Erotic Motherhood and Queer Desire in Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees

Abstract

Purpose: This paper examines the relationship between motherhood and queer desire in Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees, arguing that maternal love and maternal violence are intertwined in the formation of queer subjectivity in Nigeria. Although scholarship has examined queer sexuality, religion, and state repression, less attention has been given to motherhood as a space where desire, authority, discipline, and resistance intersect. The paper explores maternal authority as a force that structures and unsettles queer identity, showing how maternal attachment can nurture possibilities it seeks to suppress.

Methodology: The study adopts a critical approach based on close readings of moments in Okparanta’s narrative. It draws on African feminist and queer perspectives, including Audre Lorde’s understanding of the erotic as a source of power, Adrienne Rich’s concept of compulsory heterosexuality, and Michel Foucault’s account of repression. These perspectives illuminate the relationship between Ijeoma and her mother, Adaora, with attention to affect, discipline, surveillance, and the negotiations through which queer subjectivity takes shape.

Findings: The study finds that maternal authority in Under the Udala Trees cannot be reduced to either care or control. Adaora’s attempts to regulate Ijeoma through religious instruction, surveillance, and heterosexual marriage do not eliminate her daughter’s queer desire. Instead, these efforts make that desire more visible to Ijeoma and deepen her awareness of her identity. Maternal discipline consequently becomes part of the process through which queer subjectivity is formed.

Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The paper contributes to theory by proposing “erotic motherhood” as a lens that brings African feminist, queer, and literary approaches into conversation. It offers a way of reading queer narratives beyond accounts of victimhood by emphasizing the intimacies within which queer identities develop. At the level of practice and policy, the study highlights the importance of relationships and attachments in discussions of sexual diversity. Fundamentally, it argues that motherhood in African queer literature is not merely a source of repression but a contradictory space where gender, sexuality, power, and belonging are negotiated.