‘ Motsoalle Relationships’ of Lesotho? A Historiographic Critique of Western-Authored Studies of Rural Basotho Women’s Friendships and Intimacies

Drawing on recent insights in queer African studies, this article presents a three-part historiographic critique of selected written histories of women’s same-sex intimacies in Lesotho. Specifically, I critically analyse two widely cited twentieth-century studies by Kathryn Kendall and Judith Gay, as well as their numerous twenty-first-century academic afterlives. The first part of the critique focuses on the dangers of Western-authored (mis)translations and of subsequent citational chains that rely on a single source, as I discuss the disjuncture between how the word ‘motsoalle’ is used amongst contemporary Sesotho speakers in Lesotho and the ways that it has come to be (mis)used and (mis)interpreted in Western academic scholarship. The second part of my critique takes a closer look at specific examples of contentious (mis)readings of Kendall’s and Gay’s studies, while the third part counters this with a focus on the viewpoints of contemporary Basotho women scholars. In conclusion, the article calls not only for Basotho-led scholarship but also for the importance of recognising both cultural untranslatability and the unknowability of historical Basotho same-sex intimate practices.