STRUCTURES OF CONTROL AND POWER AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE IN A WESTERN GRASSFIELDS CHIEFDOM

The main objective is to examine the systematic interaction between the customary systems of Bamunka and the national bureaucracy. Comparative observations and historico-anthropological sources for the Ndop Plain will be used and, by extension, those four other Western Grassfields chiefdoms.

The paper also seeks to show how this coexistence provides opportunities and constraints to both genders, and to specific social groups of women. The claim is that an analysis of who benefits or who does not from these structures depends on specific circumstances, an actor's gender, social status, access to old and new resources, and increasingly their achievements. The main argument is that an understanding of the ways in which power relationships change must include the dimension of gender.

While structural changes including increasing specialisation and commoditization of land, labour, agricultural products and symbolic capital are occurring, nonetheless, big men are not relinquishing claims to customary rights (e.g. titles and status), co-operation and even domination through kinship, gender divisions and power relations.