Ethnic Melting Pot and the Evolution of Cameroon’s Urban Centres
摘要
History presents Cameroon as a migratory crossroads. It has been crossed and inhabited by several groups of populations coming from various horizons. This is the settlement of Cameroon. Thus, over time, Cameroon constitutes a vast group of peoples of Africa. These peoples are constituted in ethnic groups. They are a group of people who share the same culture, language, traditions, and customs and are passed on from generation to generation. Thus, Max Weber believes that ethnic groups are human groups that show a subjective belief in their common ancestry because of similarities in physical type, in customs, or shared memories in the experience of colonisation and migration. This is most noticeable in the large urban areas of Cameroon. In Cameroon, as discussed in the previous chapters, there are several ethnic groups which claim similar or different origins. These peoples of Cameroon in many cases live in perfect harmony; in a perfect mixture called “ethnic mixing”. This is more visible in the large urban centres or cities and in relatively large agglomerations whose inhabitants have professional and diversified activities largely in the secondary and tertiary sectors of Cameroon. As there are quite limited and fashionable urban centres in Cameroon, we will focus in most cases on the examples discussed in our previous analysis. The main question that this last chapter (Chap. 4 ) attempts to answer is: What are the impacts and way forward of this ethnic melt in the urban centres of Cameroon? The answer to this question will then constitute the purpose of this chapter. In this direction, we shall grade the response in the political, economic, social, and environmental impacts of ethnic mixing in these urban spaces and, at the end, examine proposed solutions for better living-together in these urban centres in Cameroon.