African Women 
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| Title: | Fabrics of loyalty: the politics of International Women's Day wax print cloth in Cameroon |
| Authors: | Pommerolle, Marie Emmanuelle Ngaméni, Nadine Machikou |
| Year: | 2015 |
| Periodical: | Africa: Journal of the International African Institute (ISSN 0001-9720) |
| Volume: | 85 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Pages: | 656-676 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Cameroon |
| Subjects: | women female dress clothing |
| External link: | https://doi.org/10.1017/S0001972015000534 |
| Abstract: | Based on a study of the International Women's Day (8 March), a truly popular event in Cameroon, this article attempts to understand the dynamics of state mobilization in this long-lasting regime. By observing the production and use of one of its symbolic objects, the pagne du 8 mars (a dedicated wax print), it sheds significant light on the social fabric of loyalty and the articulation of loyalist and disruptive popular mobilizations and allows us to move beyond ready-made, state-centred explanations. As an object of exchange and social distinction, the pagne provides women with a variety of ways of interacting (or not interacting) with the state and with men. Although, on the face of it, the act of dressing in the day's cloth may be seen as an expression of collective loyalty to the regime, one cannot assume that it represents a single, undifferentiated approach to authority. Licentious behaviour while wearing this pagne may even represent a real condemnation of moral and political power imposed on women. For the moment, however, this ritual and its popular mobilization are sufficient for the government's purposes: it is able to point to the event as an example of its capacity to mobilize its female citizens, thereby showing that its claims to legitimacy are well-founded. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French [Journal abstract] |
