Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T04:09:48.487Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Mortuary Sphere, Privilege and the Politics of Belonging in Contemporary Cameroon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Nantang Jua
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Concern with new modes of accountability has foregrounded the politics of belonging, giving prominence to the concepts of autochthony and allogeny. In Cameroon, this has provoked a shift in policy-making from an earlier distinction between the disciplined citizen and the subject. Despite this distinction, all Cameroonians were considered rights-bearing citizens in the early post- Independence era and as such could settle anywhere in the country and not be discriminated against. This has been rolled back as a result of overcoding and the assigning of a code to a people and a people to a territory is now in vogue. This has far-reaching policy implications. It problematizes the question of identity and has engendered the argument that this can be resolved only at death – identity should be determined by where one is buried. The centrality of overcoding, especially its extension into the mortuary realm, has enabled confusion, both legal and symbolic, which is instrumentalized and manipulated by the state, traditional authorities and relatives of the dead to serve varying and varied interests. Death, though a private affair, has now been thrust into the public space. Focusing on the burial of four ‘big men’, this paper shows how these interests are negotiated and fought over. Since space, power and tradition impact on this process, outcomes cannot be determined a priori. It is this impossibility that has given renewed relevance to the question: ‘Whose corpse it anyway?’

Résumé

L'inquiétude suscitée par les nouveaux modes de responsabilité a mis la politique d'appartenance au premier plan, conférant une place importante aux concepts d'autochtonie et d'allogénie. Au Cameroun, ceci a amené les décideurs à revenir sur la distinction entre citoyen discipliné et sujet. Malgré cette distinction, tous les Camerounais étaient considérés comme des citoyens titulaires de droits dans les premiers temps de la période postind épendance et pouvaient, en tant que tels, s'établir n'importe où dans le pays sans être discriminé. Ce n'est plus le cas, sous l'effet d'un surcodage, et l'affectation d'un code à un peuple et d'un peuple à un territoire est aujourd'hui en vogue. Les implications politiques en sont considérables. Ce phénomène problématise la question de l'identité et engendre l'argument qu'elle ne peut se régler qu'au décès, à savoir qu'il conviendrait de déterminer l'identité d'une personne selon le lieu de son inhumation. La centralité du surcodage, notamment son élargissement au domaine mortuaire, a permis la confusion, tant juridique que symbolique, instrumentalisée et manipulée par l'état, les autorités traditionnelles et les parents du défunt pour servir des intérêts variables et variés. Le décès, bien qu'affaire privée, est désormais porté sur la place publique. à travers le cas précis de quatre ≫grands hommes≪, ce papier montre le mode de négociation et de lutte pour ces intérêts. L'espace, le pouvoir et la tradition ayant un impact sur ce processus, il n'est pas possible d'en déterminer les conclusions à priori. C'est cette impossibilité qui a redonné toute son actualité à la question: ≫à qui appartient le corps?≪

