Construction of Social Cohesion and Living Together in the Cameroonian Public Space: Differences of Opinion versus the Emergence of a Common Sense in Discourse

Abstract

Social cohesion and living together increasingly appear to be a response by the public authorities to the emergence of identity claims in Cameroon, in a context marked by the Anglophone crisis. Indeed, the socio-historical evolution reveals that living together in Cameroonian society changes considerably according to the social crises that animate it. It is therefore necessary to question the construction of these two concepts, in a dynamic marked by the reconfiguration of the public space characterised by occurrences in journalistic discourse. The aim of this proposal is to analyse the different conceptions that emerge from debates on cohesion and living together in the Cameroonian public space, in order to detect the true meaning that emerges from them. Our general objective is to explore the possibilities of constructing a problematic in the public space, namely living together, based on what is said by the actors in televised debates. The observation of the public space in particular that circumscribed by televised debates, reveals a frequency of their discursive use. The questions we asked ourselves were the following: How are the notions of living together and social cohesion constructed in televised debates in Cameroon? How do citizens position themselves in the face of the multitude of identity allegiances with which they identify in the public space? In order to provide some answers to this question, we observed and analysed the statements made by actors on stage in televised debates on four television channels. We were particularly interested in the debates on living together and social cohesion, and by means of discourse analysis we were able to detect the content of these notions. Our analysis of the television debates shows that social cohesion is presented as the manifestation of “living together”, in the sense that it implies an interweaving of identities between the different strata of the population with a view to their full participation in the construction of the whole society. Furthermore, “living together” is conditioned by the requirements of good governance, whereas at the level of public authorities, it is seen more as a political option.