{"id":533,"date":"2025-11-17T15:40:43","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T15:40:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/noria-research.com\/?p=32480"},"modified":"2025-11-28T16:25:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T15:25:20","slug":"corona-from-below-field-notes-from-life-in-eastern-cameroon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noria-research.com\/africas\/corona-from-below-field-notes-from-life-in-eastern-cameroon\/","title":{"rendered":"Corona from Below: Field Notes from Everyday Life in Eastern Cameroon During the Covid-19 Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Abstract<\/strong>

This field-based ethnographic account explores how the Covid-19 pandemic was experienced, interpreted, and negotiated in the rural and refugee-hosting areas of Eastern Cameroon. Drawing on observations, informal conversations, and interviews, the study examines the local reception and reinterpretation of public health measures, the lived realities of confinement, and the reconfigurations of international aid.
Rather than treating the pandemic as a universal event, the analysis foregrounds its fragmented presence and uneven intensity, shaped by longstanding precarities, institutional mistrust, and situated logics of survival. Covid-19 is approached here as a social and political dispositive: an ensemble of norms, absences, and constraints whose local effects depended less on adherence than on adaptation, navigation, and reappropriation. By attending to everyday tactics, this article contributes to an anthropology of pandemics that centres lived experience, local meaning-making, and the micropolitics of crisis management from below.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 17 March 2020, just eleven days after the first case of Covid-19 was detected in the country, the Cameroonian government announced a series of measures aimed at curbing the spread of the pandemic: closure of borders, schools, and entertainment venues (bars, nightclubs, etc.); a ban on public gatherings; restrictions on movement; and, from 13 April onwards, the mandatory wearing of face masks in public spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, several studies would document the political, economic, and social logics shaping Cameroon\u2019s response to Covid-19. Through these prisms, researchers investigated public policy choices1<\/sup><\/a>, controversies and scandals surrounding the management of the crisis2<\/sup><\/a>, socio-economic effects3<\/sup><\/a>, low vaccination rates4<\/sup><\/a>, and widespread popular scepticism about the disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This piece offers a glimpse, both visual and verbal, into how the pandemic was experienced through the lens of everyday life in rural areas of Eastern Cameroon. Arriving in February 2020 for a second fieldwork period as part of my doctoral research, I found myself \u2013 unexpectedly \u2013 documenting, month by month, how the pandemic was received, bypassed, and interpreted by local Cameroonian populations, by refugees from neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR), and by international NGO and UN agency staff tasked with implementing international assistance operations in the Kette district (Kadey division). The aim was to observe their day-to-day realities and listen to what they had to say5<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure 1. Locations and Fieldwork Sites Referenced in the Article<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These field notes draw on ethnographic observations, informal conversations, and excerpts from interviews conducted with local and refugee populations, religious and traditional leaders, and staff from international aid organisations. What follows is a series of fragmentary scenes: challenged beliefs, reinterpreted health norms, constrained mobility, discreet tactics, forms of aid that were at once ubiquitous and disappointing. This account highlights a series of dissonances: between international directives and local constraints, between aid mechanisms and survival logics, between intervention categories and strategies of adaptation. The pandemic is thus repositioned within local hierarchies, where hunger, malaria, closed schools, or empty market stalls may, at times, take precedence over the virus itself. The objective here is to offer an account, from the margins, of what the health crisis produced, displaced, imposed, or made visible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/em>Note on the Use of Illustrations<\/em>
<\/span>
To illustrate this article, I chose to use stylised images rather than direct photographs from the field, for two main reasons. First, some of these photographs, due to their aesthetic and composition, closely resemble those used in the communication campaigns of international aid organisations. Second, the choice reflects an ethical concern: in connection with issues of anonymisation and ongoing debates around the notion of \u201cinformed consent\u201d6<\/sup><\/a>, the use of photographs raises questions regarding the protection of the anonymity of individuals featured in such images.
The sketches presented here were therefore created from field photographs that were subsequently processed into graphic form (filtered and treated using AI tools7<\/sup><\/a>). In doing so, they allow for visual representation of certain observations while safeguarding the integrity of the people involved and avoiding any potentially harmful institutional connotations.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet someone tell me whether this disease is real\u201d: Doubt, Distrust, and the Negotiation of the Pandemic\u2019s Meaning<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Virus as Suspicion<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Although very few cases of Covid-19 were recorded in Eastern Cameroon, the virus circulated widely in discourse, rumour, and religious preaching \u2013 yet rarely featured in first-hand accounts. There were no \u201cconfirmed\u201d deaths, few identifiable cases of illness, and health directives issued from above were often poorly understood, translated, or received.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this context, what prevailed was not fear of the virus, but doubt: about its existence, its severity, and the intentions of those speaking about it. As a traditional leader from the region explained:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

