This book makes a rare and original contribution on the history of
little documented internal land conflicts and boundary misunderstandings
in Cameroon, where attention has tended to focus too narrowly on
international boundary conflicts such as that between Cameroon and
Nigeria. The study is of the Bamenda Grassfields, the region most
plagued by land and boundary conflicts in the country. Despite claims of
common descent and cultural similarities by most communities in the
region, relations have been tested and dominated by recurrent land and
boundary conflicts since the middle of the 20th Century. Nkwi takes us
through these contradictions, as he draws empirically and in general on
his rich historical and ethnographic knowledge of the tensions and
conflicts over land and boundaries in the region to situate and
understand the conflicts between Bambili and Babanki-Tungoh - the
epicenter of land and boundary - from c.1950s - 2009. Little if any
scholarly attention has focused on this all important issue, its
pernicious effects on the region notwithstanding. This book takes a bold
step in the direction of the social history of land and boundary
conflicts in Cameroon, and demonstrates that there is much of scholarly
interest in understanding the centrality of land and boundaries in the
configuration and contestation of human relations. In his innovative and
stimulating blend of history and ethnography, Nkwi points to exciting
new directions of paying closer attention to relationships informed by
consciousness on and around land and boundaries.
