The term ‘sahel’ as a discursive indicator for the identity space of North Cameroon

Abstract

Language and linguistic practices can create common places where cultural identities are symbolically or concretely crystallized. An illustration of this is the use of the term ‘Sahel’ and its terminological derivatives to refer to the Cameroonian Sahel space. Indeed, the word describes and contributes to a quiet socio-cultural geography, or to everyday semiotics. ‘Sahel’ s the word used to designate a wide socio-cultural universe, and ‘sahélitude’ is its practice, that is, the basis for an identity discourse model or an objective political vision. Since discourses based on discordance and exclusion are unworkable in societies seeking integration and fair public policy, relativist and consensual positioning are imposed as a palliative measure. Consequently, the econym can supplant the anthropo-socionym to constitute an in vivo way of saying re exive or alterity.