Analyzing Coping Strategies and Adaptation after Resettlement—Case Study of Ekondo Kondo, Cameroon and Ekondo Kondo Model of Adaptation

Abstract

This article centrally deals with the resettlement of the Cameroonian village Ekondo Kondo. In the following paper, I present resettlements as catastrophic events for the relocated populations. Research was conducted in the resettled Cameroonian village of Ekondo Kondo. The objectives of the research were to find out what kind of changes and challenges (positive and negative) people faced after relocation, whether these changes and challenges illustrated aspects of adaptation after resettlement which are lacking in the literature, and whether they could be included in the existing models of adaptation after resettlement to provide an enhanced framework for resettlement-linked projects. I demonstrate the consequences of the relocation for women and men. Whereas women developed coping strategies, adapted to the new village (site) 13 years after the relocation, and were able to emancipate themselves, men are still struggling with the relocation’s changes including threats to their former social role as hunters. These results support my argument that the existing adaptation models in the literature do not depict all key challenges the relocated populations have to go through. According to the fieldwork results, there are several adaptation processes in different key areas which do not follow one another or run homogenously but overlap and sometimes happen at the same time and on different levels. Additionally, there are significant gender specific differences which can be depicted in these key areas. Further predispositions of social groups, such as interests or experiences, can influence the processes of coping and adaptation as well. For this reason, I present and introduce the Ekondo Kondo Model of adaptation after relocation, which can be helpful both for difficult adaptation following disasters and adaptation processes when people develop fast coping strategies and get positive results.

1. Introduction

This article centrally deals with the resettlement of the Cameroonian village Ekondo Kondo. Resettlements happen for different reasons and can have different forms. Burbridge et al. [1] (p. 1) distinguish people’s spontaneous movement from officially planned and funded resettlement programs. The first form represents what many authors call “voluntary resettlement”, and the second is often called “involuntary resettlement”, even though people sometimes resettle (officially) voluntarily during resettlement programs. Voluntary resettlers want to pursue new opportunities and decided to move for themselves [2] (p. 28) because they are convinced they will have better opportunities and facilities at the new settlement site. When people have to resettle involuntarily, they do not have “the power to refuse resettlement” [3] (p. ix). Therefore, affected people “have no option but to rebuild their lives, incomes, and asset bases elsewhere” [2] (p. 27) which is why Cernea called this process “forced displacement” [4] (p. 191). If communities or populations are resettled and their complete environment has changed, people need time to adapt to the new situation—e.g., [5,6]. They lose everything familiar—houses, farms, places, parts of their history, and social lives—and are often poorly compensated. The loss of their homes and lands as well as, in many cases, the loss of their ancestors’ graves, their relation to their environment, and their whole way of livelihood can be a man-made catastrophic event for the affected people. Hence, resettled populations have to deal with changes as well as opportunities and threats. They must adjust their way of organizing their livelihoods or of cultivating crops because soils may be different and opportunities to earn money may have changed.

Planned and forced resettlements have taken and probably will continue to take place worldwide. They are often carried out with high development hopes on the part of their funders, whether they are conducted and financially supported by a country’s national government, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or international donor communities, such as the United Nations (UN), the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Cooperation Agency (hereafter “the World Bank”) or the European Union (EU). Forced resettlements are often presented and defended as fostering the public good or development [7] (p. 21), be it for natural conservation in a newly created national park or the production of electricity in a flooded area. However, the national or regional good in such cases often conflicts with the interests and good of marginalized people who have to be resettled [4] (p. 191) and who lack the power to refuse resettlement. For them, displacement “creates a crisis” [4] (p. 190).

