Project description
Redefining gender in the digital spotlight
In much of Africa, gender non-conformity is criminalised, silencing those who defy traditional roles. In Nigeria, cross-dressing is often ridiculed or ignored in academia, framed only through a governmental lens. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the CROSSING project is focusing on social media figures such as Bobrisky, James Brown, and Jay Boogie, the study explores how male-to-female cross-dressers use platforms like Instagram and TikTok to perform new, non-binary identities and push back against societal norms. By blending performance studies, digital humanities, and cultural analysis, the project explores how these online expressions challenge exclusion, reshape gender, and stir public debate.
Objective
This research examines how selected Nigerian youths adopt cross-dressing and concomitant expressions to transgress normative gender roles on social media. In most parts of Africa, gender non-conformance is criminalised. As a result, transvestism is shunned and Nigerian scholars have largely failed to study the un/framing of gender beyond the binary structure. In the few instances in which they have studied acts of transvestism, they have assessed them in line with governmental viewpoints, as acts of derisory subjects. Focusing on male-to-female cross-dressing (MCD) and transvestism on online platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, this study aims at filling a blatant research gap and at countering partial research perspectives.
Focusing on the social media performances of Idris Okuneye (Bobrisky), James Brown (Princess of Africa), and Daniel Anthony Nsikan (Jay Boogie), I argue that these characters cross-dress and adopt gender non-conforming identities to construct new selves and challenge the political status quo. By way of online performances, they counter legal constraints and contest their social and cultural exclusion.
Using an interdisciplinary methodology methods of performance studies and digital humanities are combined with those of literary and cultural analysis, I examine the kinds of non-binary genders they perform. I discuss how they realise their acts, deploying, exaggerating, and dismantling theatrical elements and hegemonic gender stereotypes of Nigerian culture and other African societies. I also enquire how digital media are used to construct gender beyond binary structures. Adding qualitative research methods, I also analyse the ways different online/offline groups receive these performances. Finally, I gauge the potential effects of these gender-challenging online performances on an individual, communal, and cultural level. By so doing, I will become an expert on online performances and gender non-binaries in Africa.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01
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8010 Graz
Austria
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