COLONISATION,IDENTITY, ELITIST PRACTICES AND SOCIOPOLITICAL DYNAMICS IN THE BAMBOUTOS DIVISION IN WEST CAMEROON ; COLONISATION, QUÊTES IDENTITAIRES, PRATIQUES ÉLITISTES ET DYNAMIQUES SOCIO-POLITIQUES DANS LES BAMBOUTOS (OUEST-CAMEROUN), XIX E - XXE SIÈCLE

Abstract

The Bamboutos Division in Western Cameroon has been the subject of many studies that tackle it as a particular entity. These studies, while dealing particularly with its various groups or political entities, have also tried to accredit the idea of a whole community with special characteristics. However, the mentioned groups constitute a mixed entirety, as the analysis of their historical background can testify: factors of differentiation defined by the elites have come to be added to the initial cut between the twist of pre-colonial political structures and the colonial context. As a matter of fact, after decolonization, the primacy of indigenous factors of differentiation (among those generated by colonization) became more apparent and marked so that it is now at the middle of political, economic and social stakes which are being put in place within the Division, with important dynamics as a backdrop. That is the phenomenon we examine in this work, through the 19th and the 20th centuries.This dissertation thus offers a sociopolitical analysis of a social change case by its scale and speed in Bamboutos Division between the 19th and 20th centuries. Hence, it proposes firstly, some guidelines for the reader to understand the tension between office and movement, which livens up the human societies through the intervention of our research area in the pre-colonial universe. Secondly, it identifies the recurring trends of the story of Africans to the contact of colonization. Thirdly, it gives into details, the main contemporary features of the colonial phenomenon as reinvented and regained control by the administrations just after the independences, to political ends especially that of frame.At each stage, we have shown the increasing impact of modern Society with its ideology of progress and rationality, on all people's life, what makes Chiefs, elites as well as fringes to become more and more influential over their environment especially in land and political turnout matters. However, we have noticed that, the ...