-
7. Contradictions: Identities, Opportunities, and Conflicts
- University of Washington Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
214 It is a question that I should talk to you about, you white people. In history, they say that pygmies are men of small size. White people say that they come here because of Baka, even though Baka are the same size as we [Bangando] are. So are white people sure that the people they come to work with are actually Baka? —Medola, Bangando man, Mambélé, May 1999 T hrough processes of coming together and engaging with changing contexts, Bangando, Baka, Bakwélé, and Mbomam have built relationships and alliances, negotiated differences and divisions, and contended with political, economic, ecological, and social changes. As a result of these varied dynamics, identities range from relatively stable ethchapter seven Contradictions identities, opportunities, and conflicts contradictions 215 nic affiliations to extremely fluid social identities, with a broad spectrum of collective and individual identities of varying viscosity in between, identities that reflect alliances, partnerships, and shared experiences among the communities of the Lobéké forest region. The tremendous variation in kind, quality, and context of identities indicates the many nodes of commonality among the communities as they have initiated and endured a core of shared experiences over the course of the past two centuries. This ethnography has demonstrated that although Bangando, Baka, Bakwélé, and Mbomam groups are distinct in some fundamental ways, such as language, many historical experiences, intercommunal alliances, social relationships, and ways of identifying self and other bring the communities together. The boundaries that mark distinctions within and among the communities simultaneously serve as social articulations, marking common qualities, contexts, and interests (Barth 2002). But social systems in their messy glory are too unwieldy for institutional processing and management. Contradictions emerge when outside observers view the integrated, multiethnic society of southeastern Cameroon through lenses that emphasize simplified categories of distinction and opposition. For example, the process of collecting data for the purpose of designing management plans for biodiversity conservation and socioeconomic development is premised on surveying, cataloging, and mapping the components of natural and social systems. In the fields of conservation biology and policy, biodiverse ecosystems are mapped, transects are systematically demarcated and “walked,” data are counted and classified, and maps of resources are produced to represent and quantify animal species. In the field of development, communities are identified and categorized, and are surveyed for basic socioeconomic information that often emphasizes the distinctiveness of particular communities. This process of classifying differences creates boundaries that identify and delineate spaces, species, and societies. Through surveys designed for administrative purposes, natural and social boundaries are documented, legislated, and eventually reinscribed as tools to control and patrol the landscapes and socialscapes from which they have been abstracted. The practical need to categorize forest communities dovetails with analytical models that have been condensed from other seemingly similar environments and that differentiate between communities according to distinctive characteristics of human ecology, economic orientation, social organization, and ritual practice. This attention to divisions among communities has resulted in three prevailing assumptions in policies for forest com- [35.175.201.245] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 09:51 GMT) 216 chapter seven munities: that differences do, actually, provide the most salient dynamic in social relations; that distinctions in various contexts—ecological, economic, ethnic, and social—are mutually constitutive; and that the distinctions that demarcate analytical categories remain constant across communities and across time. As a result of these assumptions, the analytical frameworks that guide research and policy formulation both draw on and perpetuate sets of oppositional categories that are treated as interchangeable: people of the forest/people of the village; pygmies/villagers; hunter-gatherers/farmers; indigenous people/immigrants; Baka/Bangando. These conveniently interchangeable categories provide stable units of categorization, evaluation, and institutional administration—units that reduce dynamics of social complexity to simple oppositions between paired elements. In the fields of conservation and development, the dominant, pragmatic paradigms of “pygmies” and “hunter-gatherers” appear to serve as convenient conceptual handles for observers who may have neither the expertise nor the time to delve into the details of social life in the forest. However, the actual communities to which these handles are attached may not correspond to the categorical concepts in the ways that outside observers expect. For policy makers, the muddle of social relations within equatorial African forests poses an administrative quagmire. Institutions that require the distillation of social realities into conceptual categories tend to have particular policy objectives. During the colonial era and early independence in Cameroon, administrators were concerned about cataloging the population in order to...