Conclusion

Throughout this book, the central arguments have focused on the intersections of culture, gender, transgression and conformity and how young people positioned their drinking selves and sexual comportment in heterosexual relationships. Adolescents’ and young adults’ gendered drinking practices constituted resistance to heteropatriarchy and a subtle attack on traditional norms and structures, hence engendering a reconfiguration of the extant/evolving drinking cultures in contemporary Nigeria. On the other hand, some of their performative practices reinforced the status quo. The book argues for decolonising gender theories, with local-level gender (and drinking) studies that move beyond the Global North theorising. Studies grounded in theories and concepts from localised data collection settings will facilitate a better understanding of the meanings that young people attribute to their gendered performative drinking practices and shed light on the emerging youth leisure norms in such researched contexts. This concluding chapter ties together these and other focal arguments, revealing how the embodied drinking and sexual practices of young people in Nigeria raise concerns about the role of the alcohol industry in facilitating transgressive behaviours and indicating that the youth drinking decline may not yet be a global phenomenon.