ABSTRACT

Violent conflict kills, injure and disables people. Violent Arm conflicts are known to be destructive in nature, eroding most if not all livelihood base of strategic importance with a tendency of putting a disproportionate challenge on affected victims. The destruction of productive assets weakens the access of individuals and households to their sources of livelihood and economic survival. This study explores the influence of kinship network survival strategies of plantation workers of the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) in the context of the Anglophone Armed Conflict. It specifically examined how plantation workers explore kinship network and the ethnodemographic household composition as strategies for survival. The study employed a qualitative research design with purposive sampling of participants. Data collection comprised of conducting ethnographic field work through in-depth interviews, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and Observations with sixty (60) participants drawn from two distinct camps. Data obtained was analysed using in-depth descriptions and narrations from interviewees according to theme and sub themes. The study revealed that all participants relied on endogenous survival strategies that revolved around subsistence and economic farming, sales of firewood and exchange in the form of solidarity and reciprocity and that kinship determined and influenced their choice and efficiency.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

Natural disasters and other crises present formidable challenges to the fight against poverty and to the development of human capital. Specifically, they pose serious threats to populations living below, and near levels of absolute poverty and survival (Ghorpade,2012).  Violent conflict kills, injure and disables people. Violent Arm conflicts are known to be destructive in nature, eroding most if not all livelihood base of strategic importance with a tendency of putting a disproportionate challenge on affected victims. The destruction of productive assets weakens the access of individuals and households to their source of livelihood and economic survival (Justino, 2012).  Public or State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) occupy an important position in the economy of most countries of developing world, despite their political orientation. They play an important role in promoting social and economic development in Cameroon (Obale, 2020).The economy of Cameroon after independence was viewed as one of the rare success stories in Africa. But this assertion according to Hugon (1968) as cited by Konings (1995) ignored certain weaknesses in the domestic economy which constantly threatened the “growth miracle”, particularly the economy’s almost complete dependence on the export of agricultural raw material and –more recently- of oil. (Konings, 1995) asserts that this weakness plunged the domestic economy into severe crisis from the mid 1980s onward following the sharp fall in the prices of these commodities on the world market. The situation was worsened by large-scale mismanagement, embezzlement and capital flight estimated at FCFA 150bn  a year (ibid) which continues up to date. Thus, the world economic crisis of 1986 which affected Cameroon also trickled down to the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) which had been a stalemate till date. This was largely due to the sharp fall in the prices of agricultural raw materials which the economy almost completely depended upon (konings 1995).  More still, there were other factors which also contributed to the emergence and continuation of the crisis. First, there was the political elite’s inability or unwillingness to control the imports of cheap tea and palm oil, which impeded CDC sales on the domestic market. Second, there have been frequent reports of the managerial elite’s involvement in massive embezzlement, reckless expenditure, waste and struggle for power often based on ethnic consideration (Konings, 1995).

The few existing studies on the response of labour in the economic crisis and Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) in the world and Africa in particular tend to focus on the (oppositional) relation between the state and central labour organization. They largely ignore the response of workers and unions at the work place (Konings, 1995). Despite the growing importance of plantation workers in the economy of most Sub-Saharan African countries, documented research on livelihood and coping strategies focus more on food security of rural households than on  those of plantation workers (Christiansen,2004) as cited by Obale (2020).

This is true with the works of Alabi et al (2020), Iyela et al (2015), Justino (2012) Mkpado et al (2020), Banjoko et al (2018) and Fonjong (2011).

That poverty is a reality and spreading like wild bush fire in recent times especially in developing countries is no more in doubt,(Iyela and Ikwuakam, 2015). Same,  in highlighting Simpa (2014) reiterates that rural areas seem to be the worst hit and that about 3.1 billion people (55%) in rural areas are poor with about 1.5 billion living in less than US$1.25. and so, life for most people today is a matter of daily struggle for survival. 

Defining poverty is not an easy task, especially because poverty is a complex and very contested social phenomenon. Looking at the traditional definition of poverty, it is possible to identify two main streams that have received considerable support from the literature; an absolute perspective that focuses mainly on the material conditions that are minimal in order for someone to sustain his/her own life and the relative perspective, that sees poverty as a phenomenon that varies according to the standard of living of each society. Close to this, is the Sennian approach which sees poverty as lack of capabilities?

The traditional definition of poverty is based on the notion of subsistence, understood as the minimum needed to sustain a life (that is, to survive). This means that people that are below the subsistence level are absolutely poor because they do not have enough to live on and to sustain their own life by their own ways. And if subsistence is not provided to them, they will starve to death. Subsistence can be valued at USS 1.90 or 2.00 per day or in terms of a certain amount of calories in a diet. The relative concept of poverty focuses not on subsistence, but also in the conditions to participate in activities that are customary in a specific society. Townsend (1979) defines poverty in this way; Individuals, families and groups in the population can be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the types of diet, participate in activities and have the living conditions and amenities that are customary in the societies to which they belong. Sen (1981) considers poverty as the absence of some basic capabilities to function and the denial of opportunities as cited by Tiago (2018).

