“Shoot Me and Let Me Die”: Cash Scarcity and the Performance of Deviant Nude Protest in Nigeria

Abstract

Abstract Using Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical approach, this paper interrogates how space shapes the nature of nude protests and how human bodies performed as sites of power, contestation and attention. Although nude protests are not new to Africa, and Nigeria in particular, where nudehood is deployed to challenge unpleasant social conditions, mostly by women, I interrogated the performance of nude protest by two bank customers (male and female) inside two Nigerian Banking halls as a reaction to the naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria, launched in December 2022, which limited access to physical cash in a cash-based economy. Findings showed that the protesters’ performances included claims-making, refusal, undressing, shouting, crying and embellishing narrative of willingness to die to bring about desired attention and change in their situations. The naked bodies of the protesters are complex composites of verbal and non-verbal communication expressed through facial expressions, body movements, and refusal to yield to persuasions. Indeed, naked protest in the banking hall is a daring, disruptive and problem-solving behaviour which challenged the serenity and formality associated with the banking space and showed the agency of the bodies and presentation of the selves.