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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how the sidelining of the queer body interacts with the mainstreaming of queer counter discursive practice in Nigeria. It explores the paradoxical emergence of textual trends from non-normative sexual practice and the attendant ambiguities of such trends.

Paper long abstract:

Texts have, over time, become tools for sexual minorities in Nigeria, like in many other parts of the world, to transgress normativity. But are such texts more inherently multilayered than their explicit 'transgressiveness'? What are the factors responsible when they become mainstream in spite of their apparent non-normative stances? And how can we critically trouble the narrative of their non-normativity? Examining two different instances of the mainstreaming of queer textual production, this paper attempts to identify the subtle interactions between centre and periphery in queer discourse in Nigeria. In the first instance, I examine She called me Woman (2018), a lesbian anthology that has enjoyed a great deal of publicity in the Nigerian space in spite of its queer leanings. I intend here to reveal the normative economic undertones that mark its production and to show how these contribute to (or even determine) its mainstreaming. The second instance draws on a defensive statement ('They didn't caught me') by a young Nigerian man who was arrested in September 2018 for being allegedly gay; and that became viral on social media and popularly appropriated in urban youth slang. I examine how the subject's sexual ambiguity, as opposed to his outright queerness, played a significant role in the acceptance and popularizing of his text. This paper, thus, not only explores the economic formation and emergence of queer counter discourse, but also the sexually normative functionality that marks -and perhaps, allows- the centrality of such texts.

Key Words:

Queer Texts, Nigeria, Economy, Transgression, Normativity