Melchisedek Chetima | Ecole Normale Supérieure de Maroua (original) (raw)
Papers by Melchisedek Chetima
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2018
The relationship between material culture and ethnicity is an important topic of social science r... more The relationship between material culture and ethnicity is an important topic of social science research, but review of the literature shows that archaeologists were more interested in ceramics and to a certain extent in metals and mortuary practices. Other material artefacts such as basketry or architecture attracted little attention, while elsewhere it has been shown that variations in techniques and architectural forms are used to emphasize or to disrupt ethnic distinctions. The Mandara data presented here and collected among three different ethnic groups (Podokwo, Muktele, Mura) show that houses are considered as more important compared to other material artefacts when one comes to speak about ethnicity. People used material practices related to houses to establish specific social parameters so as to differentiate themselves from others (e.g. the Podokwo), as a way to regulate marital relationships (e.g. the Muktele), and as a means to articulate cultural practices that determin...
ABSTRACT L’objectif de ce travail est de cerner les rapports au temps et à l’espace inscrits dans... more ABSTRACT L’objectif de ce travail est de cerner les rapports au temps et à l’espace inscrits dans l’architecture domestique en Afrique en partant de l’idée que les maisons que les individus construisent, construisent à leur tour les individus. Pour le faire, je me base sur les analyses faites sur l’architecture africaine par certains chercheurs africanistes (en particulier Suzanne Blier, Dominique Malaquais et Labelle Prussin) au cours de la dernière moitié du XXe siècle. J’ai également inclus mes propres observations faites dans le cadre de mes travaux académiques sur l’architecture des peuples montagnards des monts Mandara du Cameroun.
Areas like the Mandara Mountains are indeed places where the political state has often refused to... more Areas like the Mandara Mountains are indeed places where the political state has often refused to exercise its full authority because of the profits that illicit relationships afford state officials. If states continue to be absent in these areas, we will witness ongoing violence even after the defeat of Boko Haram.
Canadian Journal of African Studies, 2020
This special issue focuses on the Boko Haram insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin countries by focus... more This special issue focuses on the Boko Haram insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin countries by focusing primarily on local dynamics, on the one hand, looking beyond the sensational and short-term perspective of the media, and on the other hand, by exploring themes that transcend time and disciplinary boundaries. Our basic premise is that reading Boko Haram’s actions through the prism of today’s buzzwords such as “terrorists” or “jihadists” can offer only a limited perspective on the phenomenon. Rather than a superficial model derived from the thinking of the “war on terror,” the approaches developed by the authors of this thematic dossier focus not only on religious factors, but also on state violence and the social, political and economic factors that support the insurgency, which presents a parallel with the concept of the “social bandit.”
Journal of Asian and African Studies, 2018
This paper argues that changes in architectural practices related to the emergence of modern elit... more This paper argues that changes in architectural practices related to the emergence of modern elites in the Mandara Mountains blur the relationship between them and the village’s permanent residents. Probably because they spend much of their time in urban cities, modern elites prefer building their main houses in those locations. Villagers interpret their behavior as a message of rejection. In turn, this interpretation significantly affects the reciprocal relationships between modern elites and the villagers. Although the former would built houses in the village also, this practice does not remove the suspicion they attract from the latter. On the contrary, the massive character of the houses combined with their emptiness contribute to reinforce the villagers’ belief that they are the fruit of occult practices. Relying on these observations, I argue that elites’ houses are not only the sites of production of social relations, as Claude Lévi-Strauss theorized, but they are also the site of tensions.
