Diary evidence for political competition: Mambila autoethnography and pretensions to power

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Periodical article

Title:	Diary evidence for political competition: Mambila autoethnography and pretensions to power
Author:	Zeitlyn, David
Year:	2010
Periodical:	African Studies Review (ISSN 1555-2462)
Volume:	53
Issue:	2
Pages:	77-95
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Cameroon
Subjects:	Mambila autobiography chieftaincy power
External link:	http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/african_studies_review/v053/53.2.zeitlyn.pdf
Abstract:	An examination of personal diaries kept by Mambila people in Somié village, Cameroon, at the request of the author, 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 chieftaincy. 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 decisionmaking processes in the wider African context. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [Journal abstract]