Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T16:52:58.940Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Making Ethnic Elites: Ritual Poetics in a Cameroonian Lycée

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Clare A. Ignatowski
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This case study of youth cultural production in Cameroon examines how lycée students introduce idioms of tradition and the ancestral past into the lycée context by creating a club modelled on a dance society popular in the region. In pre-colonial rural Tupuriland, the gurna society was a key site for the moral–sexual socialisation of youth and a cultural–political arena where competition was staged between individuals and villages during death celebrations. Today, the gurna remains popular in Tupuri villages, though it has been recreated in urban contexts and modern institutions where members use its forms to mediate new social relations and modern realities. This paper explores the meanings, functions, and effects of the creation of the ‘Gurna Club’ by students in the Lycée de Doukoula, by examining students' Youth Day dance performances, vibrant song discourse, and nostalgia for earlier forms of indigenous socialisation (e.g. the gurna, youth initiation, and wrestling). By inserting the communal poetics of the gurna into the lycée, Tupuri youth seek to yoke multiple facets of their identity, making visible their desire to be gurna, even as they pursue their civic obligations as students. In creating the Gurna Club, students begin to participate in an increasing trend in Cameroon toward the use of idioms of parochialism (such as ethnically based elite associations) as strategies for garnering national power and recognition.

Résumé

Cette étude de cas sur la production culturelle des jeunes auCameroun examine la manière dont des élèves de lycée introduisent des idiomes de tradition et de passé ancestral dans le contexte du lycée en créant un club inspiré d'une société de danse très appréciée dans la région. Dans le Tupuriland rural précolonial, la société gurna était un lieu clé de socialisationmorale et sexuelle des jeunes et une arène politico-culturelle au sein de laquelle la concurrence était mise en scène entre individus et villages au cours de célébrations de la mort. Aujourd'hui, le gurna reste apprécié dans les villages tupuri, même s'il a été recréé dans des contextes urbains et des institutions modernes dont les membres utilisent ses formes pour faciliter de nouveaux rapports sociaux et réalités modernes. Ce papier étudie les significations, les fonctions et les effets de la création du Club Gurna par les élèves du lycée de Doukoula, en examinant les spectacles de danse donnés à l'occasion de la Journée de la jeunesse, le discours vibrant des chansons et la nostalgie de formes anciennes de socialisation indigène (ex. le gurna, l'initiation des jeunes et la lutte). En introduisant le poétique communal du gurna dans le lycée, les jeunes Tupuri cherchent à lier des facettes multiples de leur identité, en rendant visible leur désir d'être gurna, alors même qu'ils accomplissent leurs obligations civiques en tant qu'élèves. En créant le Club Gurna, les élèves commencent à participer à une tendance croissante au Cameroun, à savoir l'usage d'idiomes de parochialisme (tels qu'associations d'élites basées sur l'ethnie) en tant que stratégies d'obtention de reconnaissance et de pouvoir national.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 74 , Issue 3 , August 2004 , pp. 411 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2004

