? - John Lungu
• Enter the dragon? Chinese oil companies and resistance in the Niger Delta - Cyril I Obi
• Oil, sovereignty and self-determination: equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara - Alicia Campos
• Uranium goes critical in Niger: Tuareg rebellions threaten Sahelian conflagration - Jeremy Keenan
• Mining investment and community struggles - Daniel Owusu-Koranteng
• Hope and oil: expectations in Sao Tome e Principe - Gisa Weszkalnys
• Copper and controversy in the DR Congo - Henry Kippin
• The Zimbabwe arms shipment campaign - Miles Larmer
• Child poverty in Africa - Meredeth Turshen
• Memories of Ruth First in Mozambique - Joao Paulo Borges Coelho
  

Armed Forces and Society - October 2008

Special issue: Sociology at military academies around the Globe

• Sociology in military officer education - David R Segal and Morten G Ender
• Teaching sociology at Sain-Cyr; 1983-2004 and beyond: a personal account - Bernard Boene
• Van Doorn and beyond: from teaching sociology to interdisciplinary, problem-based learning in Dutch officer training - Rene Moelker and Joseph Soeters
• Sociology at West Point - Morten G Ender, Ryan Kelty and Irving Smith
• Sociology in the Canadian military academy curriculum - Franklin C Pinch and Eric Ouellet
• Sociology at military academies: the Swedish case - Erna Danielsson and Alise Weibull
• The enigmatic history of sociology at the United States Naval Academy - Stephen C Trainor, Donald H Horner Jr and David R Segal
• The expanding role of sociology at Japan National Defense Academy: from none to some and more? - Hitoshi Kawano
• Officer education at the South African Military Academy: social science but no sociology - Lindy Heinecken and Deon Visser
• Teaching sociology in military educational institutions of Russia - Igor V Obraztsov
• In search of modernity and reationality: the evolution of Turkish Military Academy curricula in a historical perspective - Mesut Uyar and A Kadir Varoglu
  

Monthly Review - July/August 2008

• Ecology: the moment of truth - an introduction - John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark and Richard York
• Peak oil and energy imperialism - John Bellamy Foster
• The political economy and ecology of biofuels - Fred Magdoff
• Climate change, limits to growth, and the imperative for socialism - Minqi Li
• The scientific case for modern anthropogenic global warming - John W Farley
• The Oceanic crisis: capitalism and the degradation of marine ecosystems - Brett Clark and Rebecca Clausen
• Framing India's hydraulic crisis: the politics of the modern large dam - Rohan D'Souza
• Blue covenant - the alternative water source - Maude Barlow