Gender, Separatist Politics, and Embodied Nationalism in Cameroon

by Jacqueline-Bethel Tchouta Mougoué

Overview

Gender, Separatist Politics, and Embodied Nationalism in Cameroon illuminates how issues of ideal womanhood shaped the Anglophone Cameroonian nationalist movement in the first decade of independence in Cameroon, a west-central African country. Drawing upon history, political science, gender studies, and feminist epistemologies, the book examines how formally educated women sought to protect the cultural values and the self-determination of the Anglophone Cameroonian state as Francophone Cameroon prepared to dismantle the federal republic. The book defines and uses the concept of embodied nationalism to illustrate the political importance of women’s everyday behavior—the clothes they wore, the foods they cooked, whether they gossiped, and their deference to their husbands. The result, in this fascinating approach, reveals that West Cameroon, which included English-speaking areas, was a progressive and autonomous nation. The author’s sources include oral interviews and archival records such as women’s newspaper advice columns, Cameroon’s first cooking book, and the first novel published by an Anglophone Cameroonian woman.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780472125241
Publisher:	University of Michigan Press
Publication date:	10/14/2019
Series:	African Perspectives
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	346
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Jacqueline-Bethel Tchouta Mougoué is Assistant Professor of Gender & Sexuality in African Cultural Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  

Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgments A Note on Terminology Abbreviations Introduction. “What the Women of a Nation Are, So Shall the Nation Be”: Gendered Nationalism in Cameroon Chapter 1. Tracing the “Golden Age” of Anglophone Cameroon: Gender, Nationalism, and Political Identity Chapter 2. Men Must Not “Die Alone in the Task of Nation-Building”: Women’s Organizations and Nationalist Activities Chapter 3. “God Will Be Eating Grass”: Cooking Anglophone Nationalism Chapter 4. “Beauty Contest Not Only for Free Girls”: Modeling Anglophone Identity Chapter 5. The Plague of “Gossips and Vindictiveness”: Mediating Social Behaviors and Delineating Public and Private Spheres Chapter 6. “My Husband Stopped Maintaining Me So I Beat Up His Girl”: Jealous Housewives, “Women Extremists,” and Public Conduct Chapter 7. “When Women Wear Slacks”: “Single-Trouser Nationalism” and Public Space Conclusion. Takumbeng Unleashed: Women’s Continual Collective Mobilization in Anglophone Nationalism Appendix: Methods and Sources Notes Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

"Gender, Separatist Politics, and Embodied Nationalism in Cameroon is important for all scholars of West and Central African decolonization, especially for those working on Cameroon and Nigeria. In general, the language applied provides a level of readability appropriate for both graduate students and scholars. For researchers of affective nationalism, the work offers a well-read analysis of new examples of embodied processes." - Journal of West African History 

Journal of West African History

Winner: Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra 2020 Prize from the Western Association of Women Historians

Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize

Gender, Separatist Politics, and Embodied Nationalism in Cameroon offers an engaging and provocative analysis that is attractive and accessible to undergraduate and graduate students. It is clear, lively, nicely spiced with humor, and seasoned with a good mix of clear-eyed analysis and warm empathy. Good cookery for the mind.”
—Judith Van Allen, Cornell University


“Mougoué makes significant contributions to the history of Cameroon, to our understanding of the potential emergence of secessionist movements in Africa, to the way in which gender relations play a role in such historical developments, and to the history of women and girls in Anglophone Africa. Gender, Separatist Politics, and Embodied Nationalism in Cameroon is excellent; it is a joy to read.”
—Gretchen Bauer, University of Delaware

From the Publisher

Selected for the Washington Post's 2020 TMC African Politics Summer Reading Spectacular

Washington Post

"Vividly written, rich in materials, keen in analysis, this book is perfect for the advanced undergraduate and graduate syllabus as well as for researchers." 
—Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute - Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg

"In many postcolonial African contexts, nationalism has been pivotal to the process of imagining and building a nation-state that fuses a desire for (mainly Western) modernity with an emphasis on a kind of cultural distinctiveness—a dialectic that engenders a complex relation between gender and the nation-state. This is the fundamental concern of Jacqueline-Bethel M​ougoué’s Gender, Separatist Politics, and Embodied Nationalism in Cameroon (University of Michigan Press, 2019), a scholarly tour de force that weaves a detailed narrative of the agency, creativity and complicity of women’s politics within a postcolonial nation building agenda during the “Golden Age” of Cameroonian politics."
—AfricanFeminism

African Feminism - Nancy Henaku

Winner, Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize from the Western Association of Women Historians, 2020

Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize Committee - Western Association of Women Historians

Winner, Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize from the Women's Caucus of the African Studies Association, 2021

2021 African Studies Association Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize (ASA)

"Gender, Separatist Politics, and Embodied Nationalism in Cameroon fills an important gap in Anglophone Cameroon’s history by telling the history of 'seemingly invisible women.' Mougoué’s book demonstrates ethnic politics and nationalism are not merely the domain of male political elites — the focus of most political histories and analysis. This broader perspective embraces the writings and activities of elite Anglophone Cameroonian women to explore how their subtler form of ethnic politics also emphasized cultural heritage and encouraged unity."
— Washington Post 

Washington Post - Kim Yi Dionne