 In spite of all these, most CDC plantation workers often display the ability and capacity to continue to function, to recover and live meaningful and productive lives. Plantation workers’ welfare and wellbeing is significant to the physical and psychological health and wellbeing of their affinal and dependants.

The CDC like other parastatal in the South West Region has been severely affected by the ongoing Anglophone Armed Conflict (Chung, 2020).

Kinship institutions serve as the major bedrock and springboard for plantation workers’ survival mechanism in the ongoing armed conflict in the South West Region of Cameroon.

The findings may be translated into strategies to improve culturally appropriate interventions in contexts such as this when formal institutions seem to fail.

The CDC is a large agro-industrial parastatal located (also) in the present South West Province of Anglophone Cameroon. It was founded in 1947/8 for the purpose of developing and managing the approximately 100.000ha of estate lands confiscated by the British Trusteeship Authourity from the German planters at the end of World War-2 (Konings, 1995). It is still the second largest employer of labour in the country, surpassed only by the government itself.  It is still the largest and most established agribusiness in terms of size and number of jobs created that attracts national and international capital via increasing privatization with a current share capital of 53.5 billion FCFA (Annual Report and Accounts for the Year 2020). As at 2013, it employed 20000 workers. While as at 31^st December 2020, it employs 16870 permanent workers and a few thousand seasonal and casual workers.

The CDC operates extensive plantations of tropical crops such as Rubber, Banana and Oil Palm. As at 31^st December 2020, the Corporation had an overall planted area (Mature and Immature) of 33.936 ha as against 35.004.7 ha in 2019 (Annual Report and Accounts for the Year 2020).  The plantation is internally divided into three crop groups; Oil Palm, Rubber and Banana. Each crop group is further divided into estates which are further divided into sections. The oil palms group comprises of seven (07) estates and three (03) giant oil mills. The estates include; Mondoni Palms in Tiko sub- division, Mungo Palms in Muyuka Sub Division, Bota Palms, Debunscha and Idenau Palms all in Limbe Sub division, Illoani and Boa Palms all in Ndian Division alongside three oil mills in Mondoni, Idenau and Illoani respectively with Mondoni Oil Mill being the oldest and biggest. The vibrant Manyu and NdongaMangtu Projects in Manyu and Donga Mangtu Divisions shut down due to the Anglophone Armed Conflict. The rubber group is also divided into eleven (11) estates. These include; Tombel Rubber Estate, Malende Rubber Estate and Meanja Rubber Estate in Muyuka Sub Division , Kompina, Pendambokok, Matouke and Matouke Project all in Moungo Division, Mokonje Rubber Estate in Meme Sub Division,  Mbonge Rubber Estate in Ndian Sub Division and Missellele and Sone/Likomba Rubber Estates in Tiko Sub Division. The rubber group also has rubber factories in Pendamboko, Mokonje, Meanja and Tiko respectively with the Tiko Central Rubber Factory being the biggest. Lastly, the banana group that produces quality Banana fruit under the brand names of Sawa and Makossa is mostly located within the Tiko plainin Tiko Sub Division. It includes estate like; Mondoni Project, Ndongo Banana, Mafanja, Benoe/Esuke and Musaka Banana Estate and with each having its own banana processing unit commonly referred to as “PackHouse”.

Surprisingly as already stated, while it was  widely accepted that wage workers were the most seriously affected by the economic crisis and SAP in Africa, their response has hardly been studied (Konings, 1995). Talk less of the influence of kinship-network as a resource base of their survival strategies. The ongoing violent armed conflict has made life and living very difficult for most plantation workers who are vulnerable targets of warring factions.

Violent armed conflict affects the live, livelihood and health of almost 1.5 billion people in the world (World Bank, 2011 as cited by Justino (2012)). The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) defines an armed conflict as ‘a contested incompatibility that concerns government and/or territory over which the use of armed force between the military forces of two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, has resulted in at least 25 battle-related deaths in each year.’

The number of armed conflicts has declined in recent years (Themner and Wallensteen, 2011) as cited by Justino (2012). Feeding and protecting citizens is a major challenge in these contexts (FAO Report, 2010). Conflict in the Far-North region, due to the Boko Haram insurgency, and in the Northwest and Southwest regions, where insecurity continued unabated, drove declines in agricultural production in 2020, leading households to have lower than normal levels of food stocks, which started to be exhausted by February 2021 in the Northwest and Southwest regions. 2.63M people were in Crisis or worse in March–May 2021 and By the end of 2021, almost 2.0 million people were displaced within Cameroon, either as IDPs, refugees or returnees (FAO Report, 2022).