The Historical Journal, 2019
This paper is concerned with the memory of slavery among the modern populations of the Mandara Mo... more This paper is concerned with the memory of slavery among the modern populations of the Mandara Mountains range located at the borders of Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria. it describes the Mandara as a refuge that has historically served as shelter for people fleeing enslavement in the hands of Muslim states in Northern Nigeria and Cameroon. Im particularly interested in showing how memory of slavery is put to work to reinterpret and reenact the past in the present in order to give texture and meaning to contemporary collective identities. The second half of the paper offers a perceptive analysis of songs and demonstrates how these songs functioned as recipients of the people’s memory of their enslavement in the modern world. There is also a discussion of how this memory through oral history has come to change in the context of democratization and the factors that might have informed this change. People today, including political and intellectual elites, makes efforts to strengthen the identity of victimhood by re-emerging the servile past in the public space. These steps show how the work of memory is in perpetual construction as the context always changing.
Afrique Contemporaine, 2018
Cet article tente de comprendre l'intérêt des demandes ethniques que les élites formulent au Came... more Cet article tente de comprendre l'intérêt des demandes ethniques que les élites formulent au Cameroun dans le contexte de l'ouverture démocratique des années 1990. Ces demandes s'expriment particulièrement par le biais des memoranda qui, dans le contexte camerounais, sont un ensemble de doléances ethno-régionales soumis à l'appréciation du Chef de l'Etat par les élites d'une régiondonnée. Pour comprendre les enjeux politiques que recèlent ces revendications, l'analyse de l'État et de ses relations avec une société très fragmentée sur le plan ethno-régional est décryptée. Est également étudié le rôle très ambigu et ambivalent des « seigneurs identitaires » dans leur rapport à leurs communautés d'appartenance et à l'État central. L'article termine par questionner l'avenir de l'instrumentalisation de l'ethnicité tant il devient de plus en plus difficile de rallier le soutien de la masse.
Africa Spectrum, 2018
This article explores the different ways in which new houses built by migrants from the Mandara M... more This article explores the different ways in which new houses built by migrants from the Mandara Mountains to bigger cities in Cameroon function as an important site for studying their relations within the cities and within their communities of origin. I argue that these new houses constitute both a powerful resource for addressing migrants’ stories about their migratory experiences and a constituent element of these experiences. In many circumstances, the migrants interviewed were unable to speak separately of their migratory experiences and their homes. Thus, the impact of their mobility to cities goes far beyond the mere ownership of the houses; they also manage to change their perceptions of themselves, to restructure their models of social interaction with other migrants, and to change the balance of their relations with the village. The article ends by proposing to connect the two sides of the village/city duality to find out how the local is a product of the global and how the local has reappropriated the global, givingit a meaning.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2018
The relationship between material culture and ethnicity is an important topic of social science r... more The relationship between material culture and ethnicity is an important topic of social science research, but review of the literature shows that archaeologists were more interested in ceramics and to a certain extent in metals and mortuary practices. Other material artefacts such as basketry or architecture attracted little attention, while elsewhere it has been shown that variations in techniques and architectural forms are used to emphasize or to disrupt ethnic distinctions. The Mandara data presented here and collected among three different ethnic groups (Podokwo, Muktele, Mura) show that houses are considered as more important compared to other material artefacts when one comes to speak about ethnicity. People used material practices related to houses to establish specific social parameters so as to differentiate themselves from others (e.g. the Podokwo), as a way to regulate marital relationships (e.g. the Muktele), and as a means to articulate cultural practices that determine interrelationships among rival clans (e.g. the Mura).
Anthropos, 2017
This article demonstrates how the ethnic categories used by peoples of the Mandara Mountains in C... more This article demonstrates how the ethnic categories used by peoples of the Mandara Mountains in Cameroon change from one period to another, and from one space to another. It is particularly interested to observe how mountains dwellers handle di erent ethnic facets by associating them with particular archi- tectural features in particular social contexts. Sometimes they choose to focus on their ethnic identity, sometimes they reduce it to the bene t of their mountain identity, and sometimes they do away with any reference to their ethnic origin. The article thus con rms the common insight that ethnic identity is the product of social processes rather than a given culture, made and remade rather than self-evident, chosen on the basis of circumstances rather than attributed by birth.
