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‘Regroupement’ and mobile societies: two Cameroon cases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Philip Burnham
Philip Burnham
Affiliation:
University College, London
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Extract

This paper is a comparative study of the impact of colonial rule on two African societies, the Gbaya and the pastoral Fulani, inhabiting the Adamawa Plateau in central Cameroon. The main discussion focuses on the difficulties experienced by the French in their attempts to administer these two politically uncentralized and geographically mobile peoples. Geographical mobility was not the result of population pressure or other ecological constraint but was a political strategy and means of dispute regulation frequently employed by these societies living in a lightly populated region. Conflicting with this structural tendency towards mobility in both societies was the French policy of regroupement, the concentration and resettlement of subject peoples in stable villages. Examination of the historical record reveals that despite more or less stringent attempts on the part of the colonial powers to restructure Gbaya and pastoral Fulani societies along more politically amenable lines, these societies have changed little in this respect up to the present day and continue to pose the same problems of administration for the modern government of the United Republic of Cameroon.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , October 1975 , pp. 577 - 594
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

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3 Fieldwork on which the present paper is based was carried out by my wife and myself over a period of twenty-five months in the years 1968 to 1970 and in the summers of 1973 and 1974. I am indebted to the University of California at Los Angeles, the Wenner Gren Foundation, and the University of London for providing the necessary financial support. This paper was first presented at the 1974 conference of the African Studies Association (UK) held at Liverpool. I want to thank Dr Paul Baxter, convener of the Anthropology Section of that conference, for his help and comments.

4 Official government census, Meiganga sub-prefecture, 1966.

5 See Burnham, P., ‘Residential Organization and Social Change among the Gbaya of Meiganga, Cameroon, unpublished Ph.D. thesis submitted to the University of California at Los Angeles (1972)Google Scholar and Burnham, P., ‘Notes on Gbaya History’Google Scholar in Tardits, , ContributionGoogle Scholar, for synopses of Gbaya social history.

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27 While it is not possible in the confines of this paper adequately to describe the essential elements of Gbaya ecology, it is useful nonetheless to point out that the Gbaya have more than enough agricultural land available and could lead a completely sedentary existence if they so desired. Gbaya therefore need not move great distances when they shift villages. Often, a move of less than a kilometer suffices and, even after a Gbaya has moved, he may continue to farm the fields he left behind at his former village site. See Burnham, ‘Residential Organization’.

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31 Ibid. 304 (translation).

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41 However, it would not be accurate to claim, as certain writers have done for other parts of Africa, that current ethnic divisions are purely a product of the colonial experience.

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