Amina Djouldé Christelle is currently a senior lecturer at the Department of History in the Faculty of Arts, Letters and Social Sciences of the University of Ngaoundéré, Cameroon. Her research interests include African politics, visual studies, political cartoons, and African endogenous knowledge. She is also interested in the study of gender-related imageries and women’s representation. She teaches courses on History and Pictures, Geopolitics of Conflicts in Africa, Methods and Techniques of Oral History, History of Diplomacy, and African Politics. As the Coordinator of the Community Research and Development Center (COREDEC), she organizes workshops and interacts with local people, especially women, on a regular basis. She is also working to build competence among women through training, education, business programs, and health support. Through her research activities on endogenous knowledge, she has set up a research program on “Women’s Cultural Legacy of Peace in Northern Cameroon.” Christelle is a recipient of a number of academic grants and fellowships, including Hampâté Ba Fellowship from Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (MSH)-Ange Guépin de Nantes-France, grants for research on cartoons from the International Center of Caricature, Cartoon Press and Humor of Saint-Just-Le Martel (France). She also received thesis-writing grants from the Community Research and Development Center (COREDEC) and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), and a Special Award for Female Excellence in Higher Education in Cameroon. In furtherance of her academic activities, she has attended conferences, trainings, and workshops in several countries. She has also published several papers and contributed chapters to books that focus on politics, visual studies, history, and diplomacy. She is a member of the editorial board of several journals. Her 2017 doctoral dissertation was titled “Cartoons and Politics in Post-Colonial Cameroon (1960-2012).” One of her recent publications is “Fortune et Infortunes de ‘Tonton Mitterrand’ dans la Production Picturale Satirique au Cameroun sous l’ère de la Démocratisation (1990-1993)” in African Humanities: Journal of Social Sciences (2017).
Award Information
My project entitle "An african tree of peace: the « Soré tree , politic, women and peacebuilding among Gbaya's community in Cameroon and Central Africa Republic" aims to understand the Soré ritual of the Gbaya of Cameroon and the Central African Republic as an endogenous cultural of construction and promotion of peace. it proceeds to a review of the peaceful uses of Soré in a historical and comparative perspective, taking into account several angles of analysis: local resistance to French colonization (1928-1933), interethnic conflicts between Gbaya and Fulani in the light of democratization (1992, 1993, 2011), inter-ethnic cohabitation between the two neighboring peoples (1993, 2011) , and the armed insurgency of the Seleka and Anti-Balaka in the Central African Republic (2013). By always situating myself in the contextual analysis, i will be particularly interested in the specific place of the woman (locally called Oko'o Nga'a mo) in the implementation of the Soré ritual, and in her role as an actor of peace. Using a multi-method approach combining historical sources, audiovisual documents, material culture, biographic method, oral interviews with local populations and also my previous research experience in the field, I propose innovative reflection on the endogenous mechanisms of conflict resolution in Africa. above all, following the logic of comparative analyzes, I demonstrate the different ways so the African populations invent and appropriate the art of building peace.
