The Reconstruction of Society: Understanding the Indigenous Response to French and British Rule in Cameroun

Abstract

Babete and Akum are Bamileke kingdoms located respectively in francophone and anglophone Cameroun. In Babete indigenous political institutions exert little influence over local political and economic life. In contrast, indigenous institutions in Akum remain a vibrant force. What accounts for the difference? The difference reflects the divergent impact of French and British colonial institutions on Bamileke society.' In francophone Babete colonial institutions severed the tie between individual achievement and participation in local governance, rendering local institutions irrelevant. In anglophone Akum colonial institutions modified but nevertheless retained the link between achievement and participation. Local institutions remained important. Though historically specific, the threads of this analysis carry an important message. Too often, contemporary scholarship assumes an oppositional relationship between state and society. In the popular press a strong, overbearing state is said to crush or drown civil society, while a vibrant civil society necessarily circumscribes state power.2 In many policy analyses the historically centralized state relinquishes authority, and a long dormant civil society steps forward to spearhead needed community development.3 Babete and Akum present a more complicated view. State and society are mutually constitutive. When state actors fashion new rules or new mechanisms for rule enforcement, social actors likewise refashion local institutions to capture or evade these new forms of state power.4 Thus, it can not simply be assumed that civil society lies dormant or that it will readily step forward to govern if the state withdraws. Rather, civil society is constantly reinventing and reformulating itself as individuals seek to advance their individual or collective interests.