Key-Words: Cameroun, Mandara Mountains, ethnicity, identity, material culture, indigenous architecture
The rise in terrorism is one of the serious challenges facing certain African countries in recent... more The rise in terrorism is one of the serious challenges facing certain African countries in recent years. Al-Shabab, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA), and Boko Haram are just a few of the organizations in the headlines. Their mere mention prompts hysteria. Rooted in the Lake Chad Basin, Boko Haram incites extreme and unprecedented chaos and disorder (Seignobos, 2015). Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger have reported widespread human and material devastation as well as physical and psychological abuses. The destruction of villages and traumatic displacement of populations has resulted in the destabilization of local, national and regional economies. With neighboring countries such as Cameroon hosting as many as a hundred thousand refuges, public policies of development have been revised and humanitarian organizations deployed.
Anthropologica, 2016
The goal of this article is to connect two significant concepts in the studies on material cultur... more The goal of this article is to connect two significant concepts in the studies on material culture and, more precisely, regarding the deconstruction of the idea that objects should be passive and static: these are the semiotics of space and the social biographies of objects. If many Africanist researchers have drawn on the former (e.g., Griaule, Blier, Malaquais, etc.), the latter has not been fully theorized except in the works of German anthropologist Hans Peter Hahn. In this article, the articulation between the semiotics of space and the biographical method has allowed me to examine the reciprocity between individuals and houses in the Mandara Mountains of Cameroon, a relationship through which individuals construct houses while they are also constructed by them.
International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies
Cet article fait état des différentes approches sur la maison (approche naturaliste et déterminis... more Cet article fait état des différentes approches sur la maison (approche naturaliste et déterministe, approche fonctionnaliste, approche culturelle multi-causale, approche symbolique et ses différents courants; approche de la matérialité de l'objet) pour revisiter les multiples facettes et enjeux théoriques entourant la culture matérielle de la maison. Ces approches sont issues d'une variété de disciplines des sciences sociales et humaines (anthropologie, archéologie, sociologie histoire, etc.) qui s'ignorent le plus souvent les unes des autres. Ce faisant, il ne s'agit pas d'un simple exercice d'érudition. Le but est plutôt de mettre en relief les différents points de vue développés sur la maison, de les regrouper et même d'en dégager des sous-thèses pertinentes pour guider les nouvelles recherches et réflexions sur la maison et l'objet. L'article puise également chez les auteurs qui ont développé des théories originales sur la structuration de la société et sur les rapports entre sociétés et matérialité. Je fais notamment référence à la théorie de la pratique du sociologue français Pierre Bourdieu, plus particulièrement son concept d'habitus, à la notion d'agency de l'art de l'anthropologue britannique Alfred Gell, et à l'approche de l'action sociale de l'objet de Daniel Miller, anthropologue et archéologue britannique des sociétés contemporaines. Ces théories permettent d'orienter les futures recherches vers la démonstration du statut d'agent de la maison et de l'objet, lesquels ont un cycle de vie qui vient en écho à l'itinéraire de ses occupants. Elles permettent de démontrer la matérialité de l'objet comme élément constitutif des relations sociales. Mots-clés : Maison, approche naturaliste, approche fonctionnaliste, approche symbolique, approche structuraliste, objectivation, agency de l'objet.
