ABSTRACT

Anti-homosexuality and anti-LGBTQ attitudes persist in Nigeria, cutting across the activities of state and non-state actors. However, away from the hostile public physical spaces, the digital world has become a refuge where Nigerian queers attempt to exist true to their self-identities, and to take charge of the narratives about their existence. In examining how Nigerian queer males assert their agency, this study pays attention to the linguistic advocacies around the topics of “coming out” and “reaching out”. I analyse how Nigerian queer men navigate the digital media space and engage in anti-homophobic advocacies. The data are retrieved from Twitter via keyword searches and manually selected tweets. Using located and embedded knowledge, I identify that the performative use of language achieves the functions of coming out and confronting homophobic cyberbullying; providing information to non-queers; representations of family and acceptance in queer tweets; and, speaking out against politicians, government and society. The implications are that queer Nigerian males identify and use digital platforms for expressing their sexualities as well as for purposive identity formations which manifest in both in- and out-group advocacies.

摘要

尼日利亚的反同性恋和反 LGBTQ 态度持续存在，跨越国家和非国家行为者的活动。然而，远离充满敌意的公共物理空间，数字世界已成为尼日利亚酷儿们试图以真实自我身份存在并掌控关于他们存在的叙述的避难所。在检查尼日利亚酷儿男性如何维护他们的代理权时，本研究关注围绕“出柜”和“伸出援手”主题的语言倡导。我分析了尼日利亚酷儿如何在数字媒体空间中导航并参与反同性恋宣传。通过关键字搜索和手动选择的推文从 Twitter 检索数据。使用定位和嵌入的知识，我认为语言的表现性使用实现了站出来对抗恐同网络欺凌的功能；向非酷儿提供信息；在酷儿推文中表达家庭和接受；并且公开反对政客、政府和社会。其含义是，尼日利亚酷儿男性识别并使用数字平台来表达他们的性取向以及在群体内和群体外的宣传中表现出来的有目的的身份形成。