To cite this article: Emile Tsékénis (2010) La "frontière africaine" revisitée: "ethnogenèse" dans les Grassfields de l'est(le cas de la chefferie bamiléké de Batié), Canadian Journal of African Studies/La Revue canadienne des études africaines, 44:1, 142-177To link to this article: http://dx.
AbstractThis article questions Igor "frontier thesis" by exploring processes of "ethnogenesis" in pre-colonial eastern Grassfields (West Cameroon). It focuses on a Bamileke chiefdom. The methodology employed combines local oral tradition as conceived by Jan Vansina (1985) with other sources (such as colonial reports and archaeological findings) giving emphasis upon historical and cultural contextualization. It concludes with some suggestions concerning the conceptualization of time and agency, the historicity and the culture of Grassfields pre-colonial societies, sketching a bold comparison with case studies from central Africa (MacGaffey, Miller, Vansina). Résumé Cet article tente de dater la genèse et de suivre l'évolution dans le temps d'une chefferie Bamiléké (ouest-Cameroun) en l'inscrivant dans ses contexte régional et historique, couvrant la période précoloniale (fin du 17ième siècle approximativement à fin du 19ième siècle). Pour ce faire nous avons recours à la tradition orale telle que celle-ci a été définie par Jan Vansina (1985), que nous complétons par d'autres sources confirmant ou infirmant ces traditions. Nous essayons de mettre à l'épreuve le paradigme de la "frontière africaine" introduit par Igor Kopytoff (1987) et montrons en quoi notre étude de cas conforte certaines de ses hypothèses et en réfute d'autres. L'article porte l'accent sur une contextualisation historique et culturelle des sources utilisées. S'appuyant sur les travaux de certains historiens de l'Afrique centrale (MacGaffey, Miller, Vansina), il conclu par des remarques concernant la conceptualisation du temps et de l'agencéité, l'historicité et la culture des sociétés Grassfields précoloniales. La présente étude repose sur des données recueillies lors de deux enquêtes de terrain menées entre 1995 et 1997, et dont une partie a fournit les matériaux nécessaires à la rédaction d'une Thèse du doctorat (2000).
The article explores aspects of personhood as these emerge through rites of passage and culinary imagery in Batié, an eastern Grassfields polity in west Cameroon. Food appears as a gendered medium which, by being exchanged, cooked, and ingested by persons – and by collectives perceived as persons – has the power to transform others (persons and collectives) and make them act. Persons and collectives are revealed, at the different stages of their ceremonial journey, as the outcome of similar processes – exchange, cooking, and ingestion of food – occurring each time on different scales, and thus displaying fractal properties. Introducing a split between agent and (cause of) agency, the article finally suggests that agents’ successive (ritual) transformations are the result of their own actions as well as the actions of (‘individual’ or ‘collective’) others upon them.
Igor Kopytoff introduced the concept of the ‘African frontier’ in the mid 80s, providing scholars of Africa with a powerful tool which helped to overcomescientific and political objections posed by concepts such as ‘tribe’ or ‘ethnic group’, though in subsequent decades the paradigm has been subjected tocritical scrutiny by major scholars of sub-Saharan Africa. The article begins with a brief outline of Kopytoff ’s paradigm, summarizing critical assessment ofthe model and arguing for a shift in conceptual terminology while preserving Kopytoff ’s most useful insights. This is followed by discussion of the sense inwhich Appadurai’s concepts of ‘locality’, ‘ethnoscape’ and ‘neighbourhood’ fit into the study of the Cameroon Grassfields. Finally, theoretical discussionis augmented by data collected in the region, illustrating how kinship values worked through official discourse (foundational narratives) in order to produce‘locality’ in pre-colonial Grassfields. As a result, it is suggested that Appadurai’s concepts, initially forged for ethnographies of and in contemporary settings todescribe modern societies, also apply to pre-colonial Africa.
Keywords: pre-colonial Cameroon Grassfields, African frontier, locality, kinship values, foundational narratives, first settlers/late comers
This article compares the ways personhood and collectives are conceptualised and constituted in two different ethnographic settings – the Grassfields of west Cameroon and Madagascar – and how this sheds light on the ways of conceiving the human-animal distinction. The first part of the article examines the means by which persons and collectives are conceptualised and constituted in both ethnographic contexts, while the second part analyses two modalities of the human-animal relationship – capturing and hunting – while relating them to “Malagasy and Grassfields personhood” respectively. In addition, an attempt is made to elicit the differences and similarities in the ways the human-animal distinction is conceptualised in both ethnographic contexts.
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