Queer as an act : class, space, and the intersectional politics of queer safety in Lagos, Nigeria

This thesis discusses the complex configurations and negotiations of queerness within the spatial, sociopolitical, and economic hierarchies of Lagos, Nigeria. By exploring the complexities and negotiations between queerness as an act and as an identity, it discusses how queer worldmaking practices in Lagos navigate tensions related to safety, exclusion, class, and urban belonging. The thesis challenges dominant perceptions of queerness by foregrounding the contributions of groups, such as area boys, whose roles in queer worldmaking are often overlooked or dismissed due to entrenched stereotypes of criminality and societal incongruence. It argues that area boys, despite their contentious reputation, embody queerness in ways that disrupt Western-centric and elite-driven frameworks, revealing a multiplicity of queer practices shaped by local urban conditions. The research further examines the spatial configurations of Lagos, particularly the divide between the supposedly safe and affluent Island and the supposedly unsafe Mainland, to analyse how classed notions of safety and accessibility shape queer experiences. It highlights how queer people, aligned with elite identity frameworks, seek to distance themselves from area boys and queer groups from oppressed classes, thereby perpetuating class divides and reinforcing exclusionary practices within the queer communities in Lagos. By prioritising assimilation into elite spaces, these queer people unintentionally align with necropolitical frameworks that designate some bodies as deserving of safety and life while consigning others to exclusion and precarity. It critiques the overreliance on elite frameworks of safety and inclusion, reveals the intersectional politics of identity, class, and urban belonging in Lagos, and challenges mainstream narratives of queerness while highlighting the diverse ways it can be embodied and enacted. It calls for a reconfiguration of queer activism that centres class analysis, disrupts exclusionary practices, and embraces the shared struggles of marginalised groups to build more effective and inclusive frameworks for queer survival in urban spaces.