Personhood, Collectives, and the Human-Animal Distinction: The Cases of the Cameroon Grassfields and Madagascar

This article compares the ways personhood and collectives are conceptualised and constituted in two different ethnographic settings – the Grassfields of west Cameroon and Madagascar – and how this sheds light on the ways of conceiving the human-animal distinction. The first part of the article examines the means by which persons and collectives are conceptualised and constituted in both ethnographic contexts, while the second part analyses two modalities of the human-animal relationship – capturing and hunting – while relating them to “Malagasy and Grassfields personhood” respectively. In addition, an attempt is made to elicit the differences and similarities in the ways the human-animal distinction is conceptualised in both ethnographic contexts.