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Dissertation Information for Bridget Angum Teboh

NAME:
- Bridget Angum Teboh

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (2002)

ADVISORS:
- Edward A. Alpers

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Brenda E. Stevenson
- Edmond J. Keller
- William H. Worger
- Sondra Hale

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: Women and change in the Cameroon grassfields: A social and economic history of Moghamoland, c. 1889--1960

Abstract: This dissertation focuses on the centrality of women for the survival of lineages and analyzes how women in Moghamoland in the North West Province of Cameroon reacted to and coped with changes that they and their community underwent from 1889 to 1960. This period was characterized by significant changes in the local economy and social life due to colonization by Germans and the British. I argue that these changes affected women's lives not only at the individual level but, more importantly, have shifted the traditional balance of power between genders and the complementarity between sexes on which Moghamo political, economic and social life rested. This resulted in the deterioration of women's ikah (power and clout) in society. Using marriage and motherhood as entry points to my dissertation, I identify then examine traditional structures that allowed women to achieve ikah , before looking at how they reacted to alien rule. I introduce the female principle of life and I argue that rituals are not just tools of empowerment of women, but constitute a form of resistance. By examining rituals continuities and changes over time become evident.

The substantive side of the fieldwork consisted of a multidisciplinary methodology. I have used archival material in Europe and Cameroon. As official records provide us only with information elaborated by foreign officials, I supplemented them with an extensive use of oral interviews with the Moghamo, to gain access to the voice of women and thereby fill in some of the silences of official records. Moghamoland like most African societies continues to privilege oral means of remembering the past. By collecting and analyzing oral history, historians can learn more about women in African societies.

Gender is used in this study as a critical dimension, a prism through which to analyze economic, social and cultural aspects of pre-colonial and colonial Moghamo history. By focusing on women's roles I uncover the complexities of the Moghamo gender construct and argue that sex and gender do not often coincide. As daughters, spouses, mothers, and workers reacted to changes, women have continuously struggled to negotiate their social, symbolic, and economic status in Cameroon. The testimony of this history is found not only in archival evidence, but most importantly in women's/life histories, ethnographic data, songs, dance and proverbs.

MPACT Scores for Bridget Angum Teboh

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-08-18 13:50:39

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Students under Bridget Angum Teboh

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None