From: Mary Keller <m.l.keller-AT-stir.ac.uk>
Subject: Sexuality in precolonial Nigeria
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 18:01:49 +0100


Dear list members,

I am currently writing an article in which I address a scene from the recent
Lambeth conference in London and I am in need of some research help.  The
scene is one that appeared on t.v. news in which a Nigerian Episcopal bishop
was trying to exorcise the homosexual demons out of a gay activist at the
conference.  

I think it is important to analyse this scene because most Westerners will
look at it as an example of a "superstitious" or "premodern" response by the
Nigerian Bishop and I want to challenge that reading.  I intend to
historicize the encounter between the two men as an encounter that is born
of colonial and modern, Western constructions of subjectivity.  What I am
seeking are resources that might describe indigenous Nigerian constructions
of what the WEst calls "sexuality" in order to argue that the problem with
the Bishop's homophobia is not that it is "premodern" but rather that it is
modern and that by remembering Nigerian traditions, a very different picture
of human sexuality is recalled, including a sense of tolerance.  I have had
very little luck in my effort to research this topic.  Does anyone know of a
Nigerian specialist or an AFricanist who is concerned with issues of gender,
sexuality and masculinity?

Thank you,

Mary Keller
Religious Studies
University of Stirling