Type
Articles
Information
Africa , Volume 75 , Issue 3 , August 2005 , pp. 325 - 355
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Belhassen, Patricia. 1997. ‘La crémation’, Droit et cultures 34 (2): 247–64.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste. Trans. by Nice, Richard. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. (1979. La Distinction. Critique sociale du jugement. Paris: Minuit.)Google Scholar
Bradley, Richard. 1989. ‘Comments’ on Aubrey Cannon's ‘The historical dimension in mortuary expressions of status and sentiment’, Current Anthropology 30 (4): 448–9.Google Scholar
Brunet, Roger. 1990. Le Territoire dans les turbulences.Montpellier: GIP Reclus.Google Scholar
Chapman, John. 1994. ‘The living, the dead and the ancestors: time, life cycles and the mortuary domain in later European prehistory’, in Davies, Jon (ed.) Ritual and Remembrance: responses to death in human societies. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.Google Scholar
Childress, James. 1996. ‘The gift of life: ethical issues in organ transplantation’, Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons 81 (3): 8–22.Google ScholarPubMed
Cohen, David William. 1994. The Combing of History. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, David William, and Odhiambo, E. S. Atieno. 1992. Burying SM: the politics of knowledge and the sociology of power in Africa. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann; London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Colletta, Nat J., and Cullen, Michelle L.. 2000. Violent Conflict and the Transformation of Social Capital: lessons from Cambodia, Rwanda, Guatemala, and Somalia. Washington DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
Connolly, William E. 1991. Identity/Difference: democratic negotiations of political paradox. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Courade, Georges (ed.). 1994. Le Village camerounais à l'heure de l'ajustement. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Daloz, Jean-Pascal. 1999. Le (non-)renouvellement des élites en Afrique subsaharienne. Talence: Centre d'éetude d'Afrique noire, Université Montesquieu, Bordeaux.Google Scholar
Davies, Jon (ed.). 1994. Ritual and Remembrance: responses to death in human societies. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.Google Scholar
de Boeck, Filip. 1998. ‘Beyond the grave: history, memory and death in postcolonial Congo/Zaire’, in Werbner, Richard (ed.), Memory and the Postcolony: African anthropology and the critique of power. London and New York: Zed.Google Scholar
Edelman, Murray. 1971. The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Urbana and London: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Eternal Reefs. ‘Eternal Reefs’, <http://www.eternalreefs.com>..>Google Scholar
Eyoh, Dickson. 1999. ‘Community, citizenship, and the politics of ethnicity in post-colonial Africa’, in Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe and Kalipeni, Ezekiel (eds), Sacred Places and Public Quarrels: African cultural and economic landscapes. Trenton NJ: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Falk Moore, Sally. 1997. ‘Systematic judicial and extra-judicial injustice: preparations for future accountability’, in Werbner, Richard (ed.), Memory and the Postcolony: African anthropology and the critique of power. London and New York: Zed.Google Scholar
Fischler, Marcelle S. n.d. ‘Ashes to ashes, then into the briny deep’, The New York Times on the web, <http://www.seaservices.com/times article.html>..>Google Scholar
FlorCruz, Jamie. 2002. ‘China's e-graves a sweeping success’, <http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/04/08/china.egraves/index.html>..' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=FlorCruz,+Jamie.+2002.+‘China's+e-graves+a+sweeping+success’,+.>Google Scholar
Frost, Robert. 1979. ‘The death of the hired man’, in Lathem, Edward Connery (ed.), The Poetry of Robert Frost: the collected poems. New York: Henry Holt.Google Scholar
FTC (US Federal Trade Commission). n.d. ‘Funerals: a consumer guide’, <http://www.ftc.gov /bcp/conline/pubs/services/funeral.htm>..>Google Scholar
Geschiere, Peter, and Nyamnjoh, Francis B.. 2001. ‘Autochthony as an alternative to citizenship: new modes in the politics of belonging in postcolonial Africa’, in Kurimoto, Eisei (ed.), Rewriting Africa: toward renaissance or collapse? JCAS Symposium Series 14. Osaka: Japan Center for Area Studies, National Museum of Ethnology.Google Scholar
Geschiere, , Peter, , Nyamnjoh, Francis B., and Socpa, Antoine. 2000. ‘Autochthony versus citizenship: variable effects of political liberalization in Cameroon’. Unpublished paper.Google Scholar
Harte, J. D. C. 1971. ‘Law after death or “whose body is it?” The legal framework for the disposal and remembrance of the dead’, in Davies, Jon (ed.) Ritual and Remembrance: responses to death in human societies. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.Google Scholar
Joseph, Richard A. 1977. Radical Nationalism in Cameroun: social origins of the UPC rebellion. Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Jua, Nantang. 2002. ‘The state, traditional rulers and “another democracy” in post-colonial Cameroon’, Africa Insight 32 (4), December.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaufman, Martin. 1998. ‘Dust to Dust? Green burial in Great Britain’, in E/The Environmental Magazine 9 (6).Google Scholar
Kherdjemil, Boukhalfa, Panhuys, Henry, and Zaoual, Hasssan (eds). 1998. Territoires et dynamiques économiques, au-delá de la pensée unique. Paris: L'Harmattan.Google Scholar
Konings, Piet. 1996. ‘Le “probléme anglophone” au Cameroun dans les années 1990’, Politique africaine 62 (juin): 25–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Konings, Piet, and Nyamnjoh, Francis B.. 1997. ‘The anglophone problem in Cameroon’, Journal of Modern African Studies 35 (2): 207–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. Citizen and Subject: contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mbembe, Achille. 2001. On the Postcolony. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Michel, Heike. n.d. ‘The open-air sacrificial burial of the Mongols’, <http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/∼corff/im/Texte/burial.html>..>Google Scholar
Monga, Célestin. 1995. ‘Cercueils, orgies et sublimation: le coût d’une mauvaise gestion de la mort’, Afrique 2000: revue africaine de la politique internationale 21: 31–72.Google Scholar
Mouafo, Dieudonné. 1994. ‘Crise et célébrations sociales: les funérailles en pays bamiléké’, in Courade, Georges (ed.), Le Village camerounais à l'heure de l'ajustement. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Mudimbe, V. Y. 1988. The Invention of Africa: gnosis, philosophy and the order of knowledge. London: James Currey; Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Rosenzweig, Roy. 1991. ‘The rise of the saloon’, in Mukerji, Chandra and Schudson, Michael (eds), Rethinking Popular Culture: contemporary perspectives in cultural studies. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 1996. ‘Theft of life: the globalization of organ stealing rumours’, Anthropology Today 12 (3): 3–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharp, L. A. 2001. ‘The commodification of the body and its parts’, Annual Review of Anthropology 29: 287–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Anthony Douglas. 1983. State and Nation in the Third World: theWestern state and African nationalism. Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books; New York: St Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony Douglas. 1995. Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Stamp, Patricia. 1991. ‘Burying Otieno: the politics of gender and ethnicity in Kenya’, Signs 16 (4): 808–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Takougang, Joseph, and Krieger, Milton. 1998. African State and Society in the 1990: Cameroon's political crossroads. Boulder CO and Oxford: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Anne Christine. 1993. ‘Remembering to forget: identity, mourning and memory among the Jivaro’, Man NS 28 (4): 653–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van der Geest, Sjaak. 2000. ‘Funerals for the living: conversations with elderly people in Kwahu, Ghana’, African Studies Review 43 (4): 103–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Dijk, Rijk. 2001. ‘“Voodoo” on the doorstep: young Nigerian prostitutes and magic policing in the Netherlands’, Africa 71 (4): 558–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werbner, Richard. 2002. ‘Introduction: challenging minorities, difference and tribal citizenship in Botswana’, Journal of Southern African Studies 28 (4): 671–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Luise. 1994. ‘Between Gluckman and Foucault: historicizing rumour and gossip’, Social Dynamics 20 (1): 75–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Luise. 1996. ‘Traffic in Heads’. Paper presented at the conference ‘Commerce in Organs’, University of California, Berkeley. 26–8 April.Google Scholar