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'We All Believe in the Same God'

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'We All Believe in the Same God' Wageningen University and Research Centre Department of Social Sciences M.Sc. Thesis Sociology of Development and Change ‘We all believe in the same god’ Urban youth perceptions on boundaries between religious groups in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Imme Widdershoven August 2020 931021969130 Programme: M.Sc. International Development Studies Supervisor: Dr. Gemma van der Haar Specialization: Sociology of Development and Change - Second examiner: Dr. Lotje de Vries Conflict, development and disaster Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor dr. Gemma van der Haar for her excellent guidance and feedback. As the writing process has been long and wavering, I am also very grateful for your patience and flexibility. Thanks to the Wageningen Writing Lab for facilitating a little writing club, and thanks to my club members for each morning’s motivation. I thank my parents, Merel and Wolf for bearing with me throughout the entire thesis writing process – it has been four years and yet you still love me! I want to thank everyone who contributed to making my research in Cameroon possible. I owe a lot to Dupleix Kuenzob, who facilitated my stay in Cameroon, introduced me to his colleagues and made sure I was invited to all meetings and events he thought could be useful for my research. I also thank dr. Ndi Richard Tanto for his warm welcome at the airport and his kind help and company during the months I spent in the lodging facilities of his organisation. A special thanks goes out to Cédric and his friends for their support and translations during the interviews with motor taxi drivers. Cédric, I admire how my endless questions enthused instead of exhausted you. Not only did you answer the ones you could, you also joined me in investigating what you did not know yourself. Your curiosity and capacity to listen make you an excellent peace builder, but you know that already. My deepest gratitude goes to all the Cameroonian youth who shared their thoughts and time with me. I have learned so much from you, and I sincerely enjoyed each and every conversation. Finally, a special thought goes out to Yanila. On my first day in Cameroon, he and his friends were sitting in a bar across the street from my lodgings. He beckoned me to share a drink with them, which I did. The following day, he called me to ask me what I had for breakfast. I found this a weird question, so he explained it to me: ‘I lived in Ghana for four years. I missed my friends. But a Ghanaian family took care of me. They made me feel at home. You are foreign, and I want you to feel at home here, too. So I do what they did’. From that moment until my leaving Cameroon, I was Yanila’s “little sister”. I saw him at least once a week, often more. He showed me around town, introduced me to his family, invited me to hang out with his friends and took me to the hospital when I fell ill. He was this kind to everyone he met. For example, I had introduced him to my friend Mackenzie. She danced in a night club to make wages for her and her daughter. Yanila regularly stopped by the club just to give her some money, because he knew she was having difficulties making ends meet. Like with me, he never asked anything in return. Yanila had no smartphone and it was difficult for us to keep in touch after I left Cameroon. We managed to call each other twice, in December and in February. In March, I learned that Yanila passed away in a motor accident. This research taught me much about youth in Yaoundé, about religion, and about identity. Conducting field work taught me courage and French. But Yanila taught me kindness and unprejudiced care for others. For this I am more grateful than I can express here. I will remember him. 2 Table of Contents List of symbols and abbreviations........................................................................................................5 1 Introduction.......................................................................................................................................6 1.1 Problem Statement.....................................................................................................................6 1.2 Structure.....................................................................................................................................8 2 Theoretical framework......................................................................................................................9 2.1 Youth and conflict......................................................................................................................9 2.2 Social identification and boundary construction.....................................................................10 2.2.1 Social identity theory.......................................................................................................11 2.2.2 The dialogical self............................................................................................................12 2.2.3 Boundary construction.....................................................................................................14 2.2.4 Characterizing religious groups as social groups.............................................................15 2.3 Problematic boundaries in a plural society..............................................................................16 2.3.1 When boundaries become problematic............................................................................17 2.3.2 The perks of plural societies............................................................................................19 2.3.3 Boundaries between religious groups..............................................................................19 2.4 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................20 3 Background......................................................................................................................................22 3.1 Cameroon: a brief sketch.........................................................................................................22 3.2 Religion in Cameroon..............................................................................................................25 3.3 Youth in Cameroon..................................................................................................................26 4 Methodology....................................................................................................................................27 4.1 Research approach...................................................................................................................27 4.1.1 Methods............................................................................................................................27 4.1.2 Processing data during and after fieldwork......................................................................29 4.1.3 Sampling..........................................................................................................................30 4.2 Introducing the field.................................................................................................................30 4.2.1 Selecting research sites....................................................................................................30 4.2.2 Selecting the research group............................................................................................31 4.2.3 Negotiating access and building rapport..........................................................................32 4.3 Reflections...............................................................................................................................33 4.3.1 Positionality.....................................................................................................................33 4.3.2 Limited knowledge of French..........................................................................................34 5 Urban youth’s perception of the religious landscape.......................................................................36 5.1 How youth perceive the religious landscape...........................................................................36 5.1.1 Mapping religious groups................................................................................................36 5.1.2 Changing boundaries........................................................................................................43 5.1.3 Nouvelles églises..............................................................................................................45 5.2 Relations between religious groups.........................................................................................48 5.2.1 Peaceful coexistence........................................................................................................49 5.2.2 Problematic boundaries....................................................................................................51 5.2.3 Religion is not the problem..............................................................................................56 5.3 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................57 6 Positioning oneself in the religious landscape.................................................................................59 6.1 Identifying with religious groups.............................................................................................59
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