Dr. Stella Nyanzi

Gastwissenschaftlerin IfM, Philipp Schwarz Bridge Fellow

Raum + Kontakt
Raum: GB 1/37

Vita

  • 01/2022 – 01/2025 Stipendiatin: Writers-in-Exile program, PEN Zentrum Deutschland.
  • 01/2011 – 02/2017 Research fellow: Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR), Makerere University.
  • 03/2011 – 02/2012 Researcher: Human Rights and Peace Centre (HURIPEC), Faculty of Law, Makerere University.
  • 02/2009 – 12/2011 Research Assistant: Law, Gender and Sexuality Research Project, Faculty of Law, Makerere University.
  • 10/2003 – 03/2008 Doctoral Research Student: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
  • 11/2002 – 10/2003 Anthropologist: Medical Research Council Laboratories, The Gambia.
  • 09/2000 – 09/2002 Social Science Research Associate: Medical Research Council/ Uganda Virus Research Institute.
  • 06/1997 – 09/2000 Social Science Research Assistant: Medical Research Council/ Uganda Virus Research Institute.
  • 01/1997 – 06/1997 Data entry clerk: Medical Research Council/ Uganda Virus Research Institute.

Research Focus Areas

  • Sexuality and Gender in Africa
  • LGBTQ+ Rights
  • Political Dissent and Activism
  • Feminist Anthropology
  • Health and Society

Current Projects

  • 2025 – 2027 – Entrenching Heteronorm

Publications

Poetry collections

  • Nyanzi S. (2025) Im Mundexil: Gedichte, Heidelberg: Verlag das AfrikAWunderhorn.
  • Nyanzi S. (2025) Exiled for My Mouth: Poems from Across Borders, Kampala: Kisana Publications.
  • Nyanzi S. (2022) Eulogies of My Mouth: Poems for A Poisoned Uganda, Kampala: Kisana Publications.
  • Nyanzi S. (2021) Don’t Come in My Mouth: Poems That Rattled Uganda, Kampala: Kisana Consults.
  • Nyanzi S. (2020) No Roses from My Mouth: Poems from Prison, Kampala: Ubuntu Reading Group.

