Is This How I Looked When I First Got Here? Pottery and Practice in the Cameroon Grassfields
Resource type
Book
Creator (person)
Knecht, Ueli
Argenti, Nicolas
Date published
1999
Abstract
Both the elaboration and the regional specialization of craft production have long been noted by observers of the kingdoms of the Cameroon Grassfields. The pottery production of the kingdoms of Bamessing and Babessi serve as case studies to outline a model which accounts for the aesthetic of the foreign which governs the production, trade and consumption of pots, and other objects of material culture in the Grassfields. The relationship between this aesthetic and negotiations of power at the local and regional level is examined, and ultimately, dichotomistic models opposing male and female power are dismissed in favour of an elaboration of a cross-gender cosmology of transformation and appropriation of the foreign, effected in the practice of potting.
Publisher
British Museum
Place of publication
London
Keywords
Collection