Nkwi, Walter Gam University of Buea, Cameroon

GHII’KI KFAANG : WOMEN, MODERNITY AND MODERNIZATION IN COLONIAL KOM, CAMEROON, C.1920S-1961

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This article focuses on the allure of African women to modernity taking colonial Kom as a case study. It examines how women in the colonial period were subjects and at the same period agents of modernization and modernity. The colonial venture invented the invisibility of women by excluding them from taking centre stage in administration. This was more because colonialism was concerned more with territory than humans. Women were mostly relevant as domestic servants or served in other lowly paid professions. In colonial regimes that were constructed on racist ideologies women were in contact with the colonial system because of sex, and domestic work as well and would further imitate the ways of their mistresses and masters.

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Cahiers Ivoiriens D’Études Comparées

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