Peer reviewed journal articles

  • Nyanzi S., Newman A. (2024) ‘Knowledge production as feminist resistance,’ Anthropology and Development, 55:103-122.
  • Nyanzi S. (2023) ‘State-led homophobia threatens academic freedom in Africa,’ Nature Human Behaviour, 7(12):2046-2047.
  • Nyanzi S. (2023) ‘Balancing an unequal partnership for studying Ugandan queer refugees’ appropriation of bible stories,’ African Journal of Gender and Religion, 28(2):69-78.
  • Nyanzi S. (2023) ‘When students read my poems,’ Pulsations, 3:119-127.
  • Nyanzi S. (2023) ‘Phantasmagoria: On birthing oneself as an academic-artist-activist-agitator,’ Pulsations, 3:106-118.
  • Nyanzi S. (2023) ‘Shared deployment of cultural dissidence in political struggles,’ Race Today, Special Issue: 136-141.
  • Kahyana D., Nyanzi S. (2023) ‘When the old fox walks the tight rope,’ Index on Censorship, 52(2):44-45.
  • Nyanzi S. (2021) ‘Democracy unlimited: Power to the poets,’ Imbiza Journal for African Writing, 1(3):08-12.
  • Fatima S., Dotson K., Seodu Herr R., Khader S. J., Nyanzi S. (2017) ‘Contested terrains of Women of Color and Third World Women,’ Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 32(3): 731-742.
  • Nyanzi S., Karamagi A. (2015) ‘The social-political dynamics of anti-homosexuality legislation in Uganda’, Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, 29(1): 24-38.
  • Nyanzi S. (2014) ‘Queer Pride and Protest: A Reading of the Bodies at Uganda’s First Gay Beach Pride’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 40(1): 36-40.
  • Nyanzi S. (2013) ‘Homosexuality, sex work, and HIV/AIDS in displacement and post-conflict settings: The case of refugees in Uganda’, International Peacekeeping, 20(4):450-468.
  • Nyanzi S. (2013) ‘Dismantling reified African culture through localized homosexualities in Uganda’, Culture, Health and Sexuality, 15(8):952-967.
  • Nyanzi S. (2011) ‘Ambivalence surrounding elderly widows’ sexuality in urban Uganda’, Ageing International, 36(3): 378-400.
  • Waiswa P., Nyanzi S., Namusoko-Kalungi S., Peterson S., Tomson G., Pariyo G.W. (2010) ‘”I never thought that this baby would live; I thought it would die any time”: perceptions and care for preterm babies in eastern Uganda’, Tropical Medicine and International Health, 15(10): 1140-1147.
  • Nyanzi S. (2009) ‘Widowed Mama-Grannies buffering HIV/AIDS-affected households in a city slum of Kampala, Uganda’, Gender and Development, 17(3): 467-479.
  • Nyanzi S., Nyanzi-Wakholi B., Kalina B. (2009) ‘Male promiscuity: the negotiation of masculinities by motorbike taxi-riders in Masaka, Uganda’, Men and Masculinities, 12(1): 73-89.
  • Nyanzi S., Emodu-Walakira M., Serwaniko W. (2009) ‘The widow, the will, and widow-inheritance in Kampala: revisiting victimization arguments’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 43(1): 12-33.
  • Nyanzi S., Kayizzi V., Nassimbwa J., Kabanda S. (2008) ‘”African sex is dangerous!” Renegotiating ‘ritual sex’ in contemporary Masaka district’, Africa, 78(4): 518-538. Reprinted in Sylvia Tamale (Ed.) African sexualities: A reader (2011). Oxford: Fahamu Books and Pambazuka Press.
  • Nyanzi S., Manneh H., Walraven G. (2007) ‘Traditional birth attendants in rural Gambia: beyond health to social cohesion’, African Journal of Reproductive Health, 11(1): 43-56.
  • Nyanzi S., Bah O., Joof S., Walraven G. (2007) ‘Ethnography and PRA among Gambian traditional birth attendants: a methods discussion’, Qualitative Research, 7(3): 317-326.
  • Nyanzi S. (2006) ‘From minuscule biomedical models to sexuality’s depths’, The Lancet, 368(9550): 1851-1852. Reprinted in Sylvia Tamale (Ed.) African sexualities: A reader (2011). Oxford: Fahamu Books and Pambazuka Press.
  • Nyanzi S. (2006) ‘“Better a dead child than a dry womb!” Reproduction and HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa’, Gender and Behaviour, 4(1): 610-624.
  • Nyanzi S., Rosenberg-Jallow O., Bah O., Nyanzi S. (2005) ‘Bumsters, big black organs and old white gold: embodied racial myths in sexual relationships of Gambian beach boys’, Culture, Health and Sexuality, 7(6): 557-569.
  • Nyanzi S., Nyanzi B., Kalina B. (2005) ‘“Abortion? That’s for women!”
  • Narratives and experiences of commercial motorbike riders in south western Uganda’, African Journal of Reproductive Health, 9(1): 142-161.
  • Nyanzi S., Nyanzi B., Kalina B. (2005) ‘Contemporary myths, sexuality misconceptions, information sources and risk perceptions of bodaboda men in southwest Uganda’, Sex Roles – A Journal of Research, 52(1-2): 111-119.
  • Nyanzi B., Nyanzi S., Wolff B., Whitworth J. (2005) ‘Money, men and markets: economic and sexual empowerment of market women in southwestern Uganda’, Culture, Health and Sexuality, 7(1): 13-26.
  • Gysels M., Pool R., Nyanzi S. (2005) ‘The adventures of the Randy Professor and Angela the Sugar Mummy: sex in fictional series in Ugandan popular magazines’, AIDS Care, 17(8): 967-977.
  • Nyanzi S., Nyanzi B., Kalina B., Pool R. (2004) ‘Mobility, sexual networks and exchange dynamics of Bodaboda men in southwestern Uganda’, Culture, Health and Sexuality 2004, 6(3): 239-254. Reprinted in Richard Parker and Peter Aggleton (Eds.) Culture, Society and Sexuality: A Reader (2007). London: University College of London Press.
  • Nyanzi S. (2003) ‘The role of faith healing in an HIV high-risk area: a case study of Balokole churches in Masaka district, Uganda’ Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa Bulletin, Special Issue, (2-4): 89-91.
  • Nyanzi S., Pool R., Kinsman J. (2001) ‘Negotiation of sexual relationships among school-going adolescents’, AIDS Care, 13(1):83-98.
  • Pool R., Nyanzi S., Whitworth J. (2001) ‘Attitudes to voluntary counselling and testing for HIV among pregnant women in rural south west Uganda’, AIDS Care, 13(5):605-615.
  • Pool R., Nyanzi S., Whitworth J. (2001) ‘Breast feeding practices and attitudes relevant to the vertical transmission of HIV in rural south-west Uganda’, Annals of Tropical Paediatrics, 21(2):119-125.
  • Green G., Pool R., Harrison S., Hart G.J., Wilkinson J., Nyanzi S., Whitworth J. (2001) ‘Female control of sexuality: illusion or reality?
  • Use of vaginal products in south western Uganda’, Social Science and Medicine, 52(4):585-598.
  • Kinsman J., Nyanzi S., Pool R. (2000) ‘Socializing influences and the value of sex: the experience of schoolgirls in rural Masaka, Uganda’, Culture, Health and Sexuality, 2(2):151-166.
  • Pool R., Hart G., Green G., Harrison S., Nyanzi S., Whitworth J. (2000) ‘Men’s attitudes to condoms and female controlled means of protection against HIV and STDs in south-western Uganda’, Culture, Health and Sexuality, 2(2):197-212.
  • Hart G.J., Pool R., Green G., Harrison S., Nyanzi S., Whitworth J.A. (1999) ‘Women’s attitudes to condoms and female-controlled means of protection against HIV and STDs in south western Uganda’, AIDS Care, 11(6): 83-98.