L'harmattan, 2013
Le concept de minorité politique ne renvoie pas forcément à l'effectif démographique, comme c'est... more Le concept de minorité politique ne renvoie pas forcément à l'effectif démographique, comme c'est le cas lorsqu'on définit les minorités ethniques. Il renvoie plutôt à la question de la représentation politique des
Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, 2015
This article is focused on the work of memory, especially with respect to the ability of peoples ... more This article is focused on the work of memory, especially with respect to the ability of peoples of the Mandara Mountains to sort and to silence certain aspects of their servile past, which, however, resurface when the context of their silencing changes. I am particularly interested in discharge strategies of slave memory through the myths of origin and in the mechanism of its domestication through historical songs. I also show how, in the 1960s, the montagnards managed to distance themselves from the “official” memorial speech that strove to define them as repressed and victims of slavery, and how they have substituted another memory, this time, centered around the myth of resistance. The 1990s is another turning point in the memorial speech since the montagnards, through their elites, reclaim their servile past in national politics in a democratic context, by publicly taking a stance of victimhood. These three memorial phases (repression, instrumentalization and requalification) are central in this article, and help to demonstrate how the passage of the time of memory, as opposed to the time of history, is of an anachronistic kind. The reason is that the work of memory is an ongoing reinterpretation of the elements of the past, always enacted in line with the temporal context, which itself determines the transmission or repression of any aspect of the servile past.
Teoros. revue de Recherche en Tourisme, 2011
Cette étude est née d’une série de questionnements auxquels l’auteur était confronté en observant... more Cette étude est née d’une série de questionnements auxquels l’auteur était confronté en observant les touristes dans les monts Mandara du Cameroun. Étant originaire de cette région, l’auteur s’est toujours demandé ce que les touristes recherchaient exactement et ce qui les passionnait dans le traditionnel, le mythique et l’ancestral. Ces interrogations l’ont conduit à étudier le rapport entre authenticité et excellence d’une destination. De cette étude, il ressort que le pouvoir d’attraction des monts Mandara réside dans la richesse de son patrimoine culturel et naturel, considérée par les visiteurs comme « authentique ». Cependant, cette image « authentique » ne concerne pas seulement les objets culturels dans leur existence réelle. Elle résulte également des mises en scène de la vie quotidienne, orchestrées par les populations d’accueil dans l’intention de se conformer aux attentes des touristes. Les mises en scène sont par la suite relayées par les voyagistes qui produisent des photos particulièrement sélectives dans le but de circonscrire la nature et la culture locales et de les offrir, sous une forme visuelle, au regard des touristes.
Recherches Africaines, 2011
L’objectif de ce travail est de cerner les rapports au temps et à l’espace inscrits dans l’archit... more L’objectif de ce travail est de cerner les rapports au temps et à l’espace inscrits dans l’architecture domestique en Afrique en partant de l’idée que les maisons construites par les individus construisent à leur tour les individus. Pour ce faire, je me base sur les analyses faites sur l’architecture africaine par certains chercheurs africanistes (en particulier Suzanne Blier, Dominique Malaquais et Labelle Prussin) au cours de la dernière moitié du XXe siècle. J’ai également inclu mes propres observations sur l’architecture des peuples montagnards des monts Mandara du Cameroun.
The present study aims to understand the relation to the time and space registered in domestic architecture in Africa, considering the fact that the houses built by the individuals construct in their turn the individuals. With this intention, I base on the analyses made on African architecture by certain Africanists scholars (In particular Suzanne Blier, Dominique Malaquais and Labelle Prussin) during the last half of the 20e century. I also included my own observations on the vernacular architecture of the ethnic groups living in the Mandara Mountains of Cameroon.