Thus, from the late 1980s [4] (p. 188) until the mid-2000s, much literature has been published on the part of science and donor communities to better foresee and mitigate resettlement changes and crisis for local populations. The World Bank, being one of the most influential stakeholders in the sphere of development and resettlement projects, was the first international stakeholder to publish guidelines for involuntary resettlement (in 1980) in order to better address the resettled populations’ challenges. These have been reformulated several times (e.g., in 1986, 1988, 1990, 2001, 2013). Still, in the 1990s, academics argued that the whole process of resettlement and, in particular, rehabilitation should be taken more seriously [8] (p. 1466). In 2013, four non-profit organizations and NGOs (namely, Inclusive Development International, the International Accountability Project, the Bank Information Center, and Habitat International Coalition-Housing and Land Rights Network) criticized that there has not been a bank-wide review on involuntary resettlement since 1994 [9] (p. 4). Since the early 2000s, a new strand of academic literature has developed about resettlement and adaptation after resettlement, which emphasizes refugees’ adaptation in countries of the Global North (e.g., [10,11,12]). In this way, the focus on forced resettlement has broadened, which is reasonable since there seem to be different forms of it. However, in-depth discussion is still lacking in people’s reactions and experiences after forced relocation and their adaptation strategies in different spheres of their lives after the perceived disaster of relocation. The present literature mainly focuses on either economic or psychological consequences of resettlement, rarely taking social and cultural aspects into consideration even though social impact assessments of resettlement projects are gaining more and more importance (e.g., [13]) since international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, defined them as key components of their projects’ social performance [14] (p. 3). As recently as 2017, Vanclay [15] (p. 17) stated that social issues, which are associated with resettlement, are not given enough consideration by project developers. Much emphasis in research and literature is on the preparation period and the resettlement planning process which should include local communities (e.g., [16,17]).

As Kura et al. [18] (p. 148) stated, “a more detailed understanding of this dynamic process [adaptation after resettlement] is a key to the design of better and more tailored interventions for rebuilding and improving the livelihoods of those resettled by development projects in rural areas”. This involves additional aspects beyond economy and psychology.

From the above comments, the aim of the research is to analyze coping strategies and adaption after relocation of female and male villagers in Ekondo Kondo, Cameroon. The core responding overarching research question is, therefore: How do female and male villagers in Ekondo Kondo, Cameroon cope with and adapt to relocation? The following sub-questions help to scrutinize the overarching question: (i) What kind of changes and challenges (positive and negative) do people face after (forced) relocation in different spheres of their lives and where do they stand thirteen years after the relocation? (ii) Do these changes and challenges illustrate aspects of adaptation after resettlement which are not documented in the literature yet? (iii) If so, how would a model of adaptation after resettlement, which will provide an enhanced framework for resettlement-linked projects, look?

In the following, I will argue that the existing adaptation models do not depict all key challenges which relocated populations have to go through. According to my research results from the resettled Cameroonian village Ekondo Kondo, there are several adaptation processes in different key areas which run more sporadically than some models predict. Additionally, there are significant gender specific differences which can be depicted in these key areas. For this reason, I will introduce the Ekondo Kondo Model of adaptation after relocation, which can be helpful both for understanding difficult adaptation following disasters and describing adaptation processes when people develop fast coping strategies and get positive results.

The article is based on fieldwork results obtained in 2013. Even though these results are already seven years old, they still are of great relevance. Ekondo Kondo was one of the villages located in the Korup National Park in South-Western Cameroon and has been resettled as a blueprint for the other Korup villages. Today, there are still five villages located in the National Park which could be resettled in the future. For this reason, data gained in Ekondo Kondo can also be used as a blueprint for the other villages.

The next section of the article presents the theoretical framework of the research followed by the political history and the present situation of the Korup Area, information on the fieldwork site and the research methodology. I then proceed to the presentation of the research results of female and male coping strategies and adaptation and offer the Ekondo Kondo model of adaptation after resettlement as a general model for the specific case of resettlement. The article ends with a summary and conclusion.

