Bio
Dr Andrew Tucker is the Deputy Director of the African Centre for Cities.
He has extensive experience working to understand and address inequality in a variety of forms across Africa. His work has explored how social markers such as race, sexuality and gender relate to the urban environment. This work has also examined how such relationships must be taken into account in health programmes, with a particular focus on HIV prevention, treatment and care.
Tucker completed his PhD at the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge in 2006. This work examined the way sexual minorities from across South Africa’s historical racial categories were able to strategically and pragmatically appropriate urban spaces in diverse ways, to become visible to wider heteronormative societies. This led to the publication of his monograph Queer Visibilities: Space, Identity and Interaction in Cape Town, as part of the RGS-IBG book series, by Wiley-Blackwell in 2009. Subsequently Tucker was appointed as the Deputy Director of the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies and a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge.
In 2014 Tucker relocated to South Africa and took up a position at the Anova Health Institute to conduct research into the particular healthcare needs of Key Populations, such as Men who have Sex with Men (MSM). This work included the development of the first community-based HIV prevention programme for MSM in South Africa. More recently Dr Tucker was appointed as the Project Manager for Anova Global Programmes, where he managed teams working to address the healthcare needs of Key Populations in countries such as Namibia, Mozambique, Malawi, Botswana, Lesotho and Haiti.
Tucker has published widely in geographical and health journals. His current research interests include exploring the interface between health and human rights in Africa and considering the genealogy of urban identity-based political movements on the continent.
PUBLICATIONS
Articles
Tucker, A.,and Hassan, N, R. 2020 ‘Situating sexuality: An interconnecting research agenda in the urban global south’, Geoforum
Tucker, A. 2020. ‘What can homonationalism tell us about sexuality in South Africa?: Exploring the relationships between biopolitics, necropolitics, sexual exceptionalism and homonormativity’, Journal of Gender Studies, 29:1, 88-101, DOI: 10.1080/09589236.2019.1692192
Tucker, A., 2019. ‘Geographies of sexualities in sub-Saharan Africa: Positioning and critically engaging with international human rights and related ascendant discourses’ Progress in human geography
Oldfield, S., and Tucker, A., 2019. ‘Persistent pasts, present struggles, imagined futures: gender geographies in South Africa after apartheid’ Gender, place and culture 26(7-9), 1243-1252
Smit, W. and Tucker, A., 2019. ‘Mapping the body: the use of the body mapping method to explore health and the built environment in Cape Town, South Africa’ TAD: Technology, architecture and design 3(1), 45-47
Jobson, G., Tucker, A., de Swardt, G., Rebe, K., Struthers, H., McIntyre, J, and Peters, R., 2018. ‘Gender identity and HIV risk among men who have sex with men in Cape Town, South Africa’ AIDS Care 30(11), 1421-1425
Tucker, A., Liht, J., Swardt, G., Arendse, C., McIntyre, J. and Struthers, H. 2016. ‘Clinic training on MSM health needs in the Western Cape, South Africa: Examining differential training for clinicians and clinic support staff and relationships between knowledge and homophobia’ LGBT Health 3(6), 443-450
Tucker, A., de Swardt, G., McIntyre, J., Struthers, H., 2015. ‘How do community-based HIV prevention programmes ‘travel’? Lessons learned from the Ukwazana/Zwakalani journey in South Africa’ Culture, health and sexuality 17(8), 977-989
Tucker, A., Liht, J., de Swardt, G., McIntyre, J., and Struthers, H., 2014. ‘Homophobic stigma, depression, self-efficacy and unprotected anal intercourse for peri-urban township men who have sex with men in Cape Town, South Africa: a cross-sectional association model’ AIDS care26(7), 882-889
Tucker, A., Liht, J., de Swardt, G., McIntyre, J., and Struthers, H., 2013. ‘An exploration into the role of depression and self-efficacy on township Men who have Sex with Men’s ability to engage in safer-sexual practices’ AIDS care 25(10), 1227-1235
Tucker, A., de Swardt, G., Struthers, H., and McIntyre, J. 2012. ‘Understanding the needs of township Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) health outreach workers: exploring the interplay between volunteer training, social capital and critical consciousness’ AIDS and behavior 17(1), 33-42
Tucker, A., 2010. ‘Reframing sexual subjectivities and their political efficacy in the Global South: potential directions for future queer geographies of difference’ Political geography 29(8), 460-462
Tucker, A., 2010. ‘The ‘rights’ (and ‘wrongs’) of articulating race with sexuality: the conflicting nature of hegemonic legitimisation in South African queer politics’ Social & cultural geography 11(5), 433-449
Tucker, A., 2010. ‘Shifting boundaries of sexual identities: the appropriation and malleability of ‘gay’ in South African township spaces’ Urban forum 21(2), 107-122
Tucker, A., 2009. ‘Framing exclusion in Cape Town’s Gay Village: the discursive and material perpetration of inequitable queer subjects’ Area41(2), 186-197
Book chapters
Tucker, A., 2016. ‘Reconsidering relationships between homophobia, human rights and HIV/AIDS’ in G. Brown and K. Browne (eds.) The Routledge research companion to geographies of sex and sexualities. Abingdon: Routledge
Tucker, A., 2016. ‘Sexual Health: Section introduction’ in G. Brown and K. Browne (eds.) The Routledge research companion to geographies of sex and sexualities. Abingdon: Routledge [Also section editor]
Monograph
- Tucker, A., 2009. Queer Visibilities: Space, Identity and Interaction in Cape Town Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