Many individuals and households leave areas of more intense fighting to refugee and displacement camps, migrate to safer urban/ rural areas or move abroad. At the same time, some people live in conflict areas and survive, carrying on their daily lives in the midst of conflict and violence (Justino, 2012).

Agriculture is still the backbone of the Cameroon’s economy. And is the main source of employment. Plantations are said to be agents of economic, social and infrastructural development (Fossung, 2001, Forba, 2015, Kimensi and Lambi, 2015) as noted by Chung (2020). This is in line with Ifabyi et al (2018) assertion that agriculture is the main source of employment in Nigeria as it provides livelihood to about 75% of the population. The ongoing armed conflict in the South West Region in general and its high intensity in rural areas in particular has made live more difficult for rural dwellers and most difficult for plantation workers of the Cameroon Development Corporation by virtue of it being a prime target of warring groups. The corporation has been in a difficult socio-economic situation as a result of the armed conflict especially from 2019 to 2021. The violent armed conflict has caused severe damages and lost to the corporation in terms of human and physical capital, shutting dawn of many estates ( heavy drop in crop production), and heavy financial losses. All theses and others conjoined have placed most workers out of steady job, experiencing irregular pay as they are trapped in poverty and war.

1.2 Problem Statement

Disasters have affected the human population since its inception. They are escalating globally be it natural or man-made. Not only this, the magnitude and destruction caused by them is on the rise. Disaster Management Act, 2005 has defined disaster in these terms- “disaster means a catastrophe, mishap, calamity, or grave occurrence in any area, arising from natural or manmade causes or by accident or negligence which results in substantial loss of life or human suffering or damage to and destruction of property or damage to and degradation of environment and is of such a nature or magnitude as to be beyond the coping capacity of the community of the affected area”. For understanding disaster, it is vital to differentiate between hazard and disaster. Though the two terms are very closely related and sometimes used interchangeably, hazard is a life threatening event and disaster is a consequence of this event. When hazards act upon a population, it may result into disaster. But not all hazards will lead to disaster.  The idea of vulnerability is very crucial to understand disaster. Wisner et al (2004) defines vulnerability as “… the characteristic of a person or group and their situation that influence their capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impact of a disaster”. It is clear here that vulnerability is the characteristic of the population which makes them more susceptible to damage due to hazardous events. Population is a heterogeneous entity. It is common observation that people from lower socio-economic strata are more affected than people from upper strata.  Armed conflicts are known to be destructive in nature, eroding most if not all livelihood base of strategic importance with a tendency of putting a disproportionate challenge on affected victims (Justino, 2012). Fao (2010) asserts that, protracted crises are not a series of one-off, short-lived phenomena, and they are not temporary interruptions from which countries easily return to a path towards longer-term development. Rather, they represent ongoing and fundamental threats to both lives and livelihoods, from which recovery may become progressively more difficult over time.

The Anglophone Armed Conflict (man-made disaster) as experienced also by plantation workers of the CDC is a fitting example of a vulnerable population in this context which is still alive in the collective memory of the people. In spite of the effect of being in a life threatening situation, most have stayed behind amid intense fighting and yet survive. What are they actually doing concretely in their daily lives to minimize and manage the difficulties from an externally induced crisis?   However, Ifabiyi and Banjoku (2018) adopt the FAO definition of coping strategy as responses to an immediate and irregular decline to access to resources. This is a collection of measures adopted to ensure the supply of human needs. While the disaster management discourse in the high income countries drift more towards resilience and adaptation with an indisputable and more engaging role of formal institutions, scholars in developing countries are still largely grappling with issues of vulnerability and coping (Mue et al, 2021) this trend has been frequently attributed to the failure of formal (state and market) disaster management institution in developing countries. Thus formality failure provides justification for including informality in the disaster narrative in developing countries.

It is against this backcloth that this study is germane to find out from the lived experience on how these plantation workers have been employing endogenous institutions like kinship in their survival strategies and its influence.

1.3 Research Questions

1.3.1 Main Question

• What are the relations between kinship ties and coping strategies of plantation workers in the context of the Anglophone Armed Crisis?

1.3.2 Specific Question-1

• What are the household ethnodemographic structure and composition of CDC plantation workers living in camps?

1.3.3 Specific Question-2

• What are the roles played by kinship network in the survival strategies of CDC plantation workers during the Anglophone Armed Conflict?

1.4 Research Objectives

The objectives of this study are:

1.4.1 Main Objective

• To explore the influence of kinship in the survival strategies of CDC plantation workers in the context of the Anglophone Armed Conflict.

1.4.2 Specific Objective

• To describe the household ethnodemographic composition and relations among CDC plantation workers in Tiko
• To examine the role of kinship network in the survival strategies of CDC plantation workers within the context of Anglophone Armed Conflict

1.5 Scope of the Study

The study focuses on CDC plantation workers of Small Ekange Camp of Sonne-Likomba Rubber Estate and Upper Costains Camp of Tiko Central.