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WELCOMING THE ‘FON OF FONS’: ANGLOPHONE ELITES AND THE POLITICS OF HOSTING CAMEROON'S HEAD OF STATE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 April 2014

Rogers Tabe Egbe Orock
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Abstract

This article draws on a political ethnography of the hosting of state ceremonies to engage with erstwhile theoretical accounts of African politics as highly patrimonial and built on a social complicity between African rulers and their citizens. The article examines the patrimonial relationship between Cameroon's head of state, Paul Biya, and political elites of local ethno-regional communities who support the president within the framework of the Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) in Anglophone Cameroon. It approaches such elite politics of hosting as part of the vast cultural repertoire of patrimonial domination that emphasizes a spectacularization of proximity and intimacy between the head of state and his coterie of supporting elites as the latter seek development resources for their local and regional communities in exchange for their political support. To account for hosting as a practice of patrimonial elite politics, the article demonstrates the complex logics and pragmatics of ethnic and regional competition as well as the deployment of symbolic idioms of hierarchical relations, mutuality and interdependence in the cultural performance and legitimation of Biya's patrimonial domination of Cameroon.

Résumé

Cet article s'appuie sur une ethnographie politique de la tenue de cérémonies d'État pour traiter d'anciens récits théoriques de politique africaine comme étant hautement patrimoniaux et fondés sur une complicité sociale entre les dirigeants africains et leurs citoyens. L'article examine la relation patrimoniale entre le chef d'État camerounais, Paul Biya, et les élites politiques de communautés ethno-régionales locales qui soutiennent le Président dans le cadre du parti du Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounais (RDPC), dans le Cameroun anglophone. Il traite de la politique de tenue de réceptions par ces élites dans le cadre du vaste répertoire culturel de domination patrimoniale qui met en lumière une spectacularisation de la proximité et de l'intimité qui existent entre le chef d'État et sa coterie d'élites alliées en quête de ressources de développement pour leurs communautés locales et régionales en échange d'un soutien politique. Pour expliquer la tenue de réceptions en tant que pratique de politique d'élite patrimoniale, cet article démontre la logique complexe et la pragmatique de la concurrence ethnique et régionale, ainsi que le déploiement d'idiomes symboliques de relations hiérarchiques, de mutualité et d'interdépendance dans la manifestation culturelle et la légitimisation de la domination patrimoniale du Cameroun par M. Biya.

Type
Talking Power
Information
Africa , Volume 84 , Issue 2 , May 2014 , pp. 226 - 245
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2014 

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