First, there is doubt \u2013 a big doubt \u2013 about the existence of this pandemic, or even of the coronavirus itself. [\u2026] People are sceptical; they\u2019re not sure: does this virus really exist? For them, it\u2019s a fabrication, a creation serving the economic interests of certain lobbies \u2013 perhaps even the government \u2013 to make money.8<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This scepticism was rooted in a strong historical continuity: from the traumatic memory of colonial medicine9<\/sup><\/a> to the mistrust generated by past health campaigns against diseases like smallpox or malaria, often marked by coercive or poorly understood protocols10<\/sup><\/a>. In everyday life, this doubt was also fuelled by several factors: the absence of visible cases, mistrust of official discourse, and the disconnect between alarming health messages and perceived reality. Without deaths or spectacular symptoms, the virus remained elusive, difficult to grasp as a tangible threat. The first deaths attributed to Covid-19 sparked scepticism, even anger, as expressed with irritation by a farmer from the Kette area:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

That man had been diabetic for years. And now they\u2019re saying it was Corona that killed him? It\u2019s all just stories!11<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This anger was further inflamed by reports of corrupt practices linked to certain pandemic prevention measures. It was said that hospitals, citing health regulations intended to prevent contagion, refused to return the bodies of deceased individuals unless the family \u201coffers something\u201d. Except for deaths whose cause was indisputable (such as road accidents), \u201ccoronavirus\u201d was systematically listed as the cause of death on certificates. The rising number of Covid-attributed deaths was thus seen not as evidence of the virus\u2019s lethality, but as a reflection of the new opportunities for financial extraction that it enabled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether or not these claims were factually accurate mattered less here than the fact that they circulated. They revealed a tense relationship with the health system, where any prescription may be suspected of hiding a transaction or concealed interest. In a context of weak healthcare provision and widespread mistrust of authorities, rumours took on a structuring role. They expressed a longstanding distrust of the state and its agents, shifting the pandemic from the realm of medicine to that of social and political interpretation12<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Power, Faith, and the Politics of Doubt<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

From the outset, the pandemic was perceived as a matter of power: sanitary, political, and economic. This perception not only fuelled scepticism about the existence of Covid-19 but also fed a broader sense of anger that would, at times, erupt publicly. In March 2021, during the funeral of a local dignitary in Kette, these tensions came sharply into focus. When a former MP stood up to attribute the death to Covid-19, he provoked immediate outrage from the family and attendees, and had to leave in haste to avoid being assaulted. His words triggered such a wave of doubt and suspicion that the crowd demanded the coffin be opened to confirm that the chief\u2019s body was indeed inside. The unrest escalated to such a degree that the sub-prefect was forced to call for intervention by the Bataillon d\u2019Intervention Rapide<\/em> (BIR), a special forces\u2019 unit stationed in the region to combat incursions by Central African rebel groups. These elite forces secured the area and, with the support of staff from the district hospital, resealed the coffin, conducted the burial, and covered the grave with a concrete slab to prevent it from being reopened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this climate of uncertainty, various authorities found themselves in competition. On 18 March 2020, the Cameroonian government announced a series of measures: school closures, mandatory mask-wearing, movement restrictions, and physical distancing. But across the country, both the enforcement of these measures and, more significantly, how they were perceived, varied widely. Sub-prefects, security forces, managers of refugee camps, and INGO staff were all involved in implementing the response, each according to their own interpretation, resources, and priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this context, religious leaders played a decisive role. Respected and listened to \u2013 \u201cbecause they are our guides and they look after our safety\u201d, explained a Central African refugee \u2013 imams and priests used the space of religious sermons to recall examples of pandemics in sacred texts and to stress the importance, for instance, of \u201cnot leaving a plague-stricken area, nor entering one\u201d. It was they who made several government measures more acceptable, especially those poorly received at the local level. For example, the closure of places of worship and the ban on public gatherings did not mean that religious practice had to stop altogether: sermons recalled that the Qur\u2019an permits prayer at home, or even the suspension of mosque attendance when it is too cold, when a storm is approaching, or when \u201cthere is too much mud or difficulty\u201d. Yet even among these respected figures, doubt persisted. As the imam of the main mosque in Boubara explained:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

