Politiques publiques, programmes et projets sensibles au genre : cas de la communauté Mandjara au Cameroun

The focus on "the history of women in Africa" seems to gradually shifting towards a new paradigm: would the new approaches have been imposing that a gender perspective should unavoidably been addressed? It must be said, however, that the boundary between the two epistemological postures is tenuous, namely the one which asserts that its main focus regards ''the history of women" and the other which declares its primary interest in "gender perspectives". Indeed, heuristic bridges allow to write the history of women while questioning the gender issue. As nowadays' research is encouraging to deepen specific knowledge on African's women in all areas (health, education, economics, politics, rights), several recent studies address the issue of women from a gender perspective. Therefore the present thesis falls in this wake by also having the preoccupation that the view on women should not be separated from that on gender. The epistemological posture of this thesis, which is looking at women with a gender sensitivity, invites to reconsider the dichotomous logics underlying the heuristic approach between men and women, political and social, private and public, dominant and dominated. Nevertheless, we do not enter into the wake of research which, refuting the dichotomy conveyed by the notion of gender, would impose to consider transgender, transvestites and hermaphrodites. It is through a gender approach that we have examined the masculine and feminine identities' constructing processes, the feminine mobilization, socio-political phenomena, and the body's relationship. Social determinants such as age, social class, socio-professional category, living environment (urban, semi-urban and rural), level of education (literate and illiterate) were taken into consideration. We believe having been able to point out the coherences which emerge from the three articles of this thesis dealing with complementary aspects through the subjects covered. In addition to examining the place and action of women in their diversity, we seek to analyze ideological constructions that assign specific roles to women and men. This process highlights the differentiated impact of policies and situations according to the status of the individual and the various facets of his or her identity. The three articles are interwoven in the structuring of this thesis, which thus, places itself in the asserted perspective to adopt the reflection on the women issue with a gender sensitivity. This reflection applies to the African continent through a variety of thematic that contributes to enriching and renewing approaches on Africa. The questions that arise through analysis are grouped into two (2) themes.  The first under the title "Gender: identities and (traditional) governance, public policies and féminine mobilization" is an analysis of the construction of identity and governance female among the Cameroon’s Mandjara group; It also takes a look at the associative dynamics and its impact on the appropriation (or not) of public policies.  The second, under the title "Gender, Public Policy and Health: Health as a place of apprehension of NGPC ", is a review of the understanding and interpretation of the NGPC statement on health.  The non-classical model of a thesis by articles is the one adopted by the present work structured as follows. The first part is a description of the conceptual research frameworks. It includes an introduction that states the motivations, the interests and the research context. Then follows chapter 1 which is dealing with a literature criticism, outlining the definitions of concepts and the various epistemological standpoints on women and gender issues.  Chapter 2 provides an overview and a problematization as well as identifying the research objectives. Chapter 3 concludes this first section with the methodology which gives an answer to the ethical question, describes the data collection tools and indicates the limitations of the study. The second part is the presentation of the research outcomes having five (5) chapters of which three (3) are articles. Chapter 4: "The Mandjara: Ethnogenesis and identities". Chapter 5: "The Mandjara: an example of Africa's female traditional governance ". Chapter 6: "Cameroon and the gender issue (article submitted for publication in the journal Advances in Anthropology (AA), the 06th December 2016, 08 pages, co-authors Professor Gilles Bibeau and Professor Bilkis Vissandjée". Chapter 7: "The National Gender Policy of Cameroon: challenged by the social reality of Mandjara's women and men (Article submitted for publication to the journal Anthropologie et Sociétés, 20 September 2016, 28 pages, co-authors Professor Gilles Bibeau and Professor Bilkis Vissandjée). "Chapter 8: "Gender and health in Cameroon, when anthropology intervenes in the doctor-patient relationship: a case study of Mandjara’s women’’ (article submitted for publication to the journal Anthropologica, September 28, 2016, 15 pages, co-authors Professor Gilles Bibeau and Professor Bilkis Vissandjé). The third and last part includes chapter 9 which demonstrate the relevance of the three articles in the thesis. Then the general conclusion illustrates the recommendations resulting from the research work.   Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch thought until recently that African researchers should be more involved in research on gender relations (mainly in Africa). The experience of an ethnographic field in Cameroon, in the heart of the temporality, the contemporaneity and the daily life of the Mandjara’s women and men of the Bamoun, Bafia and Nso communities was organized around the effort to discover the Other and familiarity with the otherness of the Other. Qualitative, the methodological approach was based on documentation and bibliographic data and an organized combination of participant observation, individual interviews supplemented with group discussions. A self-reflexive approach has made it possible to become aware of the plurality of viewpoints within anthropology. It is in this perspective that our analysis made use of a multidisciplinary standpoint, beyond a transdisciplinary approach, and which called together ethno-history, socio-cultural anthropology and medical anthropology, political anthropology, anthropology of public policy and anthropology of gender. The melting point between these disciplines, which are claiming at the same time their specificity and disciplinary autonomy, is by working on various sources and the integration of the oral tradition as a legitimate support. This doctoral path, at the heart of contemporary anthropology, was achieved against the background of the theoretical and methodological orientations that characterize the department of anthropology of the Université de Montréal such as those of social and cultural anthropology.   The grammatical feminine sense: in order to ensure that the feminine and masculine senses of words are explicitly referred to, this thesis has chosen to make use of the capital E whenever possible. Otherwise and in order to lighten the text the masculine form is used.

Keyphrases: Anthropologie, Anthropology, Ethnology, Anthropology of public policies, Anthropology of gender, Public policies, Governance, Traditional governance, Women, Gender, Women in Africa, Female leadership, Cameroon, SubSaharan Africa