Traditional and new houses, old and new paths to social status in the Mandara highlands, Cameroon

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article suggests that in the Mandara Mountains, houses, whether traditional or modern, are means by which social relations are continuously created, reproduced, justified and transformed. This approach has relevance for the literature insofar as authors have mainly focused on the role of elite and public buildings in the generation and maintenance of power and hierarchies, while domestic architecture has been studied mainly as a symbol of group values. Building materials and architectural shapes of houses are continually morphing in the Mandara Mountains, but the social practices related to the use of the inhabited space remain unchanged. The study is original because the existing literature on the Mandara Mountains focuses more on traditional architecture. While this area has surfaced in the news as a hinterland of Boko Haram in neighbouring Nigeria, recent cultural and, in particular, architectural transformations have not received much attention.