Francis Nyamnjoh: Book Review: Negotiating an Anglophone Identity in Cameroon

About Francis Nyamnjoh

Francis B. Nyamnjoh is Professor of anthropology at the University of Cape Town in South Africa
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Book Review: Negotiating an Anglophone Identity in Cameroon

Reviewed by Emmanuel Yenshu Vubo (Cahiers d'études africaines, 177, 2005)

Konings, Piet & Nyamnjoh, Francis B. — Negotiating an Anglophone Identity. A Study of the Politics of Recognition and Representation in Cameroon. Leiden-Boston, Brill (Afrika-Studiecentrum Series, Vol. 1), 2003, 230 p.

One of the paradoxes of the neo-liberal drive, otherwise referred to as globalisation, has been the resurgence of the identity question, that is, “…the gradual unravelling of identities based on the state, a decline of identities based on political ideology — and identities based on culture” 1 as the streamlining effect of the ideological and political context of the Cold War has given way resulting in a radical questioning of the very basis of the modern model of the nation-state.

The conjuncture of globalisation with its call for less of the state and the politics of identity of a fragmentary nature has had the effect of discrediting the very fragile basis of post-colonial arrangements in nation-building in the South 2 although not confined to it 3. While the politics of identity in the majority of cases has been predicated on primordial historic/ethnic communities, the Anglophone community in Cameroon joins the rare cases of Eastern Timor, Eritrea and even the Western Sahara in a politics whose very basis can be traced to the colonial reshaping of the political configuration of parts of the South.

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May 07, 2005 in Book Reviews | Permalink

Tags: Africa, Cameroon, Language, Minority Rights, Nationalism, Politics of Identity, Regionalism

Comments

I am delighted to get these details about Dr Nyamnjo whom I have heard a lot but never privileged to have met yet. I will endeavour to get in touch physically when I next call by in Dakar.

Best regards,

Takwa Suifon
Liaison Officer
ECOWAS Secretariat (don't ask me what the hell a Cameroonian is doing in ECOWAS!)