I comply with preventive measures. I also carry out awareness-raising. But I wonder whether this Covid disease they talk about actually exists?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In such a context, medical discourse \u2013 once it drifted too far from lived experience \u2013 was felt not only as distant, but at times as intrusive or even aggressive. Doubt, in response, did not signal apathy or indifference but rather a form of resistance: refusing to believe in the virus became a way to reject a discourse imposed from outside \u2013 one that dictated what to do, what to stop doing, and what to fear. It was a matter of lived experience, of hierarchies of authority, and of day-to-day survival. Doubt was not a pathology of belief: it was a strategy of adaptation. Faced with an external medical narrative often poorly aligned with local realities (as further illustrated below), doubt served to preserve room for manoeuvre. For many, the virus was a secondary concern, less troubling than hunger, the cost of transport, or experiences of stigmatisation. This was not denial, but rather a local reinterpretation of a global phenomenon. Doubt, in this context, was active; it formed part of the survival toolkit especially in settings marked by severe socio-economic precarity, as the next section illustrates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe Suffered\u201d: Economic and Social Reorganisation in Response to the Pandemic<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n

Covid-19 was a disease because it created hardship in terms of food rations and access to the water borehole.<\/p>\nCentral African female refugee, farmer<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n

This Covid-19 brought misery: famine, suspicion between people, financial hardship, the end of schooling, and more.<\/p>\nCameroonian pre-school female teacher<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lockdown as an Impossible Luxury<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In official discourse relayed from Yaound\u00e9 or through the local branches of INGOs, the injunction to \u201cstay at home\u201d was widely disseminated: avoid contact, close markets, limit non-essential travel. But these guidelines quickly came up against the realities of daily life in villages where most houses are not designed to be occupied all day, or in cramped and overcrowded refugee shelters. Added to this are the precarious livelihoods of a large part of the population. As one Central African male farmer, a long-term refugee in Cameroon, put it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

We can\u2019t stay at home if there\u2019s nothing to eat. We have no choice: we have to go out to find something to feed the family.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A Mbororo dignitary echoed this, explaining:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

In our current socio-economic situation, it\u2019s very difficult to impose a lockdown. Most people live day to day: if you don\u2019t work today, you don\u2019t eat. Or you won\u2019t have anything to eat tomorrow. [\u2026] People survive one day at a time; they earn their daily bread after working. Not everyone has a salary, not everyone can plan their monthly expenses. That\u2019s just not possible. It\u2019s about daily earnings: if you don\u2019t work today, you won\u2019t eat. That\u2019s the reality. So when they say \u2018lockdown, no one goes out\u2019 \u2013 no, that can\u2019t work. It\u2019s impossible.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

For much of the population, public health guidelines were not perceived as protective measures, but rather as expectations impossible to meet within the constraints of everyday survival. In the rural areas of Eastern Cameroon, lockdown was not a public health option: it was a luxury, reserved for those with the means to stock up. Whether in villages or refugee settlements, salaried employment is rare. The local economy is largely based on daily income from farming, artisanal gold mining, or small-scale trading. Yet petty trade faced major logistical challenges due to restrictions on movement, the official closure of the border with the Central African Republic, and rising transport costs \u2013 which, for example, increased from 2,500 to 4,000 XAF (roughly \u20ac3.80 to \u20ac6) for the trip from Kette to Batouri \u2013 in a country where the minimum wage is around 36,000 XAF (about \u20ac55).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Holding Daily Life Together, Despite Everything<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Aware of these realities, the authorities opted for a \u201cpartial lockdown\u201d13<\/sup><\/a>: borders were closed, as were educational and training institutions; gatherings and movement were restricted, and a curfew was imposed. In the rural regions of Eastern Cameroon, people were still allowed to leave their homes \u2013 for example, to work in the fields or in small-scale artisanal gold mining sites \u2013 but evening gatherings, which usually punctuate the end of the day, were limited. Alongside the (official) closure of bars and other social venues, roadside activities were banned: female fish vendors, male and female cafeteria operators offering tea or spaghetti with eggs, informal traders: all were asked to shut down earlier than usual, typically between 6 and 10\u00a0p.m., depending on the area. As one male butcher explained, people tried to adapt, to \u201cget by by selling during the day\u201d, and to shop earlier \u2013 at least when possible and when the money was available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many households had to wait for family members to return from work to see whether that day\u2019s earnings would cover basic needs \u2013 whether they could afford cooking oil or a specific ingredient. In families working in the gold sites, members only returned in the late afternoon and would still need to wash the ore and sell it before they could afford to go shopping. Early shop closures thus forced some households into debt, or to sell the few animals they raised \u2013 chickens, goats, sheep. In response to rising prices, others turned to what is locally called \u201cbush provisioning\u201d (ravitaillement champ\u00eatre<\/em>), heading into the forest to forage for food, even if it meant changing their diet. One male farmer recounted feeding his family through fishing, while a male Central African herder, who had taken refuge in Cameroon in 2014, explained:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