Kaliao, Apr 2011
L’architecture traditionnelle dans les monts Mandara est un important symbole qui aide à comprend... more L’architecture traditionnelle dans les monts Mandara est un important symbole qui aide à comprendre l’image que se donne un groupe ethnique par rapport à ses voisins. Chaque ethnie utilise la structure de son bâti et l’organisation intérieure de la maison pour affirmer son identité ethnique et pour indiquer les différents types de relations entretenues avec les ethnies voisines. L’architecture est donc au centre des stratégies identitaires et semble bien être un des langages les plus efficaces pour traduire les différences entre groupes ethniques. En se basant sur l’architecture des Podokwo, Mouktélé, Ouldémé et Mouraha, ce travail montre comment l’architecture permet aux membres d’un groupe ethnique donné de se percevoir comme étant ressemblants et de percevoir les autres ethnies comme étant très différents d’eux.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2018
The relationship between material culture and ethnicity is an important topic of social science r... more The relationship between material culture and ethnicity is an important topic of social science research, but review of the literature shows that archaeologists were more interested in ceramics and to a certain extent in metals and mortuary practices. Other material artefacts such as basketry or architecture attracted little attention, while elsewhere it has been shown that variations in techniques and architectural forms are used to emphasize or to disrupt ethnic distinctions. The Mandara data presented here and collected among three different ethnic groups (Podokwo, Muktele, Mura) show that houses are considered as more important compared to other material artefacts when one comes to speak about ethnicity. People used material practices related to houses to establish specific social parameters so as to differentiate themselves from others (e.g. the Podokwo), as a way to regulate marital relationships (e.g. the Muktele), and as a means to articulate cultural practices that determin...
ABSTRACT L’objectif de ce travail est de cerner les rapports au temps et à l’espace inscrits dans... more ABSTRACT L’objectif de ce travail est de cerner les rapports au temps et à l’espace inscrits dans l’architecture domestique en Afrique en partant de l’idée que les maisons que les individus construisent, construisent à leur tour les individus. Pour le faire, je me base sur les analyses faites sur l’architecture africaine par certains chercheurs africanistes (en particulier Suzanne Blier, Dominique Malaquais et Labelle Prussin) au cours de la dernière moitié du XXe siècle. J’ai également inclus mes propres observations faites dans le cadre de mes travaux académiques sur l’architecture des peuples montagnards des monts Mandara du Cameroun.
Areas like the Mandara Mountains are indeed places where the political state has often refused to... more Areas like the Mandara Mountains are indeed places where the political state has often refused to exercise its full authority because of the profits that illicit relationships afford state officials. If states continue to be absent in these areas, we will witness ongoing violence even after the defeat of Boko Haram.
Canadian Journal of African Studies, 2020
This special issue focuses on the Boko Haram insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin countries by focus... more This special issue focuses on the Boko Haram insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin countries by focusing primarily on local dynamics, on the one hand, looking beyond the sensational and short-term perspective of the media, and on the other hand, by exploring themes that transcend time and disciplinary boundaries. Our basic premise is that reading Boko Haram’s actions through the prism of today’s buzzwords such as “terrorists” or “jihadists” can offer only a limited perspective on the phenomenon. Rather than a superficial model derived from the thinking of the “war on terror,” the approaches developed by the authors of this thematic dossier focus not only on religious factors, but also on state violence and the social, political and economic factors that support the insurgency, which presents a parallel with the concept of the “social bandit.”
Journal of Asian and African Studies, 2018
This paper argues that changes in architectural practices related to the emergence of modern elit... more This paper argues that changes in architectural practices related to the emergence of modern elites in the Mandara Mountains blur the relationship between them and the village’s permanent residents. Probably because they spend much of their time in urban cities, modern elites prefer building their main houses in those locations. Villagers interpret their behavior as a message of rejection. In turn, this interpretation significantly affects the reciprocal relationships between modern elites and the villagers. Although the former would built houses in the village also, this practice does not remove the suspicion they attract from the latter. On the contrary, the massive character of the houses combined with their emptiness contribute to reinforce the villagers’ belief that they are the fruit of occult practices. Relying on these observations, I argue that elites’ houses are not only the sites of production of social relations, as Claude Lévi-Strauss theorized, but they are also the site of tensions.
