Diary Evidence for Political Competition: Mambila Autoethnography and Pretensions to Power

An examination of personal diaries kept by Mambila people in Somié village, Cameroon, shows that everyday occurrences and small events, whose importance may have been overlooked at the time and which were forgotten soon after they took place, can be understood, in retrospect, as part of a larger str...

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Main Author: Zeitlyn, D
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: 2010
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author Zeitlyn, D
author_facet Zeitlyn, D
author_sort Zeitlyn, D
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description An examination of personal diaries kept by Mambila people in Somié village, Cameroon, shows that everyday occurrences and small events, whose importance may have been overlooked at the time and which were forgotten soon after they took place, can be understood, in retrospect, as part of a larger struggle for power in a small Cameroonian chieftancy. This article examines the written accounts of some of these events in the context of diary narratives about community disputes, and it provides a model for the use of diaries and other personal records to illuminate the complexity of decision-making processes in the wider African context.
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spelling oxford-uuid:570b94a4-f2b9-447c-82c8-e20240a882532022-03-26T16:54:10ZDiary Evidence for Political Competition: Mambila Autoethnography and Pretensions to PowerJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:570b94a4-f2b9-447c-82c8-e20240a88253EnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford2010Zeitlyn, DAn examination of personal diaries kept by Mambila people in Somié village, Cameroon, shows that everyday occurrences and small events, whose importance may have been overlooked at the time and which were forgotten soon after they took place, can be understood, in retrospect, as part of a larger struggle for power in a small Cameroonian chieftancy. This article examines the written accounts of some of these events in the context of diary narratives about community disputes, and it provides a model for the use of diaries and other personal records to illuminate the complexity of decision-making processes in the wider African context.
spellingShingle Zeitlyn, D
Diary Evidence for Political Competition: Mambila Autoethnography and Pretensions to Power
title Diary Evidence for Political Competition: Mambila Autoethnography and Pretensions to Power
title_full Diary Evidence for Political Competition: Mambila Autoethnography and Pretensions to Power
title_fullStr Diary Evidence for Political Competition: Mambila Autoethnography and Pretensions to Power
title_full_unstemmed Diary Evidence for Political Competition: Mambila Autoethnography and Pretensions to Power
title_short Diary Evidence for Political Competition: Mambila Autoethnography and Pretensions to Power
title_sort diary evidence for political competition mambila autoethnography and pretensions to power
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