2. Theoretical Background

Resettlement is a process composed of two components. There is the physical component, which “means changing the location” [19] (p. 18) and which is the actual relocation. Relocation is defined as the physical displacement resulting in the loss of houses, lands, and infrastructure (such as streets, electricity, schools, or fishing sites). It is a short-term process since people can be relocated in as little as one day. The second component is the so-called rehabilitation. Rehabilitation deals with long-term processes: social structures, incomes, and livelihoods—it is a “re-development” [20] (p. 60). According to the World Bank and the African Development Bank, rehabilitation itself happens on two levels: there is an economic level, since people lose their access to lands and other resources—e.g., water or the forest—and there is a social level, including changes in societal structures as well as consequences for people’s individual social relations. [2,21] (p. 28, 5). Cernea stated that the relocation’s “impact on the structures of economic and social life” [4] (p. 195) is traumatic. Since the relocation can cause “’ruptures,’ that is, sudden transitions from a quiescent state to a crisis” [22] (p. 2522), those relocated may perceive it as a catastrophic event or disaster. Catastrophic events can occur at different scales [22] (p. 2522) and affect different numbers of people. However, the perception of an event as disaster does not depend on the number of affected people but on the perceptions of the affected people themselves who have to cope with the consequences. Even though all people of a societal community may be affected by a catastrophic event, they are not affected equally since they all differ in their psychological and physiological conditions, capabilities or access to resources [23] (p. 551). Therefore, their perception of an event as disastrous is shaped by their individual and unique experiences [24] (p. 108). Post-displacement experiences in particular differ from one another and depend on people’s pre-displacement status [25] (p. 910), their capacities, interests, positionings, and vulnerabilities [15] (p. 3). Due to the “severe social impacts they create, whether large or small, any resettlement is a ‘big deal’ and not something to be taken lightly” [15] (pp. 3, 4). When people experience a situation they perceive as disaster, they have to cope with it. According to Greenaway et al. [26] (p. 322) “[c]oping is generally thought of as a reactive process triggered in response to a causal event.” Since coping evolved from the discipline of social psychology, and in the following I will call for a more holistic approach considering more than one discipline or perspective, I will stick with Greenway et al. and integrate this point of view in my non-social psychological background. Depending on the causal event, the stressor, which people may consider as a problem, dilemma or disturbance, people deal with stress and challenges in a variety of different ways: (i) they might directly confront themselves and/ or others with the problem, (ii) they might engage in other activities to distract themselves from the problem, (iii) they might use substances to alter their senses, or (iv) turn to others and/ or religion to help them cope. People may be exposed to the same event but cope differently depending on their character, experiences, and other individual factors. [26] (p. 322) In the following sections, I will demonstrate the villagers’ whole range of coping strategies after resettlement. The interplay of a person’s coping with his/ her environmental factors is well conceived in cognitive theories which design coping as a dynamic process [27] (p. 141). According to Lim and Spanger-Siegfried, this process is called adaptation [28] (p. 1): “[a]daptation is a process by which individuals, communities and countries seek to cope with the consequences of [..] change, including variability”. From a practitioner’s point of view, coping is a short term reaction whereas adaptation capacities are long term [29] (p. 89). Kura et al. [18] (p. 140), whom I would like to follow, emphasize the dynamics of livelihood adaptation. This process includes people who have recently experienced change which can be caused by a catastrophic event. Kura et al. [18] (p. 140) equally put adaptation on the same level as rehabilitation. This equation is not fully correct. Indeed, both are long-term processes dealing with the development of successful coping strategies and the change of used habits. However, rehabilitation even goes a step further: people need to incorporate their adaptation strategies until they finally operate successfully in familiar structure within their familiar environment [30] (p. 275), [31] (p. 167). Hence, disaster perception as well as coping and adaptation depend on individual factors and preconditions and influence the process of a (successful) rehabilitation post-catastrophe. “Because of their varying vulnerabilities, capacities, positionings and interest, the people being resettled are affected in differing ways” [15] (p. 3) by processes of resettlement. These individual factors can be influenced by gender, for instance, which played an important role in the case study of Ekondo Kondo.

2.1. The Gender Perspective on Resettlement and Social Impact Assessment (SIA)

Official resettlement programs have mostly intensified and strengthened existing gender inequalities within the relocated communities [32] (p. 6). Bisht’s case study of resettled communities due to the construction of the Tehri Dam in India [33] demonstrated that female and male experiences after relocation differ from one another. Displacement not only had the consequence of the relocation resulting in the loss of livelihoods and infrastructure, it also resulted in the disempowerment of women (pp. 301–302). In countries of the Global South, women often carry several burdens during the resettlement processes. Their livelihoods can be lost while they simultaneously have to fulfill household and family tasks which are traditionally assigned to women. Their possible economic vulnerability increases their dependency on their husbands and hinders them from making their own decisions. The vulnerability especially increases when safety nets, such as relationships with and assistance from neighbors, are destroyed and must be re-established after a relocation [34] (pp. 28, 29).

However, relocated women are not passive victims. The case study of Ekondo Kondo reveals that, if there is a window of opportunity, women are able to use their strength, make positive changes for themselves, and begin to emancipate themselves. This accords with Mehta’s research results in the Indian Narmada Valley [32]. To enable and ease these processes for women, it will be necessary to not only foster emancipatory politics on the national level, but also to challenge existing patriarchal structures in their communities on the local or regional level [32] (p. 6, 8). Since “displacements can cause restructuring of conventional social relations and norms, and thus also change the perception on [sic] gender roles” [34] (p. 28), a relocation can be such a window of opportunity for women. According to Vanclay [15] (p. 4), a relocation can be an opportunity for improved well-being although it is, at the same time, a risk of impoverishment.

