Cultivating Moral Citizenship

Description

An Ethnography of Young People’s Associations, Gender, and Social Adulthood in the Cameroon Grasslands

In Cultivating Moral Citizenship, ethnographer, Jude Fokwang unpacks the meanings, mechanisms and processes through which young people in an inner city of the West African nation of Cameroon respond to local and global challenges as they seek to position themselves as social adults. Faced with the decline of old predictabilities, the diminishing capacity of the postcolonial state to control its destiny and the precarity of waithood, young people instrumentalise the opportunities and resources afforded by associations to build reciprocal relationships that advance their individual and collective pursuits in a community that has increasingly become transnational. In positioning themselves as moral actors, the young people in this ethnography invest in high profile social and communal projects, including the enforcement of moral orthodoxies that enable readers to appreciate the ways in which moral citizenship is engendered, expanded and eroded simultaneously.

Praise for “Cultivating Moral Citizenship”

“Fokwang beautifully weaves together the experiences of young Cameroonians as they reposition themselves as social adults amidst economic crisis and armed conflict. Cultivating Moral Citizenship is a brilliant examination of how young people’s identities and subjectivities are brought about in contemporary Cameroonian society.”
—Alcinda Honwana, Visiting Professor, Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa, London School of Economics and Political Science

“Cultivating Moral Citizenship is a meticulous and engaging account of how young people in Africa respond, in personal and associational ways, to the impediments to self-realization and generational possibilities through complex moral imaginations. An excellent ethnography of citizenship, young adulthood, subjectivity and sociability in the abysmal context of contemporary Anglophone Cameroon that speaks to wider contexts.”
— Wale Adebanwi, Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania & editor of Everyday State and Democracy in Africa: Ethnographic Encounters (2022)

“In this must-read book, Fokwang finely outlines, analyses, and convincingly demonstrates how a category of Cameroonians defined as youth – despite attaining biological maturity – work hard to reposition themselves, respectfully, as social adults. His focus on the agency of these young people is within a cultural and socioeconomic milieu where reaching adulthood or responsible citizenship, is an uphill task. Fokwang develops the concept of ‘moral citizenship’ to capture the experiences of these young people in their quest to achieve social adulthood. Their strategies of recognition are individual and collective and involve practices of self-care, associational life, charity as well as activities that positively impact the communities. This highly recommended monograph challenges as well as expand our anthropological knowledge on themes such as subjectivity, youth, personhood, identity, citizenship, gender, and adulthood.”
— Primus M. Tazanu, PhD, Senior Lecturer of Anthropology, University of Buea, Cameroon, and Senior Guest Researcher, Centre of African Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

“This is a gem for youth studies in Africa. One of the richest and most compelling ethnographic accounts of youth and the crisis of becoming.”
— Divine Fuh, PhD, Associate Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Cape Town

Content

Introduction: The Predicament of Being Young in Africa 1

1. Outsider and Native: Fieldwork in Old Town, Bamenda 23
2. Personhood, Social Adulthood and Society in the Grasslands 37
3. Cultivating Moral Spaces: Rules, Routines and the Constitution of Everyday Life in Young People’s Associations 57
4. Sanitary Activism and Urban Renewal in Old Town 95
5. Cultivating Respect, Gendered Spaces and Moral Transformation in Old Town 123
6. Alternate Pathways to Social Adulthood and the Economy of Faux Dossiers 165

Conclusion: Personhood, Moral Action, and Social Adulthood in the Cameroon Grasslands 179
References 185
Index 201