Megan Robertson (Sociology) and Adriann van Klinken (PRHS): Prophetic Drag: Belinda Qaqamba Kafassie’s Performative African Queer Worldmaking

Location: Newlyn Seminar LG.01

This talk examines the work of Belinda Qaqamba Kafassie (pictured above), a South African trans-identifying drag artivist, through the concept of prophetic drag as a form of African queer worldmaking. Drawing on collaborative life-history research and collective writing, we explore how Kafassie mobilizes drag not only to challenge gender norms but also to (re)claim Christianity, Black Consciousness and Xhosa cultural traditions as resources for queer life in South Africa.

While scholarship has largely understood drag through parody, gender performativity, and subversion, we argue that Kafassie's performances extend these frameworks by functioning as forms of religio-cultural knowledge production and prophetic witness. Through four interconnected themes—of performance, healing, liberation and reclamation—, we show how drag becomes a spiritual practice, political intervention, cultural critique and community-making. Kafassie's work demonstrates how Black queer artists generate theory through embodied performance, transforming inherited traditions into living archives for imagining alternative futures. By foregrounding prophecy as a mode of artistic, spiritual, and political practice, the talk extends conceptualizations of drag to show how it can become a site through which culture, spirituality, and liberation are creatively reworked in the making of African queer worlds.

All welcome!