The World Bank shares this point of view and in 2019, they published their most recent Environment & Social Framework for IPF (investment project financing) Operations as Good Practice Note on Gender [35] as an addition to their existing Gender Strategy [36]. This framework is a result of three years’ work and several workshops. It considers questions such as “Are there impacts that would disproportionately affect persons based on their sex?” or “Is participation in the project likely to be inclusive of all segments of the population?” [35] (p. 12). Women shall be involved in project planning and implementation and projects should be assessed by their impacts on all sub-groups of a society, especially considering vulnerable groups and minorities [35]. This is not the first strategy or framework on gender issues from the World Bank or its peers, such as the Asian Development Bank, which included several gender check-lists to their work in 2006 on the topics such as health [37], education [38], and agriculture [39], and it is obvious that, on the international level, gender issues as well as issues of marginalized communities are of growing importance and sensitivity. However, when Ekondo Kondo was resettled, these Guidelines and Framework did not yet exist.

Finally, it is important to keep in mind, that the negative consequences of relocation are not restricted to women alone. Even though women might carry the burden of coping on more scales (responsibility for household tasks, the family, their own position in society etc.), “[t]here is a need to examine the social relations between men and women, the gendered nature of roles and control over resources, and how these change through displacement processes” [32] (p. 9). In the end, all members of a relocated community have to face new realities and to build “new everyday routines and practices” [33] (p. 304).

To assess a project’s possible social impacts on local communities after relocation, social impact assessments (SIA) are conducted. SIA deals with the monitoring and management of social consequences and social change processes after an external intervention into a community’s life. These can be intended or unintended by the project planner as well as positive or negative for the affected community. [29] (pp. 81–82) According to Vanclay, today, the international financial institutions as well as Equator Principle banks all expect SIA. First, it is a management practice of the borrower and second SIA assesses the risks to the leader. [40] (p. 127) SIAs are normally part of a project’s environmental and social impact assessment and consider social issues which should be managed during a project’s life cycle [29,40] (pp. 82, 126). Key issues which need to be addressed by SIAs include land acquisition and resettlement [29] (p. 82), but SIAs consider more than 30 social aspects, such as empowerment, gender issues or psycho-social impacts [40] (p. 126). However, as Vanclay states, “[i]n some contexts, there is complete neglect of the social risks associated with resettlement” [15] (pp. 11–12) and there is limited awareness of and experience in how to restore people’s livelihoods and to meet international standards. Often, the complexities of enhancing people’s standards of living are underestimated and SIAs are concerned with minimizing harm. However, they should also aim at delivering benefits to the affected people. [40] (pp. 127, 128) An important aspect of international financial institutions supporting resettlement projects is that their actions relate to “western, individualistic, rational ways of thinking and to narrow scientific understandings”. To prevent or minimize the harmful effects of imposing this logic on people in other contexts, SIAs need to take alternative cosmologies and epistemologies in consideration. [40] (p. 129).

2.2. Adaptation Models

In the literature, there are models and frameworks, which consider resettlement and the way to adaptation as a process. These describe psychological adaptation of the individual—e.g., [41] and mirror influential donors’ perspectives on resettlement projects, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) [1] or the World Bank [20]. In my opinion, while these models and frameworks reflect aspects and single dimensions of adaptation-psyche, economic aspects, project planning aspects—whereas none of them shows a holistic picture. Vanclay states that they all take different perspectives [15] (p. 7). He and Smyth consider the process of resettlement from a resettlement consultant’s point of view and they emphasize the importance of understanding local desires and expectations, and the development of a Resettlement Action Plan as well as ongoing monitoring and evaluation after the relocation [42]. Thus, they do not focus on the resettlers’ process of adaptation but on the tasks, which should be completed from a planner’s perspective.

There are other models in the literature beyond those mentioned above, such as the Impoverishment Risks and Reconstruction (IRR) model Cernea [43] developed in the 1990s as well as the Scudder and Colson model [30] for Disaster Risk Reduction [44]. In the following section, I will discuss them and argue that they all have strengths, but are not suitable to depict the processes of adaptation after relocation.

