Sexualized Childhood: Children and the Narratives of Endangered Sexuality in Colonial Nigeria

Abstract: During the first half of the twentieth century, colonial officers and Nigerian elites gave serious attention to the notion of endangered sexuality of minors. My talk, based on my book When Sex Threatened the State, engages the transformations in the socio-economic and political structure of colonial Nigeria that placed the narratives of sexual danger at the center of public politics. Debates and legislations about underage sexuality were informed by the broader rhetoric of colonial modernity and the changing socio-political relationship between Africans and the British colonialists.

 

Saheed Aderinto, a historian of Nigeria, teaches at Western Carolina University. He is the author or editor of five books, including When Sex Threatened the State: Illicit Sexuality, Nationalism, and Politics in Colonial Nigeria, 1900-1958 (University of Illinois Press, 2015) and Children and Childhood in Colonial Nigerian Histories (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). His articles have appeared in leading Africanist and specialist journals such as the Canadian Journal of African Studies; Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute; Journal of the History of Sexuality; Journal of Social History; Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History; History in Africa; Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth; and Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, among others. Aderinto sits on the editorial board of five international journals. 

 

Co-sponsors: Global Studies, Health, Medicine and Society, Humanities Center, Pride Center.