In February, the team of researchers working on the project: ‘Exploring unarmed civilian self-protection in Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict’ undertook successful data collection in Cameroon. They used Arts-based methods entailed drawing workshops, poetry workshops and storytelling workshops with local civilians affected by the conflict. Based on a prior mapping exercise, residents from conflict ‘hot spots’ were identified and transported to safe locations where the workshops were undertaken.
Although some participants were a little anxious at first about their abilities to draw or compose poems, we found that everyone relaxed into the task and produced very good accounts of their experiences by means of drawings or poems. Some participants stated afterwards that it had been beneficial to express traumatic experiences through drawing or writing poems. One-to-one interviews were also undertaken with selected community organisers, including leaders of women’s and youth groups, and NGO workers. Such fieldwork in the midst of armed conflict can be complicated, and unexpected challenges can arise, as they experienced.
As they began their fieldwork, scores of boys and young men from one small town in the Southwest region were arbitrarily rounded up and detained by the Cameroonian military, and were unjustifiably accused of being separatist supporters. This was the same small town from which many workshop participants had been invited.
This abuse of power by the military, terrible in itself, also disrupted the researchers’ plans as local people were clearly preoccupied in seeking the release of their young men. On the morning of the planned workshops, the mothers of the captured boys and young men led a women’s peace march to demand the release of their sons and family members. This involved several hundred women walking 17 km from their town to the prison where the young men were being held.
The women marched holding peace plants as a symbol of their non-violence. The outcome was really gratifying – the women’s interactions with the authorities were largely successful, and the release of most of the detained boys and young men was secured. This was, perhaps, an example of unarmed civilian protection in itself. The workshops also went ahead thanks to the amazing efforts of the Cameroonian team members who organised alternative workshop participants at short notice. The researchers’ also had the added bonus that two of the women on the peace march made a detour to attend the workshop and provided everyone with a first-hand account of their experiences.