The Historical Journal, 2019
This paper is concerned with the memory of slavery among the modern populations of the Mandara Mo... more This paper is concerned with the memory of slavery among the modern populations of the Mandara Mountains range located at the borders of Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria. it describes the Mandara as a refuge that has historically served as shelter for people fleeing enslavement in the hands of Muslim states in Northern Nigeria and Cameroon. Im particularly interested in showing how memory of slavery is put to work to reinterpret and reenact the past in the present in order to give texture and meaning to contemporary collective identities. The second half of the paper offers a perceptive analysis of songs and demonstrates how these songs functioned as recipients of the people’s memory of their enslavement in the modern world. There is also a discussion of how this memory through oral history has come to change in the context of democratization and the factors that might have informed this change. People today, including political and intellectual elites, makes efforts to strengthen the identity of victimhood by re-emerging the servile past in the public space. These steps show how the work of memory is in perpetual construction as the context always changing.
Afrique Contemporaine, 2018
Cet article tente de comprendre l'intérêt des demandes ethniques que les élites formulent au Came... more Cet article tente de comprendre l'intérêt des demandes ethniques que les élites formulent au Cameroun dans le contexte de l'ouverture démocratique des années 1990. Ces demandes s'expriment particulièrement par le biais des memoranda qui, dans le contexte camerounais, sont un ensemble de doléances ethno-régionales soumis à l'appréciation du Chef de l'Etat par les élites d'une régiondonnée. Pour comprendre les enjeux politiques que recèlent ces revendications, l'analyse de l'État et de ses relations avec une société très fragmentée sur le plan ethno-régional est décryptée. Est également étudié le rôle très ambigu et ambivalent des « seigneurs identitaires » dans leur rapport à leurs communautés d'appartenance et à l'État central. L'article termine par questionner l'avenir de l'instrumentalisation de l'ethnicité tant il devient de plus en plus difficile de rallier le soutien de la masse.
Africa Spectrum, 2018
This article explores the different ways in which new houses built by migrants from the Mandara M... more This article explores the different ways in which new houses built by migrants from the Mandara Mountains to bigger cities in Cameroon function as an important site for studying their relations within the cities and within their communities of origin. I argue that these new houses constitute both a powerful resource for addressing migrants’ stories about their migratory experiences and a constituent element of these experiences. In many circumstances, the migrants interviewed were unable to speak separately of their migratory experiences and their homes. Thus, the impact of their mobility to cities goes far beyond the mere ownership of the houses; they also manage to change their perceptions of themselves, to restructure their models of social interaction with other migrants, and to change the balance of their relations with the village. The article ends by proposing to connect the two sides of the village/city duality to find out how the local is a product of the global and how the local has reappropriated the global, givingit a meaning.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2018
The relationship between material culture and ethnicity is an important topic of social science r... more The relationship between material culture and ethnicity is an important topic of social science research, but review of the literature shows that archaeologists were more interested in ceramics and to a certain extent in metals and mortuary practices. Other material artefacts such as basketry or architecture attracted little attention, while elsewhere it has been shown that variations in techniques and architectural forms are used to emphasize or to disrupt ethnic distinctions. The Mandara data presented here and collected among three different ethnic groups (Podokwo, Muktele, Mura) show that houses are considered as more important compared to other material artefacts when one comes to speak about ethnicity. People used material practices related to houses to establish specific social parameters so as to differentiate themselves from others (e.g. the Podokwo), as a way to regulate marital relationships (e.g. the Muktele), and as a means to articulate cultural practices that determine interrelationships among rival clans (e.g. the Mura).
Anthropos, 2017
This article demonstrates how the ethnic categories used by peoples of the Mandara Mountains in C... more This article demonstrates how the ethnic categories used by peoples of the Mandara Mountains in Cameroon change from one period to another, and from one space to another. It is particularly interested to observe how mountains dwellers handle di erent ethnic facets by associating them with particular archi- tectural features in particular social contexts. Sometimes they choose to focus on their ethnic identity, sometimes they reduce it to the bene t of their mountain identity, and sometimes they do away with any reference to their ethnic origin. The article thus con rms the common insight that ethnic identity is the product of social processes rather than a given culture, made and remade rather than self-evident, chosen on the basis of circumstances rather than attributed by birth.
