Masks and Staffs

Identity Politics in the Cameroon Grassfields
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-78238-728-2
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, Band 11, 260 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 532 g

Reihe: Integration and Conflict Studies

The Cameroon Grassfields, home to three ethnic groups – Grassfields societies, Mbororo, and Hausa – provide a valuable case study for the anthropological examination of identity politics and interethnic relations. In the midst of the political liberalization of Cameroon in the late 1990s and 2000s, local responses to political and legal changes took the form of a series of performative and discursive expressions of ethnicity. Confrontational encounters stimulated by economic and political rivalry, as well as socially integrative processes, transformed collective self-understanding in Cameroon in conjunction with recent global discourses on human, minority, and indigenous rights. The book provides a vital contribution to the study of ethnicity, conflict, and social change in the anthropology of Africa.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Pelican, Michaela

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Kultureller Wandel, Kulturkontakt, Akkulturation
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Historische & Regionale Volkskunde
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Afrikanische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Indigene Völker

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

Notes on Transliteration

List of Abbreviations



Introduction

Chapter 1. Setting the Scene: Cultural Difference and Political Rivalry in Times of Transition

Chapter 2. The Power of the Fon: Nchaney Political History

Chapter 3. From Pastoral Society to Indigenous People: Mbororo Identity Politics

Chapter 4. A Shift to Economic Competition? Farmer–Herder Conflict and Cattle Theft in the Misaje Area

Chapter 5. On Being Hausa: Consolidation of the Hausa Ethnic Category in the Grassfields

Chapter 6. Grassfielder by Birth, Muslim by Choice: Religious and Ethnic Conversion

Chapter 7. The Murder of Mr X: Legal Pluralism and Conflict Management in the Early 2000s

Epilogue

Glossary

References

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Pelican, Michaela
Michaela Pelican is Junior Professor of Cultural and Social Anthropology at the University of Cologne. She is also the director of the University of Cologne Forum "Ethnicity as a Political Resource: Perspectives from Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe" and a member of the Cologne Global South Studies Center. She is the editor of a special issue, "Global African Entrepreneurs" (Urban Anthropology 2014, 43), and the author of several articles on indigenous rights movements in Africa.

Michaela Pelican is Junior Professor of Cultural and Social Anthropology at the University of Cologne. She is also the director of the University of Cologne Forum "Ethnicity as a Political Resource: Perspectives from Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe" and a member of the Cologne Global South Studies Center. She is the editor of a special issue, "Global African Entrepreneurs" (Urban Anthropology 2014, 43), and the author of several articles on indigenous rights movements in Africa.