%0 Journal Article
%T <i>Ghii¡¯ki  Kfaang</i>: Women, Modernity and Modernization in Colonial Kom, Cameroon, c. 1920-1961
%A Walter Gam Nkwi
%J Open Access Library PrePrints
%V 1
%N 1
%P 1-14
%@ 2333-9721
%D 2014
%I Open Access Library
%R 10.4236/oalib.preprints.1200022
%X This article explores Ghii¡¯ki Kfaang (¡®women of newness¡¯ or modern women) and their allure to modernity and the modernization process in colonial Kom of Northwest Cameroon. Women in the colonial history of Africa held ambiguous positions as they were sometimes subjects and agents. Yet their place in modernity and modernization processes in the literature is scarce. Informed by rigorous empirical research and the analytical framework of subjection by Mamdani this article contends that there were various avenues of modernization and modernity that appealed to Kom women who did not hesitate to exploit them. Kfaang is an emic concept which among the Kom people connotes newness-innovation and novelty in thinking and doing, and the material indicators and relationships that result from it. Kfaang maybe internally generated, but it is almost invariably externally induced. In many ways, it translates but is not limited to ¡®modernity¡¯ and ¡®modernization¡¯ in the Western sense, as things of local origin might also be labelled kfaang, even when clearly not foreign or Western. The most important characteristic of kfaang therefore is that which is ¡¯new¡¯. Kom people accepted and appropriated it when it was relevant to their needs. Depending upon the circumstances kfaang denotes a process and a product. Both involve social change mediated by mobility.
%K kfaang
%K Ghi-kii-kfaang
%K Kom
%K Cameroon
%U http://www.oalib.com/paper/3051334