Key-Words: Cameroun, Mandara Mountains, ethnicity, identity, material culture, indigenous architecture
The rise in terrorism is one of the serious challenges facing certain African countries in recent... more The rise in terrorism is one of the serious challenges facing certain African countries in recent years. Al-Shabab, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA), and Boko Haram are just a few of the organizations in the headlines. Their mere mention prompts hysteria. Rooted in the Lake Chad Basin, Boko Haram incites extreme and unprecedented chaos and disorder (Seignobos, 2015). Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger have reported widespread human and material devastation as well as physical and psychological abuses. The destruction of villages and traumatic displacement of populations has resulted in the destabilization of local, national and regional economies. With neighboring countries such as Cameroon hosting as many as a hundred thousand refuges, public policies of development have been revised and humanitarian organizations deployed.
Anthropologica, 2016
The goal of this article is to connect two significant concepts in the studies on material cultur... more The goal of this article is to connect two significant concepts in the studies on material culture and, more precisely, regarding the deconstruction of the idea that objects should be passive and static: these are the semiotics of space and the social biographies of objects. If many Africanist researchers have drawn on the former (e.g., Griaule, Blier, Malaquais, etc.), the latter has not been fully theorized except in the works of German anthropologist Hans Peter Hahn. In this article, the articulation between the semiotics of space and the biographical method has allowed me to examine the reciprocity between individuals and houses in the Mandara Mountains of Cameroon, a relationship through which individuals construct houses while they are also constructed by them.
International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies
Cet article fait état des différentes approches sur la maison (approche naturaliste et déterminis... more Cet article fait état des différentes approches sur la maison (approche naturaliste et déterministe, approche fonctionnaliste, approche culturelle multi-causale, approche symbolique et ses différents courants; approche de la matérialité de l'objet) pour revisiter les multiples facettes et enjeux théoriques entourant la culture matérielle de la maison. Ces approches sont issues d'une variété de disciplines des sciences sociales et humaines (anthropologie, archéologie, sociologie histoire, etc.) qui s'ignorent le plus souvent les unes des autres. Ce faisant, il ne s'agit pas d'un simple exercice d'érudition. Le but est plutôt de mettre en relief les différents points de vue développés sur la maison, de les regrouper et même d'en dégager des sous-thèses pertinentes pour guider les nouvelles recherches et réflexions sur la maison et l'objet. L'article puise également chez les auteurs qui ont développé des théories originales sur la structuration de la société et sur les rapports entre sociétés et matérialité. Je fais notamment référence à la théorie de la pratique du sociologue français Pierre Bourdieu, plus particulièrement son concept d'habitus, à la notion d'agency de l'art de l'anthropologue britannique Alfred Gell, et à l'approche de l'action sociale de l'objet de Daniel Miller, anthropologue et archéologue britannique des sociétés contemporaines. Ces théories permettent d'orienter les futures recherches vers la démonstration du statut d'agent de la maison et de l'objet, lesquels ont un cycle de vie qui vient en écho à l'itinéraire de ses occupants. Elles permettent de démontrer la matérialité de l'objet comme élément constitutif des relations sociales. Mots-clés : Maison, approche naturaliste, approche fonctionnaliste, approche symbolique, approche structuraliste, objectivation, agency de l'objet.
