Moffies, artists, and queens : race and the production of South African gay male drag

A. Swarr

This article draws on seventeen months of ethnographic fieldwork in South Africa to explore the experiences of urban and township drag performers. I show that two distinct sex-gender-sexuality systems have emerged based in the sociopolitical history of South Africa, and I argue that urban drag produces race oppositionally and examine how township femininity creates raced forms of gender, sex, and sexuality. Contemporary South African drag foregrounds the performativity and constitution of race and gender. My analysis attempts to challenge definitions of "drag" and "audience," suggesting the necessity for an integrated reconceptualization of drag studies.[Copies are available from: Haworth Document Delivery Center. The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580, USA]