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Title: | Bridges Across Africa's International Boundaries: Socio-Cultural, Political and Religious Institutions along and Astride the Nigeria-Cameroon Boundary |
Author: | Bonchuk, M.O. |
Year: | 2001 |
Periodical: | Humanities Review Journal |
Volume: | 1 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 81-87 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Nigeria Cameroon |
Subjects: | boundaries ethnic groups Politics and Government Inter-African Relations Ethnic and Race Relations History and Exploration colonialism |
Abstract: | The empirical data for this paper is drawn from the 'ethnic minorities' divided along and astride the Cross River borderlands with southern Cameroon. Scholars who have studied the Nigeria-Cameroon boundary tend to lay more emphasis on the State-centric perspective that continues to operate largely within the framework of nineteenth-century European notions of the sovereignty of States and the sanctity of national boundaries. By comparison, the transnational stance is unconventional and less known to existing scholarly literature and policymaking tradition. Nevertheless, the transnational model has been more responsive to the realities of border regions. Examination of the precolonial sociocultural, political and religious institutions indicates that the cultural bonds which have linked peoples in the Nigeria-Cameroon transborder areas over the centuries are too strong to be destroyed by the reality of a relatively recent colonial boundary. The sovereignty percolating realities along and astride the borderlands have eventuated into various micro-integration at the grassroots level waiting to be formalized at the State-centric level. Bibliogr., online sum. [Journal abstract] |