Les reconfigurations de la structure familiale Africaine : une lecture critique des œuvres de Calixthe Beyala et Gaston Paul Effa

Abstract

"Family is the basic unit of society" is a sort of truism that comes up in almost all sociological, political, geographical and anthropological discourse. However, the concept of family contains several composite elements and also includes realities that differ from one area to another due to its ambivalence and diversity. We have analysed the concept of African family through the literature perspective, structuring our research as follows: Reconfigurations of the African Family Structure: A critical reading from the Works of Calixthe Beyala and Gaston Paul Effa. African family cannot be considered as a monad, given the myriad cultural aspects of the Black continent. This concept evolves in time and space and reaches a phenomenon of hybridisation. In short, African family is becoming hybrid. Thenceforth, we note the end of the African considerations of yesteryear, such as the primacy of filial ties of consanguinity, in favour of new forms of kinship, including kinship or social affiliation, the experience of quasi-kinship. Likewise, the postmodern African family pattern is hybrid because of its openness to other cultures, a consequence of colonisation, migration and nowadays the over-education of young Africans. Furthermore, women and children now occupy a prominent position in the family circle. This leads to changes in the women’s role from patient to agent. Finally, we believe that the return to our African sources and values, in other words cultural immersion, remains a guarantee of development for our African families. Our work has been built around the combination of two specific fields of research that have led to an innovative scientific approach, as well as two separate theories or analysis grids. First, the socio-anthropological approach, that combines the key concepts of sociology and anthropology, then Adrian Marino's comparative theory advocating the identification of literary invariants, and finally, Jean-François Lyotard’s postmodern approach, that focuses on the end of metanarratives, more precisely the observation of the dynamic and evolving nature of everything around us.