I stopped my job to take care of my family [\u2026]. I gathered all my children at home, and we went to the fields to look for vegetables.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Another hard-hit sector was made up of those whose income depended on schools. From March 2020 until the end of the academic year, the government ordered the closure of all educational and vocational training institutions14<\/sup><\/a>. This led to the sudden collapse of livelihoods for many: motorbike taxi drivers who provided school transport morning and evening; women selling beignets haricots<\/em> (sweet fritters served with savoury red beans) or other meals in contexts where school canteens are rare; and neighbourhood shopkeepers who no longer saw children coming in to buy exercise books, pens, chalk, or \u201cloaded bread\u201d (pain charg\u00e9<\/em>), the buttered or chocolate-filled half-baguettes eaten on the way to or at school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weekly markets continued to operate, but as prices soared and more and more products became unavailable, the authorities instructed people to comply with preventive measures (mesures barri\u00e8res<\/em>) and, in particular, to wear face masks. Yet, as one male primary school headteacher explained, masks \u201cmake you suffocate and burn your ears\u201d, so they were mostly worn around the neck or under the chin, simply to avoid trouble during checks. Many people didn\u2019t wear them at all: some cited the cost (500 XAF), others dismissed the requirement as mere \u201chassle\u201d. When sub-prefects occasionally visited the markets to \u201cmonitor\u201d compliance with the government\u2019s health measures, they were met with scenes of hasty dispersal among those without masks. In a Cameroonian context marked by entrenched authoritarian routines15<\/sup><\/a>, it is not advisable to be seen openly defying state directives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public Health Measures: (Mis)Alignment, Evasion, and Reappropriation<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Handwashing, Preventive Measures, and Local Habits<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Even if many people expressed doubts about the seriousness or even the existence of the pandemic, this did not necessarily mean a wholesale rejection of all protective measures. The acceptability of these measures was largely proportional to how well they aligned with the realities and contexts in which they were applied. Thus, while lockdown was widely seen as creating more problems than it solved (as discussed earlier), other measures were more readily accepted, as explained by the same Mbororo community leader in Kadey:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Despite all the doubts about the existence of the disease, people were still careful and washed their hands regularly, because it doesn\u2019t require much effort. Even before the pandemic, they\u2019d been hearing this message for a long time, and they know that if you don\u2019t wash your hands, you can catch diseases. They\u2019ll tell you themselves: \u2018Washing hands is no problem; we\u2019ve always done it.\u2019 [\u2026] Whether in Kette, in my neighbourhood, or here in Batouri, I heard it often: \u2018Wash the children\u2019s hands, you heard there\u2019s that illness going around.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Regular handwashing was easier to adopt because it reinforced habits already present before the pandemic. In Fulani households, people use boutas<\/em> (small water jugs) and soap for the ritual ablutions performed before Islamic prayer. Among the Gbaya, families already shared a bucket or cup to rinse their hands before eating a communal meal. However, this apparently simple gesture reveals deeper disparities in access to resources, gendered roles, and logistical constraints. Regular handwashing depends on an entire chain of material and social dependencies. It requires increased consumption of water and soap, goods that are not always readily available. While some distributions were carried out by local authorities or INGOs, these were far from sufficient to meet the needs implied by public health recommendations. In some neighbourhoods, \u201chandwashing stations\u201d were installed \u2013 typically a bucket with a tap at standing height, along with a bar of soap (see Figure 2). But because no provisions were made for maintenance or resupply, many stations were empty within days. Some were vandalised, others simply neglected. In many villages, the link between public health messaging and the logistics of daily life was conspicuously absent from institutional discourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure 2. Example of a handwashing station in Eastern Cameroon (July 2020)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Regular handwashing also required increased water use, meaning more frequent trips to water sources or boreholes. This task typically fell to women and girls, sometimes with the help of children. People queued with their containers, and in the crowds that formed around water points, it became nearly impossible to respect physical distancing. These gatherings could also give rise to tension between users: \u201cWomen fight to get water,\u201d explained a female resident of Boubara, noting that with so few water points compared to the number of users, \u201cpeople push and jostle\u201d. To reduce crowding, pandemic guidelines stipulated that only one member per household should go to collect water. But one person carries less than several would, so either multiple trips were needed \u2013 or the restriction was ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

