Collecting Practices in Bandjoun, Cameroon Thinking About Collecting As a Research Paradigm
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Collecting Practices in Bandjoun, Cameroon Thinking about Collecting as a Research Paradigm Ivan Bargna All photos by author, except where otherwise noted he purpose of my article is to inquire about the parison which is always oriented and located somewhere, in an way that different kinds of image and object individual and collective collection experience, and in a theo- collections can construct social memory and retical and methodological background and goal. Therefore, in articulate and express social and interpersonal spite of all, the museum largely remains our starting point for relationships, dissent, and conflict. I will exam- two main reasons: firstly, because the “museum” is also found ine this topic through research carried out in in Bandjoun; and secondly, because we can use the museum the Bamileke kingdom of Bandjoun, West Cameroon, since stereotype as a conventional prototype for identifying the simi- T2002 (Fig. 1). The issues involved are to some extent analogous larities and differences that compose the always open range of to those concerning the transmission of written texts: continuity possibilities that we call “collection.” To be clear, in considering and discontinuity; translations, rewritings, and transformations; the museum as a stereotypical prototype, I do not ignore the fact political selections and deliberate omissions (Forty and Kuchler that the concept of the museum and its definition change over 1999). Nevertheless, things are not texts, and we must remain time and that every history written in terms of continuity is a sensitive to the difference between them. In spite of a wide- retrospective illusion or an ideological projection. I shall pro- spread stereotype that African societies do not preserve mate- ceed, therefore, from what is most similar to the concept of the rial culture, in the Grassfields, the West Cameroon highlands, museum, and then gradually turn towards other collecting prac- we can identify several collecting practices animated by differ- tices, trying at the same time to expand the use of the collection ent interests, motivations, and aims. In fact, the modern Western as a heuristic paradigm of research. museum is only one among many different ways of collecting and “making worlds” through the order given by the collection STRUGGLES SURROUNDING THE KINGDOM MUSEUM (Pomian 1978, Bargna 2013). The first case that I will consider is that of the kingdom The assumption that is the starting point of my article is that museum (Fig. 2): namely, a “collection” explicitly presented as a collecting is not a Western prerogative or the consequence “museum” by the legitimate possessor—the public figure of the of colonial domination, but a bundle of different, widespread, fo (king) who inherits and holds the collection, but who is not transcultural practices of shaping and representing reality. Col- the owner —and the curator who is delegated to manage it. lections are forms of concrete thinking operating through The royal treasury is the subject of special care. Many objects things, in ways that are always locally diversified. Proceeding in kept inside the museum have a sacred aura, because they are this way, I try to distance myself from the cultural stereotype of charged with ke, or “force,” a power which places them in the the “museum collection” and consider the collection in terms of sacred (Maillard 1984:131–71). The possession of certain objects what Wittgenstein called a “family resemblance”: that is, a series (such as stools and drinking horns) and their measured exhibi- of overlapping similarities, where no one feature is common to tion enable the exercise of authority through the ke they con- all. That said, we must also specify that resemblances are not in vey. In particular, the acquisition of degrees of notability and the the things themselves; rather, they emerge from an act of com- exercise of the rights attached to them is bound to the posses- 20 | african arts SUMMER 2016 VOL. 49, NO. 2 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/AFAR_a_00284 by guest on 30 September 2021 bargna.indd 20 19/02/2016 4:07 PM 1 Kuosi society elephant masks coming out of nemo to reach the dance area located in the market place. Bandjoun, Cameroon, January 11, 2008. sion of certain objects. They do not simply attest to the power the different attempts to take advantage of them. In this sense, in place in a symbolic way, but they make it effective (Warnier the last fifteen years in Bandjoun have been marked by a grow- 2009): their possession legitimates usurpation, while their loss ing cultural activism which has its landmarks in the restoration undermines the established power (Maillard 1984:86). If the of the Bandjoun cultural week, the rebuilding of the traditional official ideology