Abstract
Post-colonial Cameroonian identities have emerged from a combination of systems involving indigenous knowledges, transnational, socio-political, and economic influences, contributing to back-and-forth identity formation in the diaspora and country-of-origin. Kin and kith bonds, social validation, and the maintenance of traditional values between members of the diaspora and relatives in Cameroon influence both individual and collective identity formation in diasporic communities. I argue that the affective communicative properties of socio-culturally and nostalgically relevant music may facilitate not only individual identity formation in the Cameroonian diaspora, but also collective identity formations between members of the Cameroonian diaspora and Cameroon itself through the mechanism of empathy. To accomplish this, I employ the use of meta-narrative review to integrate discussions from cultural studies, social anthropology, sociology, musicology, neuroscience and psychology. Cameroonian diasporic communities discussed in this paper include the Norwegian-Cameroonian and German-Cameroonian diasporas, with comparative discussion offered from the perspective of the Swedish-Kurdish diaspora. This study is intended to exemplify an exploration of how transdisciplinary integration can highlight the value of the affective communicative properties of socio-culturally and nostalgically relevant music as means to facilitate identity formation within and across diasporic communities through the mechanism of empathy.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Appadurai, A. (1990). Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy. Theory, Culture & Society, 7(2–3), 295–310. https://doi.org/10.1177/026327690007002017
Assmann, J. (2008). Communicative and Cultural Memory. In A. Erll & A. Nünning (Eds.), Cultural Memory Studies. An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (pp. 109–118). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/propylaeumdok/1774/1/Assmann_Communicative_and_cultural_memory_2008.pdf
Baron-Cohen, S. (2011). Zero degrees of emphaty: A new theory of human cruelty. Penguin uk.
Berlyne, D. (1971). Aesthetics and Psychobiology. Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Butterworth, J. (2014). Andean Divas: Emotion, Ethics and Intimate Spectacle in Peruvian Huayno Music [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of London.
Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement. (1991). Argument for Real Democracy: The great provincial tour of President Paul Biya. SOPECAM, Yaoundé.
Clarke, E., DeNora, T., & Vuoskoski, J. (2015). Music, empathy and cultural understanding. Physics of Life Reviews, 15, 61–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2015.09.001
Cook, N. (2012). Anatomy of the encounter: Intercultural analysis as relational musicology. In S. Hawkins (Ed.), Critical Musicological Reflections: Essays in Honour of Derek B. Scott (pp. 193–208). Routledge.
Dibango, M. (1994). Three Kilos of Coffee: An autobiography. University of Chicago Press, University of Chicago.
Erlmann, V. (1999). Music, modernity, and the global imagination: South Africa and the West. Oxford University Press.
Feld, S. (2000). The poetics and politics of pygmy pop. Western music and its others: Difference, representation, and appropriation in music, 254–79.
Feldman-Savelsberg, P., Cole, J., & Groes, C. (2016). Forging belonging through children in the Berlin Cameroonian diaspora. In J. Cole & C. Groes (Eds.), Affective circuits: African Migrations to Europe and the pursuit of social Regeneration, (pp. 54–77). University of Chicago Press.
Fleischer, A. (2009). Making Families among Cameroonian “Bush Fallers.” In “Germany: Marriage, Migration and the Law.” [Doctoral dissertation, Department of Political and Social Science, Free University of Berlin]. https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/11550
Gilroy, P. (1994). Diaspora. Paragraph, 17(3), 207–212. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43263438?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Guattari, F. (1995). Chaosmosis. An Ethico-Esthetic Paradigm. Indiana University Press.
Halbwachs, M. (1939/1980). The Collective Memory of Musicians. In The Collective Memory. Harper & Row.
Hall, S. (1990). Cultural Identity and Diaspora. In J. Rutherford (Ed.), Identity: Community, culture, difference (pp. 222–237). Lawrence and Wishart.
Hofer, J., Kärtner, J., Chasiotis, A., Busch, H., & Kiessling, F. (2007). Socio-cultural aspects of identity formation: The relationship between commitment and well-being in student samples from Cameroon and Germany. Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research, 7(4), 265–288. https://doi.org/10.1080/15283480701600744
Hopewell, S., Clarke, M. J., Lefebvre, C., & Scherer, R. W. (2007). Handsearching versus electronic searching to identify reports of randomized trials. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (2). https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.MR000001.pub2
Jäncke, L. (2008). Music, memory and emotion. Journal of Biology, 7(6), 21. https://doi.org/10.1186/jbiol82
Khayati, K. (2012). Sweden as a gravitation center for the Kurds – diaspora formation and transnational relations. In A. Heshmati, A. Dilani, & S.M.J. Baban (Eds.): Perspectives on Kurdistan’s Economy and Society in Transition, (pp. 1–18). New York: Nova Science Publishers.
Mainsah, H. (2009). Cameroonians in Oslo, diaspora, and uses of the media. Nordicom Review, 30(1), 83–94. https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0140
Massumi, B. (2003). The Archive of Experience. In J. Brouwer & A. Mulder (Eds.), Information is Alive (pp. 142-151). Rotterdam: V2Publishing/NAI Publishers.
Mbock, C. G. (Ed.). (1996). Cameroun: pluralisme culturel et convivialité. Edition Nouvelle du Sud, Paris.