INGOs sent staff to carry out awareness campaigns at water points. But as one male outreach worker admitted:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

We tried, but it\u2019s hard. Wearing a mask all the time, queuing up, waiting your turn\u2026 it\u2019s hard. We did everything we could in terms of raising awareness and promoting preventive measures. But to be honest, if I were in their shoes, I don’t think I could do it either! I say what I\u2019m supposed to say, but deep down, I know I couldn\u2019t even do it myself! (laughs)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In some neighbourhoods, a small-scale mobile water distribution system emerged, with vendors selling water door-to-door using handcarts \u2013 locally called pousses <\/em>\u2013 loaded with six to ten 20-litre jerrycans, each sold for 100 XAF. But accessing this service required additional spending, making it available only to those with sufficient means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accessing Healthcare: Too Expensive, Too Risky?<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Not all recommended protective measures met the same level of acceptance. Mask-wearing in particular came up against a range of obstacles: cost, discomfort, and unintended consequences, especially regarding access to healthcare. With the pandemic, wearing a face mask (referred to locally as cache-nez<\/em>) became mandatory to enter health facilities. Yet, despite some distribution efforts by INGOs or certain local authorities, many people simply did not have one. Acquiring a mask represented a non-negligible expense for households whose incomes were already severely strained. At 500 XAF per mask, equipping both the sick person and their caregiver with a mask became a significant burden. For some families, this was enough to deter them from seeking medical care for their child, as this male community leader from Kadey explains:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

When a household is overwhelmed just trying to find food, healthcare comes second. [\u2026] You see, people struggle even to get treatment for malaria. The child has a fever, they\u2019re just lying there, but the mother can\u2019t take them to the hospital because there\u2019s no money. So she gives them bark to drink, things like that\u2026 And only when the child starts convulsing do they take them to a traditional healer. Sometimes the child pulls through\u2026 Sometimes, they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Other individuals avoided going to health centres for fear of infection. A male Central African herder, now a refugee in Cameroon, explained:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Now I\u2019m the one who accompanies anyone who\u2019s ill to the hospital, because my wife is too afraid of the disease.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As hospitals came to be seen not as places of care but as potential sites of contamination, many families turned instead to traditional healers. Remedies included concoctions made from neem leaves, or infusions of ginger and lemon. Seeking these treatments did not necessarily signal resistance to so-called modern medicine16<\/sup><\/a>. In fact, many people moved back and forth between the two systems: first trying local remedies, then going to the hospital if symptoms persisted. But during the pandemic, this usual complementarity was often interrupted \u2013 due to a lack of money, fear of contamination, or, as explained above, fear of being quarantined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facing the Reconfiguration of International Aid<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

INGOs Go Remote \u2013 and Refugees Step In<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When the pandemic struck, INGOs supporting refugee populations in the area adapted both their activities and their modes of intervention. With schools closed, gatherings banned, and movement restricted, it was no longer possible to run education follow-up programmes, remedial classes, or various \u201cawareness-raising\u201d or \u201ccommunity mobilisation\u201d workshops. At the same time, most organisations placed their staff under lockdown. As a result, the usual traffic of white 4x4s bearing the logos of UNHCR, UNICEF, IMC or ADES across the region dropped significantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only staff in charge of so-called \u201cessential\u201d activities continued to move around the area; the rest worked remotely, often with unstable access to electricity or internet. Since they could no longer travel to the field, project implementation was delegated to intermediaries: \u201ccommunity relays\u201d who were supplied with masks, hand sanitiser, mobile phone credit, loudspeakers, posters, and other visual materials, in order to promote preventative measures and other health measures within their villages or neighbourhoods. Some even used portable speakers strapped to the back of motorbikes to conduct so-called \u201cCovid-19 awareness caravans\u201d (see Figure 3).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure 3. Covid-19 awareness caravan in the Kette district (July 2020)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This visibility helped to sustain the image of an active, responsive, and engaged international aid sector. But in the villages, two prevailing sentiments emerged. First, many felt that the aid on offer did not match their concrete needs. While some people welcomed the dissemination of information about the virus, the quantities of masks and soap distributed were widely seen as insufficient. More importantly, after several weeks, fatigue and frustration set in, driven by the impression that the Covid-19 response had eclipsed all other priorities, including essential needs. Due to supply chain disruptions and staff lockdowns, the World Food Programme (WFP) suspended its usual food distributions in the area for several months. When I spoke with women in the border village of Gbiti in August 2020, it was the first thing they mentioned. They expressed confusion over why food distributions had stopped precisely when supplies in local markets were dwindling and prices were rising sharply. A few months later, in November, during a coordination meeting between international aid actors, a UNHCR representative acknowledged:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

