Conscientisation and Political Liberation in Anglophone Cameroonian Poetry: The Poetic Vision of Emmanuel Fru Doh, Bate Besong and Mathew Takwi
The main thrust of the argument of this paper is that Emmanuel Doh, Bate Besong and Mathew Takwi have used their poetry as a veritable weapon of conscientisation and political liberation in Cameroon. Thus, the three poets blend literature and reality to advance the cause of Anglophone National Liberation in Cameroon. From a clearly Marxist literary perspective, the ideo-aesthetic position of Emmanuel Doh in Wading the Tide (1998), Bate Besong in Just Above Cameroon (1998) and Mathew Takwi in Messing Manners (2014) is very clear, though subtle: these poets view the emancipation and welfare of Anglophones in Cameroon as an index of socio-political growth. In the light of the above assertions, the paper argues that Doh, Besong and Takwi are deeply sensitive and responsive to the realities and moods of moments of collective experience, especially crisis moments. Their poetry is , in fact, a summation of their political and ideological commitments. These poets have endeared themselves to the Anglophone, especially those who are dissatisfied with the present day political dispensation in Cameroon in their attempts to write and be involved with what has become known as “literature of conscientisation and commitment”.
Language and commitment in Anglophone Cameroonian poetry: The poetic vision of three Anglophone Cameroonian poets
This paper sets out to examine the relevance of language in both early and recent Anglophone Cameroonian poets. The argument of this article is built around the premise that Fonlon, Alembong and Besong are involved with what has become known as ‘literature of sensitization and commitment’. It is the contention of this article that their ideological commitments have not compromised their artistic sophistication. Guided by the new historicist critical theory and the aesthetics of socialist realism as enunciated by Maxim Gorky (1971) and Georg Lukacs (1963), this study reveals that these three poets are deeply sensitive and responsive to the realities and moods of moments of collective experience, especially crisis moments. Their poetry is, in fact, a summation of their social and political commitments.
On the validity of area-based income measures to proxy household income
BackgroundThis paper assesses the agreement between household-level income data and an area-based income measure, and whether or not discrepancies create meaningful differences when applied in regression equations estimating total household prescription drug expenditures.MethodsUsing administrative data files for the population of BC, Canada, we calculate income deciles from both area-based census data and Canada Revenue Agency validated household-level data. These deciles are then compared for misclassification. Spearman's correlation, kappa coefficients and weighted kappa coefficients are all calculated. We then assess the validity of using the area-based income measure as a proxy for household income in regression equations explaining socio-economic inequalities in total prescription drug expenditures.ResultsThe variability between household-level income and area-based income is large. Only 37% of households are classified by area-based measures to be within one decile of the classification based on household-level incomes. Statistical evidence of the disagreement between income measures also indicates substantial misclassification, with Spearman's correlations, kappa coefficients and weighted kappa coefficients all indicating little agreement. The regression results show that the size of the coefficients changes considerably when area-based measures are used instead of household-level measures, and that use of area-based measures smooths out important variation across the income distribution.ConclusionThese results suggest that, in some contexts, the choice of area-based versus household-level income can drive conclusions in an important way. Access to reliable household-level income/socio-economic data such as the tax-validated data used in this study would unambiguously improve health research and therefore the evidence on which health and social policy would ideally rest.