explicitly states that the transmission of power nemo or bung die (“House of the People”), and the opening of a takes place through ascription (from father to chosen son), what new kingdom museum. happens in reality (given the conflict between fathers and sons, In 2001, therefore, during the reign of Fo Ngnie Kamga (1984– and between brothers) is that the heir, according to a commonly 2003), a new nemo (Fig. 3) was built to replace the battered accepted practice, has enough strength to succeed him (Ouden building dating back to 1960, and a new museum was created to 1987). In this context, the kingdom museum collection appears replace the one created by Fo Fotué Kamga Justin in the 1980s. as a weapon, a power-knowledge device, playing a role in the This newly created museum was sponsored by COE (Centro di political arena. Orientamento Educativo), an Italian Catholic NGO. The new The museum itself is a stratified construction in which the “House of the People,” however, was short-lived. It was burnt contributions brought from the inside and the outside are mixed down by arson, the result of disputes over the succession to the and mutually determined. That is, the social and public identity throne in January 2005, as had also happened in 1959, and then of the collection emerges at the intersection point between the was rebuilt again in 2006–2007 (Fig. 4). The fire also reached the local and the global generated by cultural heritage policies and old museum building and the few objects that were left in there, VOL. 49, NO. 2 SUMMER 2016 african arts | 21 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/AFAR_a_00284 by guest on 30 September 2021 bargna.indd 21 19/02/2016 4:07 PM (clockwise from top left) 2 The kingdom museum of Bandjoun, located between the nemo on the left and the palace on the right. Bandjoun, Cameroon, September 22, 2011. 3 The nemo built in 2001, by the will of Fo Ngnié Kamga Joseph (1934–2003). Bandjoun, Cameroon, August 2002. 4 The new nemo built in 2006–2007 by the will of Fo Djomo Kamga Honoré, after an arson of the previous one. On the sides of the avenue connect- ing the market square to the nemo and the palace are located the houses of the king’s wives. Bandjoun, Cameroon, November 18, 2007. but the new museum did not suffer any damage. Nevertheless, of reification involved in every museum and they tried to avoid this recently renovated museum has since been dismantled to it, adopting the musée vivant model, in which the objects col- make way for a new arrangement, this time promoted by French lected are taken out of the museum every time the kingdom’s cooperation. What is particularly interesting in these events is ceremonies require it. This culturally sensitive approach appar- not only the occurrence of a strong will to build, accumulate, ently also informed the exhibition setting, conceived of by the and grow shown by the king and the elites, but an intense dia- Italian architect Antonio Piva, whose intention was to valorize lectic of construction and destruction, dismantling and renewal, local materials and techniques in order to minimize differences that affected the museum collection itself. These events allow us between the inside and the outside of the museum. to move our attention from the collection as a product to the col- Why dismantle a newly built museum, conceived and made lection as a process, setting out the framework of multiple and with the involvement and agreement of the king and the elites? contrasting agencies deciding the fates of a collection, the role What did not work? Many factors played a role in this situation, played by chance, and the several antagonistic collecting para- including the presence of different development actors compet- digms present within a single collection. ing with each other in the same field, and thus the availability of The museum created by COE was part of a wider project of new financial resources, a generational change that has brought creating Grassfields kingdom museums, aimed at the preserva- to the fore a new curator, and a shift in the goals of the museum tion of local heritage and touristic development. Although COE and of its intended audience. The museum thus passed from one is directly connected to the Italian Episcopal Conference, the format, La route des chefferies, to another that was connected to project had no clear missionary intent. The museum was not the program Musée au Service du Développement, sponsored imposed by outside pressure, but rather was negotiated with by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The concept of the the king, who assured the construction of the building. More- new program’s synergy between heritage preservation and tour- over, the project included the training of local conservators and ism development was very similar to that of the previous Ital- the research directorship was entrusted to a Cameroonian aca- ian cooperation.