INFINITE POSSIBILITIES: RELIGION, MATERNAL DISCIPLINE AND THE MAKING OF QUEER SELFHOOD IN CHINELO OKPARANTA'S UNDER THE UDALA TREES

This article examines how Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees (2015) stages queer identity formation in the private sphere of home, family and faith. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s account of power and discourse and Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, it argues that Ijeoma’s desire for women is not presented as an alien import into Igbo Christian life. The household converts doctrine into daily surveillance, marriage becomes a scripted performance that fails to remove desire, and a gradual reinterpretation of scripture allows the protagonist to separate faith from the voices that condemn her. The article contends that the private sphere is both disciplinary and transformative, since it is where heteronormative power is first internalised and where critical consciousness begins.