Remembering komfo Kwabena: ‘Motherhood’, Spirituality, and Queer Leadership in Ghana

Abstract

This article examines how members of a community of queer men in Ghana known as Saso people remember one of their important leaders, komfo Kwabena. Based on ethnographic research in a town in the Central Region, I show how in drawing upon local Ghanaian cultural resources, including traditional leadership roles, indigenous religious practices, socially sanctioned practices of gender non-conformity, and a local practice of sexual initiation, komfo Kwabena sought to develop Saso people and provide spaces for the affirmation of queer sexuality as he challenged post-colonial discourses that mark queer sexuality as exogenous to and incompatible with Ghanaian and African identity and cultural traditions. komfo Kwabena was referred to as the Nana Hemaa (queen mother) of this community, and he is remembered as someone who provided advice, guidance, and discipline, especially to those Saso people who he considered his ‘children’. The intellectual, emotional, and financial support he...