L'harmattan, 2013
Le concept de minorité politique ne renvoie pas forcément à l'effectif démographique, comme c'est... more Le concept de minorité politique ne renvoie pas forcément à l'effectif démographique, comme c'est le cas lorsqu'on définit les minorités ethniques. Il renvoie plutôt à la question de la représentation politique des
Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, 2015
This article is focused on the work of memory, especially with respect to the ability of peoples ... more This article is focused on the work of memory, especially with respect to the ability of peoples of the Mandara Mountains to sort and to silence certain aspects of their servile past, which, however, resurface when the context of their silencing changes. I am particularly interested in discharge strategies of slave memory through the myths of origin and in the mechanism of its domestication through historical songs. I also show how, in the 1960s, the montagnards managed to distance themselves from the “official” memorial speech that strove to define them as repressed and victims of slavery, and how they have substituted another memory, this time, centered around the myth of resistance. The 1990s is another turning point in the memorial speech since the montagnards, through their elites, reclaim their servile past in national politics in a democratic context, by publicly taking a stance of victimhood. These three memorial phases (repression, instrumentalization and requalification) are central in this article, and help to demonstrate how the passage of the time of memory, as opposed to the time of history, is of an anachronistic kind. The reason is that the work of memory is an ongoing reinterpretation of the elements of the past, always enacted in line with the temporal context, which itself determines the transmission or repression of any aspect of the servile past.
Teoros. revue de Recherche en Tourisme, 2011
Cette étude est née d’une série de questionnements auxquels l’auteur était confronté en observant... more Cette étude est née d’une série de questionnements auxquels l’auteur était confronté en observant les touristes dans les monts Mandara du Cameroun. Étant originaire de cette région, l’auteur s’est toujours demandé ce que les touristes recherchaient exactement et ce qui les passionnait dans le traditionnel, le mythique et l’ancestral. Ces interrogations l’ont conduit à étudier le rapport entre authenticité et excellence d’une destination. De cette étude, il ressort que le pouvoir d’attraction des monts Mandara réside dans la richesse de son patrimoine culturel et naturel, considérée par les visiteurs comme « authentique ». Cependant, cette image « authentique » ne concerne pas seulement les objets culturels dans leur existence réelle. Elle résulte également des mises en scène de la vie quotidienne, orchestrées par les populations d’accueil dans l’intention de se conformer aux attentes des touristes. Les mises en scène sont par la suite relayées par les voyagistes qui produisent des photos particulièrement sélectives dans le but de circonscrire la nature et la culture locales et de les offrir, sous une forme visuelle, au regard des touristes.
Recherches Africaines, 2011
L’objectif de ce travail est de cerner les rapports au temps et à l’espace inscrits dans l’archit... more L’objectif de ce travail est de cerner les rapports au temps et à l’espace inscrits dans l’architecture domestique en Afrique en partant de l’idée que les maisons construites par les individus construisent à leur tour les individus. Pour ce faire, je me base sur les analyses faites sur l’architecture africaine par certains chercheurs africanistes (en particulier Suzanne Blier, Dominique Malaquais et Labelle Prussin) au cours de la dernière moitié du XXe siècle. J’ai également inclu mes propres observations sur l’architecture des peuples montagnards des monts Mandara du Cameroun.
The present study aims to understand the relation to the time and space registered in domestic architecture in Africa, considering the fact that the houses built by the individuals construct in their turn the individuals. With this intention, I base on the analyses made on African architecture by certain Africanists scholars (In particular Suzanne Blier, Dominique Malaquais and Labelle Prussin) during the last half of the 20e century. I also included my own observations on the vernacular architecture of the ethnic groups living in the Mandara Mountains of Cameroon.
Kaliao, Apr 2011
L’architecture traditionnelle dans les monts Mandara est un important symbole qui aide à comprend... more L’architecture traditionnelle dans les monts Mandara est un important symbole qui aide à comprendre l’image que se donne un groupe ethnique par rapport à ses voisins. Chaque ethnie utilise la structure de son bâti et l’organisation intérieure de la maison pour affirmer son identité ethnique et pour indiquer les différents types de relations entretenues avec les ethnies voisines. L’architecture est donc au centre des stratégies identitaires et semble bien être un des langages les plus efficaces pour traduire les différences entre groupes ethniques. En se basant sur l’architecture des Podokwo, Mouktélé, Ouldémé et Mouraha, ce travail montre comment l’architecture permet aux membres d’un groupe ethnique donné de se percevoir comme étant ressemblants et de percevoir les autres ethnies comme étant très différents d’eux.