Chapters in books

  • Nyanzi S. (2024) ‘Persecuted for poetry, peaceful protests and public nudity: Autoethnography of a Ugandan exiled ex-convict,’ In Anna di Ronco and Rossella Selmini (Eds.) Criminalisation of Dissent in Times of Crisis, Cham: Springer Nature, Pp 461-485.
  • Amirali A., Grinspan M.C., Gill-Peterson J., Nyanzi S., McEwen H. (2024) ‘Troubling Anti-gender Attacks: Transnational Activist and Academic Perspectives’, In Aiko Holvikivi, Billy Holzberg, Tomas Ojeda (Eds.), Transnational Anti-Gender Politics: Feminist Solidarity in Times of Global Attacks, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, Pp 245-263.
  • Nyanzi S. (2023) ‘Prologue: Queering Cape Town’s Posture as Africa’s Gay Capital’, In B Camminga and Zethu Matebeni (Eds.), Beyond the Mountain: Queer Life in Africa’s “Gay Capital”, London: Routledge, Pp 13-27.
  • Jjuuko A., Nyanzi S. (2022) ‘Court-Focused Lawfare over LGBT Rights: The Case of Uganda’, In Adrian Jjuuko, Siri Gloppen, Alan Msosa and Frans Viljoen (Eds.), Queer Lawfare in Africa: Legal Strategies in Contexts of LGBTIQ+ Criminalisation and Politicisation, Pretoria: Pretoria University Law Press, Pp 145-184.
  • Nyanzi S. (2022) ‘An Epilogue of Fakery and Fictions: Recasting the Story of COVID-19 to the Powerless Non-Essentials in Uganda’, In Yusuf Serunkuuma (Ed.), Non-Essential Humans: Essays on Governance, Ruin and Survival in COVID-19 Uganda, Kampala: Editor House Facility, Pp 124-136.
  • Nyanzi S. (2021) ‘Foreword: Sacred Queer Stories – A Gift to Queer African Studies, In Adriaan van Klinken, Johanna Stiebert, Sebyala Brian, Fredrick Hudson, Sacred Queer Stories: Ugandan LGBTQ+ Refugee Lives and the Bible, Suffolk and New York: James Currey, Pp xv-xix.
  • Nyanzi S. (2021) ‘Being LGB in Uganda’, In Paula Gerber (Ed.), Worldwide Perspectives on Lesbians, Gay and Bisexuals, Volume 3, Praeger: ABC-CLIO Publishers, Pp 1310-1323.
  • Nyanzi S. (2020) ‘Personal Narrative: Bloody Precarious Activism in Uganda’, In Chris Bobel, Inga T. Winkler, Breanne Fahs, Katie Ann Hasson, Elizabeth Arveda Kissling, Tomi-Ann Roberts (Eds.,) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan