Bamiléképhobia and the production of identity under authoritarianism in Cameroon

This article examines Bamiléképhobia as a historically produced and actively mobilized process of ethnic stigmatization and identity construction targeting the Bamileke in authoritarian, post-2018 Cameroon. Situated within debates on identity, belonging, and ethnicized governance in Africa, the study adopts a qualitative, interpretive, desk-based design grounded in historical analysis, critical discourse analysis, and elite profiling. It draws on legal and archival records, state and independent media texts, and digital and diaspora discourse, triangulated with existing scholarship and interpreted in light of the authors’ professional and lived experiences in Cameroon, rather than primary fieldwork conducted for this study. Moving beyond treating ethnic exclusion solely as an outcome, the article engages competing narratives of Bamileke marginalization, conceptualizing Bamiléképhobia as a relational and productive process through which citizenship, legitimacy, and political participation are negotiated and regulated. Informed by identity theory and Scott’s concept of hidden transcripts, and supported by elite theory and neopatrimonialism, the analysis shows how colonial legacies and patronage structures shape uneven patterns of political inclusion, while also generating practices of accommodation, critique, and resistance across state, community, and diaspora spaces.