Three lenses: ethnography, history and cognition

Marriage and Memories of the Slave Trade Among the Ejaghams of Cameroon's Cross River Region

“…His work was based on the idea of “cleanliness constraint.” That is, the Osu are not ritually clean and, as such, should not be granted the same liberties and privileges as other Igbo (Diala), particularly regarding sexual and marital relationships. Another recent study in Madagascar by Regnier (2020) verified the notion of the “slave descendant” being deemed “contaminated” or “unclean” and, as such, “freemen” refuse marriage with them. These investigations have revealed that “slave descendants” face discrimination and are barred from marrying “freemen.” They provide strong evidence of their experiences and how these encounters impair their fundamental human rights.…”

Calcified identities: Persisting essentialism in academic collections of human remains

“…Jacorzynski (2020) argued that there are in fact no characteristics which all Poles share, showing how essentialist thinking in relation to social groups is inadequate, and that the category of Polishness is a historical construct, itself subject to changes in time. Essentialism similarly lies at the foundation of the perception of slave descendants in Madagascar as unclean (Regnier, 2021) or of Santomeans as underdeveloped (Soekoe, 2020), examples of essentialist characteristics linked to one's supposed ancestry or geographic origin that serve to diminish grouping of people or people politically defined as of different ancestry within a given nation-state. It is important to emphasize the dangers of essentialism, as it constitutes the legitimation of categories of racial difference and hierarchy and provides central assumption of past and present racist, nationalist and other xenophobic ideologies.…”