The volume brings together papers by African and Nordic/Scandinavian gender scholars and anthropologists, in attempts to investigate and critically discuss existing lines of thinking about sexuality in Africa, while at the same time creating space for alternative approaches.

Issues of colonial and contemporary discourses on 'African sexuality' and on 'female genital mutilation' are being discussed, as well as issues of female agency and of feminists' engagement with HIV/AIDS. The volume contributes to contemporary efforts of re-thinking sexualities in the light of feminist, queer and postcolonial theory.

Signe Arnfred is coordinator for the research programme "Sexuality, Gender and Society in Africa" at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden.