Modern Houses, Conspicuous Consumption, and Elite–Villager Interfaces in the Mandara Highlands

What is it about?

This paper argues that changes in architectural practices related to the emergence of modern elites in the Mandara Mountains blur the relationship between them and the village’s permanent residents. Probably because they spend much of their time in urban cities, modern elites prefer building their main houses in those locations. Villagers interpret their behavior as a message of rejection. In turn, this interpretation significantly affects the reciprocal relationships between modern elites and the villagers. Although the former would built houses in the village also, this practice does not remove the suspicion they attract from the latter. On the contrary, the massive character of the houses combined with their emptiness contribute to reinforce the villagers’ belief that they are the fruit of occult practices.

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Why is it important?

My findings show that elites’ houses in the Mandara Mountains are not only the places of production of social relations, as Lévi-Strauss conceived. They are also the place of tension, this is summed up in the very pragmatic local proverb: “Your worst enemy never comes from far away.” By articulating at the same the proximity and the distance in a kinship relationship, elites’ houses broadcast in some way these contradictions inherent to social relations. Moreover, the study of elites’ houses provide important elements for approaching another form of cultural biography. Indeed, contrary to the biography of the house studied by Waterson (2003), they are determined not by the evidence of internal human relations, but by their absence.

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