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‘Like a drag or something’: central texts at the pioneering forefront of contemporary Nigerian queerscapes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2021

Diekara Oloruntoba-Oju
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Abstract

This article examines She Called Me Woman, a 2018 anthology of and by twenty-five queer Nigerian women. The text focuses on a variety of narratives by women as a way to challenge the confinement of queer Nigeria to the narratives of gay men. The article demonstrates how the multifarious queer(ying) experiences of women in different geographical and social contexts within Nigeria help to further contextualize the trope of what we understand to be queer in Africa. The stories in this anthology reflect the complex ways in which queer women in Nigeria negotiate their everyday lives against the backdrop of the frontier imposed by both anti-homosexuality law in Nigeria and global LGBT+ discourse. In examining the complexities of these women, this article argues that queer frontiers in Africa must necessarily be discussed elliptically, as a compendium of the known, the unknown, and perhaps the unknowable. The idea of queerness is taken up as a frontier of thought, imagination and modes of being: that is, an embodiment of identities at the crossroads of a complex convergence of the old, the new and the yet to be known.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article examine She Called Me Woman, une anthologie de 2018 sur et écrite par vingt-cinq femmes nigérianes queer. Le texte porte sur divers récits de femmes, comme un moyen de contester le confinement du Nigeria queer aux récits d'hommes gay. Cet article démontre comment les diverses expériences queer de femmes dans différents contextes géographiques et sociaux au Nigeria aident à contextualiser davantage le trope de ce qu'on entend par être queer en Afrique. Les histoires contenues dans cette anthologie reflètent les manières complexes dont les femmes queer au Nigeria négocient leur vie quotidienne dans le contexte de la frontière imposée à la fois par la loi anti-homosexualité au Nigeria et par le discours LGBT+ mondial. En examinant les complexités de ces femmes, cet article soutient qu'il faut nécessairement débattre des frontières queer en Afrique de manière elliptique, comme un compendium du connu, de l'inconnu et peut-être de l'inconnaissable. L'idée de queerité est abordée en tant que frontière de la pensée, de l'imagination et des modes d’être : autrement dit, une incarnation d'identités à la croisée d'une convergence complexe de l'ancien, du nouveau et du non encore connu.

Type
Queer experiences in Africa
Information
Africa , Volume 91 , Issue 3 , May 2021 , pp. 418 - 433
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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