African modernities and mobilities : an historical ethnography of Kom, Cameroon, C. 1800-2008 / Gam Nkwi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nkwi, Gam, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethnology--Cameroon.

Ethnology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (434 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Bamenda, North West Region, Cameroon : Langaa RPCIG, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this book Walter Gam Nkwi documents the complexities and nuances embedded in African modernities and mobilities which have been overlooked in historical discourses in Africa and Cameroon. Using an ethnographic historical approach and drawing on the intricacies of what it has meant to be and belong in Kom- an ethnic community in the Northwest Region of Cameroon - since 1800, he explores the discourses and practices of kfaang as central to any understanding of mobility and modernity in Kom, Cameroon and Africa at large. The book unveils the emic understanding of modernity through the history and ethnography of kfaang and its technologies and illustrates how these terminologies were conceived and perceived by the Kom people in their social and physical mobilities. It documents and analyzes the historical processes involved in bringing about and making kfaang a defining feature of everyday life in Kom and among Kom subjects.

Contents:

Foreword / by Jean-Pierre Warnier

Preface

Acknowledgement

Introduction : theory and progress of Kfaang

Background and methodology

Kom in global communication ecology, c.1800-c.2008b

Roads, mobility and Kfaang, c.1928-1998

Motor vehicle (Afue'm A Kfaang)

Church, Christianity and Kfaang in Kom (Ndo Fiyini Ni Iwo Fiyini Kfaang)

School, schooling and literacy (ndogwali kfaang) 1928 to c.1980

Letters and letter writers (Ghelii-Do Gwa-Ali Kfaang)

Plantations, coast (Itiini Kfaang), Bushfallers and returned migrants

Ex-service men, (Ghiili-I-Wong-I-Kfaang) 1914-1946

Elite women (Ghii'ki Kfaang) : women and newness in colonial and post-colonial Kom, Cameroon since c.1930's

From foot messengers to text messengers c.1800-1998 : change and continuity of Kfaang men

Mobility and encounters with different worlds

Conclusion : Kom identity as work in progress.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed June 27, 2015).

ISBN:

9789956762378

9956762377

OCLC:

913500503