We bought a lot of medical equipment \u2013 respirators and so on \u2013 which went unused. But a recent survey of refugees on the impact of Covid-19 found that 93% can no longer support themselves, and 73% can no longer afford to eat.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Second, by carrying out tasks usually reserved for INGO staff, so-called \u201cbeneficiaries\u201d demonstrated their capacity to implement these assistance programmes directly. As one male employee of an INGO explained:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

In the months following the pandemic, the refugees said they knew how to do the registrations, and everything else INGOs usually do. So they didn\u2019t see the point of having humanitarian actors come and show them what to do. In every area, they even said the actors were misleading them. So the refugees said: \u2018No, we don\u2019t need someone to come tell us what to do.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This phenomenon of direct subcontracting by some international aid organisations offered refugee populations an opportunity to reclaim agency over projects targeting them. What was initially justified by the health emergency increasingly became part of a broader logic of cost-efficiency and partial withdrawal of aid. As I observed over the year following the onset of the pandemic, many of these dynamics outlasted the official lifting of Covid-related restrictions. Faced with ongoing budget cuts, international NGOs and UN agencies continued to reduce their staffing and delegate various tasks \u2013 registration of new arrivals, day-to-day coordination, management of water points, food distributions \u2013 to the target populations themselves, sometimes organised into \u201ccommittees\u201d or referred to as \u201clocal relays\u201d and \u201ccommunity mobilisers\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Confined for Others: Inverted Vulnerability<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In formal refugee camps, the measure with the greatest impact on displaced persons \u2013 though not in sanitary terms17<\/sup><\/a> \u2013 was the strict lockdown to which they were subjected: UNHCR announced that refugees were no longer allowed to leave the camp premises. This approach sharply contrasted with the national policy adopted at the time, which favoured partial confinement. The justification given was twofold: to protect displaced populations from infection, and to prevent them from potentially infecting host communities. In doing so, the pandemic inverted the usual framing of vulnerability which, in Cameroon as in many other humanitarian contexts, is central to international aid operations18<\/sup><\/a>. The \u201cvulnerable\u201d were no longer the refugees targeted by assistance programmes, but the surrounding host populations whom they might endanger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a context where most refugees rely on daily outings beyond the camps to secure livelihoods, this strict lockdown imposed by international institutions deprived people of their basic means at the very moment when, as seen above, border closures and movement restrictions had already led to shortages and price inflation. The worsening of living conditions caused by this “protective confinement” policy constitutes a form of structural violence, akin to that observed during Ebola epidemics: the \u201cthe way institutions and practices inflict avoidable harm by impairing basic human needs\u201d19<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, while the Cameroonian government officially began easing pandemic-related restrictions on 30 April 2020, a stricter system of quarantine was simultaneously introduced in the camps, even though no Covid-19 cases had yet been detected there. Refugees already under lockdown were now subject to an additional layer of control with the construction of prefabricated buildings meant to serve as Covid-19 isolation centres (see Figure 4). These centres were designed with a one-way entrance, leading first to a \u201cyellow zone\u201d, where symptomatic individuals were tested. If they tested positive, they were transferred to a \u201cred zone\u201d, where they remained for two weeks in isolation, receiving medical and food assistance from aid organisations. After this period, they were moved to a \u201cgreen zone\u201d for post-recovery observation before being allowed to leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure 4. Isolation centre built by UNHCR to host individuals who tested positive for Covid-19 (May 2020)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Despite their very limited use (in Timangolo, only seven people were ever isolated), these centres encountered strong opposition from the refugee population. Many individuals refused to go, fearing stigmatisation, or preferring to isolate at home. Others relied on accounts from those who had gone through the process and returned disillusioned, reporting inadequate food rations and the absence of any financial compensation to support their families while they were quarantined and unable to provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reaction to this intensified confinement, some refugees chose to leave the camps altogether and settle in the bush, where they could both escape restrictions and survive off wild foraging and local resources. Others described waiting for nightfall \u2013 once UN and INGO staff had left \u2013 to \u201csneak out of the camp […] and cross the border into CAR\u201d, or go to the gold-mining sites \u201cto find something to support the family\u201d. These practices illustrate the ways in which refugee populations adapted, resisted, and circumvented the immobilising mechanisms imposed upon them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This field account did not seek to explain the Covid-19 pandemic, to measure its impact, or to assess the adequacy of the responses it generated. Rather, it aimed to follow how the crisis manifested in the everyday lives of rural and refugee populations in East Cameroon. By paying close attention to its detours, side effects, and local reappropriations, the aim was to observe how this global health crisis was integrated, subverted, challenged or ignored \u2013 not through denial, but out of necessity, survival logic, or a different way of making sense of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pandemic did not unfold with the same intensity everywhere, nor did it operate through the same frameworks. In the sub-division of Kette, it sometimes existed less as a virus than as a device: a set of norms, gestures, closures, noise, expectations, and absences. It brought into being a reality shaped by new constraints, but also by revealing forces \u2013 exposing the precariousness of livelihoods, the fragility of aid structures, and the political uses of vulnerability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faced with often ill-adapted instructions and partially withdrawn support systems, local actors \u2013 whether Central African refugees, Cameroonian residents, or aid workers \u2013 improvised, adjusted, circumvented. Doubting the virus, wearing masks under the chin, going out at night, selling goods earlier in the day, praying at home, giving one\u2019s child an herbal remedy: all these were strategies forged in the interstices of mistrust, weariness, conviction, and cunning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By documenting these scenes, this text hopes to contribute to an ethnography of pandemics that is not centred on political decisions or health statistics alone, but on what such crises do to the ordinary. On how they settle into the folds of the everyday, confront local logics, and at times reinforce \u2013 or reconfigure \u2013 pre-existing inequalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Footnotes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