McClary, S. (1991). Feminine endings: Music, gender, and sexuality. U of Minnesota Press.
Nsamenang, A. B. (2006). Human ontogenesis: An indigenous African view on development and intelligence. International Journal of Psychology, 41(4), 293–297. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207590544000077
Nsamenang, A. B. (2013). Cameroon black psychologists. Journal of Black Psychology, 39(3), 307–310. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095798413480662
Nsamenang, A. B., & Lamb, M. E. (1995). The force of beliefs: How the parental values of the Nso of Northwest Cameroon shape children’s progress toward adult models. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 16(4), 613–627. https://doi.org/10.1016/0193-3973(95)90007-1
Nyamnjoh, F., & Rowlands, M. (1998). Elite associations and the politics of belonging in Cameroon. Africa, 320–337. https://doi.org/10.2307/1161252
Nyamnjoh, F. B. (2011). Cameroonian bushfalling: Negotiation of identity and belonging in fiction and ethnography. American Ethnologist, 38(4), 701–713. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1425.2011.01331.x
Nyamnjoh, F. B., & Fokwang, J. (2005). Entertaining repression: Music and politics in postcolonial Cameroon. African Affairs, 104(415), 251–274. https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adi007
Ollong, K. A. (2013). The Cameroonian Diaspora: an assessment of its role in local development. Journal of Globalization Studies, 4(2, 82–95. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/the-cameroonian-diaspora-an-assessment-of-its-role-in-local-development
Sarbanes, J. (2006). Musicking and communitas: The aesthetic mode of sociality in Rebetika subculture. Popular Music and Society, 29(1), 17–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007760500142738
Schmelz, A. (2007). The Cameroonian Diaspora in Germany: Its Contribution to Development in Cameroon. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ). http://www.migration4development.org/sites/m4d.emakina-eu.net/files/The_Cameroonian_Diaspora_in_Germany.pdf
Schütz, A. (1951). Making Music Together: A Study in Social Relationship. Social Research, 18(1), 76–97. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40969255
Shi, Y. (2005). Identity construction of the Chinese diaspora, ethnic media use, community formation, and the possibility of social activism. Continuum, 19(1), 55–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/1030431052000336298
Slobin, M. (1992). Micromusics of the West: A Comparative Approach. Ethnomusicology, 36(1), 1–87. https://doi.org/10.2307/852085
Small, C. (1998). Musicking: The meanings of performing and listening. Wesleyan University Press.
Smith A. (1759). Theory of moral sentiments. 6th edition. London. https://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smMS.html?chapter_num=1#book-reader
Sreberny, A. (2002). Collectivity and Connectivity: Diaspora and Mediated Identities. In G. Stald & T. Tufte (Eds.), Global Encounters: Media and Cultural Transformation (pp. 173–193). Luton University Press.
Stern, D. (1995). The Motherhood Constellation. A Unified View of Parent-Infant Psychotherapy. Basic Books.
Stock, J. P. J. (2014). Implications for ethnomusicology. In D. Fabian, R. Timmers, and E. Schubert (Eds.), Expressiveness in musical performance: Empirical approaches across styles and cultures (pp. 340–343). Oxford University Press.
Stokes, M. (2004). Music and the global order. Annual Review of Anthropology, 33, 47–72. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.33.070203.143916
Stokes, M. (2007). Adam Smith and the Dark Nightingale: on twentieth-century sentimentalism. Twentieth-Century Music, 3(2), 201–219. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572207000461.
Stokes, M. (2010). The republic of love: Cultural intimacy in Turkish popular music. University of Chicago Press.
Stumpf, C. (2012). The origins of music. OUP Oxford.
Tagg, P. (1979). Kojak: 50 seconds of television music. Göteborg: Musikvetenskapliga institutionen.
Tchombe, T. M. S. (2011). Cultural strategies for cognitive enrichment in learning among the Bamileke of West Region of Cameroon. In A.B. Nsamenang & T.M.S. Tchombe (Eds.), Handbook of African educational theories and practices: A generative teacher education curriculum, 205–216. HDRC.
Tsing, A. (2002). Conclusion: the global situation. In J. X. Inda & R. Rosaldo (Eds.), The anthropology of globalization: A reader (pp. 453–486). Blackwell.
Turner, E. (2012). Communitas: The anthropology of collective joy. Springer.
Volgsten, U., & Pripp, O. (2016). Music, memory, and affect attunement: Connecting Kurdish diaspora in Stockholm. Culture Unbound. Journal of Current Cultural Research, 8, 144–164. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1047347/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Wong, G., Greenhalgh, T., Westhorp, G., Buckingham, J., & Pawson, R. (2013a). RAMESES publication standards: meta-narrative reviews. BMC Medicine, 11(1), 20. https://doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-11-20
Wong, G., Greenhalgh, T., Westhorp, G., Buckingham, J., & Pawson, R. (2013b). RAMESES publication standards: realist syntheses. BMC Medicine, 11(1), 21. https://doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-11-21
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Drs. Sarah Politz and Lilian Atanga for guidance during the development of this manuscript.
Funding
No funding supported this work.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
I have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Colverson, A.J. Use of Meta-narrative Review to Integrate Perspectives on Identity Formation in the Cameroonian and Swedish-Kurdish Diasporas. Integr. psych. behav. 56, 677–693 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-021-09623-x
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-021-09623-x