Lucie Mbogni Nankeng participates in the colloquium organised by the Fondation pour la Mémoire de l'Esclavage (FME) & l'Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), which is being held from 7 to 9 November in Dakar, Senegal.
BY LUCIE MBOGNI NANKENG
« GAMES AND ISSUES IN THE TRANSMISSION OF THE MEMORY OF SLAVERY THROUGH CHIEFTAINCY MUSEUMS IN THE GRASSFIELDS OF CAMEROON »
According to Yves Robert (2000), the museum is a space for reflection in which society has the opportunity to question itself. The memorial or remembrance action of such self-questioning makes the museum a space of remembrance whose typologies depend on the memory to be preserved and transmitted. In the Grassfields region of Cameroon, the museographic systems articulate the memory of slavery by identifying themselves as museums of slavery for some and as spaces for the display and transmission of memorial knowledge in its entirety for others. This study, which examines the mechanisms and devices for the display and transmission of the memory of slavery in the Grassfields region and proposes an analysis of the issues involved in this transmission, makes it possible to appreciate the central role of museums in the transmission of memories of slavery (customary slavery or servitude within and between communities, transatlantic slavery, etc.) in this region and in Cameroon in general, through an adapted scenographic mixture and objectified artistic performances. This is a combination of art, history, culture and memory, favourable to a discourse on slavery oriented towards a theurapeutic dynamic and an ethic of remembrance and openness to the universal.