1<\/a> \u0007\u0003Alexandre T. Djimeli, \u00ab\u00a0La communication publique sur la Covid-19 au Cameroun\u202f: une lecture syst\u00e9mique des logiques d\u2019action dans le temps de l\u2019\u00ab\u202fangoisse pand\u00e9mique\u202f\u00bb\u00a0\u00bb, Djiboul<\/em> 1, no<\/sup> 7 (2024): 3\u201118.\b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2<\/a> \u0007\u0003Larissa Kojou\u00e9 et al<\/em>., \u00ab\u00a0Rendre compte de la fracture politique. Crise sanitaire, communication gouvernementale et l\u00e9gitimit\u00e9 politique au Cameroun\u00a0\u00bb, Global Africa<\/em>, no<\/sup> 9 (2025): 130\u201141; Mahama Tawat, \u00ab\u00a0Fake News and COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: A Study of Practices and Sociopolitical Implications in Cameroon\u00a0\u00bb, SSRN Scholarly Paper (Rochester, NY, 21 mai 2021).\b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3<\/a> \u0007\u0003Raoul Ehode Elah, \u00ab\u00a0Etat des lieux de l\u2019impact socio\u00e9conomique de la Covid-19 au Cameroun\u00a0\u00bb, Revue de l\u2019acad\u00e9mie des sciences sociales du Cameroun<\/em>, no<\/sup> 18 (2022): 501\u201113.\b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4<\/a> \u0007\u0003Jerome Nyhalah Dinga et al<\/em>., \u00ab\u00a0Factors Driving COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Cameroon and Their Implications for Africa: A Comparison of Two Cross-Sectional Studies Conducted 19 Months Apart in 2020 and 2022\u00a0\u00bb, Vaccines<\/em> 10, no<\/sup> 9 (2022): 1401; Ramatu Abdu et Nixon Kahjum Takor, \u00ab\u00a0COVID 19 Immunization (Vaccine) Reticence and Traditional Healthcare Resilience among the Mbororos of the North-West Region (Cameroon), 2020- 2022\u00a0\u00bb, Humanities and Social Sciences<\/em>, 2022, 8.\b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5<\/a> All expressions in quotation marks in the text are verbatim excerpts from informal conversations (author\u2019s translation from French).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6<\/a> Daniel Cefa\u00ef, \u00ab\u00a0Codifier l\u2019engagement ethnographique\u202f? Remarques sur le consentement \u00e9clair\u00e9, les codes d\u2019\u00e9thique et les comit\u00e9s d\u2019\u00e9thique\u00a0\u00bb, in L\u2019Engagement ethnographique<\/em> (Paris: EHESS, 2010), 493\u2011512; Isabelle Clair, \u00ab\u00a0Faire du terrain en f\u00e9ministe\u00a0\u00bb, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales<\/em> 213, no<\/sup> 3 (2016): 81.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7<\/a> Designed with the help of Fotor software: https:\/\/goart.fotor.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