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

REFERENCES

Argenti, N. 1998. ‘Air youth: performance, violence and the state in Cameroon’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4 (4): 753–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Argenti, N. 2001. ‘Kesum-Body and the places of the Gods: the politics of children's masking and second-world realities in Oku (Cameroon)’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 7 (1): 67–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayart, J.-F. 1993. The State in Africa: the politics of the belly.Trans. by Harper, Mary. London and New York: Longman. (1989. L'Etat en Afrique. La politique du ventre. Paris: Fayard.)Google Scholar
Binet, J. 1974. ‘Dance et éducation dans la vie sociale. Les Fang du Gabon’, [L'Enfant en Afrique. Education et socialisation.] Dossiers pédagogiques 10: 21–26.Google Scholar
Bucholtz, M. 2002. ‘Youth and cultural practice’, Annual Review of Anthropology 31: 525–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durham, D. 2000. ‘Youth and the social imagination in Africa: introduction’, Anthropological Quarterly 73 (3): 1–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durham, D. 2002. ‘Uncertain citizens: Herero and the new intercalary subject in postcolonial Botswana’, in Werbner, Richard (ed.), Postcolonial Subjectivities in Africa. London and New York: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Ebron, P. A. 2002. Performing Africa. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Eyoh, D. 1998. ‘Through the prism of a local tragedy: political liberalisation, regionalism and elite struggles for power in Cameroon’, Africa 68 (3): 338–359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, J. 1999. Expectations of Modernity: myths and meanings of urban life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Fuglesang, M. 1994. Veils and Videos: female youth culture on the Kenyan coast. Stockholm: Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University.Google Scholar
Gable, E. 2000. ‘The culture development club: youth, neo-tradition, and the construction of society in Guinea-Bissau’, Anthropological Quarterly 73 (4): 195–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geschiere, P., and Gugler, J.. 1998. ‘The urban-rural connection: changing issues of belonging and identification’, Africa 68 (3): 309–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, S., and Jefferson, T. (eds). 1976. Resistance Through Rituals: youth subcultures in post-war Britain. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hebdige, D. 1979. Subculture: the meaning of style. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Hecht, D., and Simone, A. M.. 1994. Invisible Governance: the art of African micro-politics. Brooklyn NY: Autonomedia.Google Scholar
Ignatowski, C. A. 2001. ‘Journey of Names: Cultural Politics, Morality, and the Circulation of Song in Northern Cameroon’. Ph.D. dissertation. University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Lave, J., Duguid, P., and Fernandez, N.. 1992. ‘Coming of age in Birmingham: cultural studies and conceptions of subjectivity, Annual Review of Anthropology 21: 257–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liechty, M. 1995. ‘Media, markets, and modernization: youth identities and the experience of modernity in Kathmandu, Nepal’, in Amit-Talai, V. and Wulff, H. (eds), Youth Cultures: a cross-cultural perspective. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Luykx, A. 1996. ‘From Indios to Profesionales: stereotypes and student resistance in Bolivian teacher training’, in Levinson, Bradley A., Foley, Douglas E., and Holland, Dorothy C. (eds), The Cultural Production of the Educated Person: critical ethnographies of schooling and local practice. Albany NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
MacGaffey, J., and Bazenguissa-Ganga, R.. 2000. Congo–Paris: transnational traders on the margins of the law. London: International African Institute, in association with James Currey; Bloomington: Indiana Unversity Press.Google Scholar
Mamdani, M. 1996. Citizen and Subject: contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism. London: James Currey; Princeton NJ: Princeton Unversity Press.Google Scholar
Marlin-Curiel, S. 2001. ‘Rave New World: Trance-Mission, Trance-Nationalism, and the Trance-Scendence in the “New” South Africa’, The Drama Review 43 (3): 149–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mbembe, A. 1985. Les Jeunes et l'ordre politique en Afrique noire.Paris: L'Harmattan.Google Scholar
McRobbie, Angela. 2000 (1991). Feminism and Youth Culture. 2nd edn. New York: Routledge; Basingstoke: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Nyamnjoh, F., and Rowlands, M.. 1998. ‘Elite associations and the politics of belonging in Cameroon’, Africa 68 (3): 320–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perkins, W. E. (ed.). 1996. Droppin' Science: critical essays on rap music and hip hop culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Schade-Poulson, M. 1995. ‘The power of love: raï music and youth in Algeria’, in Amit-Talai, V. and Wulff, H. (eds), Youth Cultures: a cross-cultural perspective. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schilder, K. 1994. Quest for Self-Esteem: state, Islam, and Mundang ethnicity in northern Cameroon. Aldershot: Avebury.Google Scholar
Sharp, L. A. 2002. The Sacrificed Generation: youth, history, and the colonized mind in Madagascar. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Urban, G. 2001. Metaculture: how culture moves through the world. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Willis, Paul E. 1981. Learning to Labor: how working class kids get working class jobs. Reprint with new introduction and afterword. New York: Columbia University Press. (1977. Learning to Labour: how working class kids get working class jobs. Farnborough: Saxon House).Google Scholar