8<\/a> Interview, Batouri, 19\/03\/2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9<\/a> Guillaume Lachenal, Le m\u00e9dicament qui devait sauver l\u2019Afrique<\/em> (2014), Paris : La D\u00e9couverte\u00a0; Sara Lowes & Eduardo Montero, “The Legacy of Colonial Medicine in Central Africa”, American Economic Review,<\/em> vol. 111, n\u00b04 (2021): 1284\u20131314.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10<\/a> Emmanuelle Roth, \u201cEpidemic temporalities: A concise literature review\u201d, Anthropology Today<\/em>, vol. 36, n\u00b04 (2020): 13-16; Dinga et al<\/em>., \u201cFactors Driving COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Cameroon\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11<\/a> Informal discussion, Kette district, August 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12<\/a> \u0007\u0003Kojou\u00e9 et al<\/em>., \u00ab\u00a0Rendre compte de la fracture politique\u00a0\u00bb.\b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13<\/a> \u0007\u0003Antoine de Padoue Nsegbe, D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Ndoki, et Aristide Yemmafouo, \u00ab\u00a0Gouvernance de la Covid-19 et impacts socio-\u00e9conomiques et politiques des mesures prises dans le cadre de la lutte contre la pand\u00e9mie au Cameroun\u00a0\u00bb, Les Cahiers d\u2019Outre-Mer<\/em> n\u00b0 282, no<\/sup> 2 (2020): 419\u201135.\b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14<\/a> See Lefort-Rieu & Ngodji, \u00ab\u00a0Aide internationale et gouvernances \u00e9ducatives en situation de pand\u00e9mie\u00a0: la Covid-19 au Cameroun\u00a0\u00bb, Cahiers d\u2019\u00e9tudes africaines<\/em>, n\u00b0250 (2023)\u00a0: 243-262.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15<\/a> Marie-Emmanuelle Pommerolle, \u00ab\u00a0Routines autoritaires et innovations militantes\u00a0\u00bb, Politique africaine<\/em>, vol. 108, n\u00b04 (2007)\u00a0: 155-172.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

16<\/a> \u0007\u0003Claire Lefort-Rieu et al<\/em>., \u00ab\u00a0La sant\u00e9 globale \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9preuve du local en contexte pand\u00e9mique\u202f: r\u00e9ceptions et (re)n\u00e9gociations des normes et mod\u00e8les de lutte contre la pand\u00e9mie de Covid-19 au Cameroun\u00a0\u00bb, Suds<\/em>, no<\/sup> 288 (2023): 15\u201146.\b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

17<\/a> Between March and December 2020, UNHCR recorded nineteen positive cases of Covid-19 among the 280,000 \u2018people of concern\u2019 under its mandate in Eastern Cameroon (data presented during a UNHCR coordination meeting on the update of its \u2018East Cameroon Covid-19 Contingency Plan\u2019; field observation, 01\/03\/2021, Yaound\u00e9).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18<\/a> \u0007\u0003Jo\u00ebl Glasman, \u00ab\u00a0Vulnerability: impartial algorithms and analog malnutrition\u00a0\u00bb, in Humanitarianism and the Quantification of Human Needs: Minimal Humanity<\/em> (Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2019), 211\u201142.\b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

19<\/a> Annie Wilkinson et Melissa Leach, \u00ab\u00a0Briefing: Ebola\u2013myths, realities, and structural violence\u00a0\u00bb, African Affairs<\/em> 114, no<\/sup> 454 (1 janvier 2015): 136\u201148.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abstract This field-based ethnographic account explores how the Covid-19 pandemic was experienced, interpreted, and negotiated in the rural and refugee-hosting areas of Eastern Cameroon. Drawing on observations, informal conversations, and interviews, the study examines the local reception and reinterpretation of public health measures, the lived realities of confinement, and the reconfigurations of international aid. 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