2.2.1. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030

The Sendai Framework was adopted at the third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan (14–18 March 2015) and officially released by United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) in July 2015. It is the successor of the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disaster which should contribute to achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Sendai Framework was developed and prepared during a three year consultation period on the global, national, and regional levels to help to reach the UNs’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [44] (p. 5, 11) [45] (p. 5), [46] (p. 179).

This Framework does not give a clear explanation of what characterizes a disaster. However, it includes “small-scale and large-scale, frequent and infrequent, sudden and slow-onset disasters caused by natural or man-made hazards, as well as related environmental, technological and biological hazards and risks” [44] (p. 11). Additionally, the number of people displaced by disaster between 2008 and 2012 (144 million people) are mentioned [44] (p. 10). Therefore, it is my conclusion that resettlements can also be defined as disasters according to this Framework and the Framework can be applied to them.

The Sendai Framework’s expected outcome is to achieve “[t]he substantial reduction of disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihoods and health and in the economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental assets of persons, businesses, communities and countries” [44] (p. 12). Therefore, the Framework aims at realizing the following overall goal: “ Prevent new and reduce existing disaster risk through the implementation of integrated and inclusive economic, structural, legal, social, health, cultural, educational, environmental, technological, political and institutional measures that prevent and reduce hazard exposure and vulnerability to disaster, increase preparedness for response and recovery, and thus strengthen resilience.” [44] (p. 12). There are seven targets, four priorities for action as well as 13 guiding principles which are supposed to help achieve this goal. An important part of priority 4 is the “Build Back Better” approach. This approach to post-disaster recovery is supposed to not only reduce vulnerability to future disasters, but also build community resilience. A disaster should be used as an opportunity to address environmental, social, economic, and physical vulnerabilities to reduce risks from threats [47,48] (p. 2).

Among other things, the Sendai Framework emphasizes the importance for an improved understanding of disaster risks and emphasizes that women, children, and people in vulnerable situations are particularly affected by disasters as well as the importance of exchanging and disseminating disaggregated data like sex or age. Additionally, the framework recommends integrating gender or cultural perspectives in policies and practices. Finally, the Framework mentions the importance of the whole society’s participation, with special attention on those who are particularly affected by disasters, and empowerment. [44] (pp. 5, 10, 13).

Despite its attempt at an inclusive approach, the Sendai Framework has been criticized. The Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction (GNDR) [45] did a SWOT analysis as well as a critical review of the Sendai Framework and identified 18 weaknesses and nine threats. Amongst the weaknesses are the missing cultural dimensions of the framework which are related to norms and values as well as people’s individual behavior and their perception of risk. Second, the framework does not adequately value learning processes and lessons learnt. Third, the Sendai Framework does not pay enough attention to strengthening community-owned approaches but, on the contrary, promotes governmental top-down actions. Fourth, the role and (social) significance of local knowledge and community capacities are undervalued. The threats include the Framework’s limited relevance to local realities. The GNDR suggests including system-wide perspectives and holistic approaches to depict the complex risk landscape, to share visions, and to build strategic coalitions. Finally, the lack of political commitment leading to the Framework’s weak implementation or non-enforcement is a threat. [45] (pp. 4, 16).

One of the strengths of the Sendai Framework it is a more holistic instrument to reduce the risks of disaster—at the same time, this is one of its biggest weaknesses, as it seems to be a tool which is not specific enough to assess coping and adaptation processes after a community’s relocation. However, it emphasizes the importance of collecting data on vulnerable groups to better understand their risks from disasters.

2.2.2. The Impoverishment Risk and Reconstruction (IRR) Model

The IRR model focuses on the eight major socioeconomic impoverishment risks forced displacements can evoke: landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, marginalization, food insecurity, increased morbidity, loss of access to common property, and community disarticulation [49] (p. 20). It serves as a guideline for those organizing planned resettlements to develop strategies to improve the livelihood of the relocated population. This model has been tested in numerous studies and is used by many development agencies working in the field of resettlements [5] (p. 43) since it fulfils four crucial functions. These are a diagnostic capacity, a predictive capacity, a problem-solving capacity, and a research guiding capacity [43] (pp. 1571–1572). The IRR model does not depict the process of adaptation after relocation as it emphasizes the risks resettlers have to face after their relocation. It offers the opportunity for the stakeholders in power to improve the relocatees’ situation.

The IRR model does indeed help to understand and mitigate risks the affected populations have to face, especially since socio-cultural and social-welfare risks are added to the economic risks. However, it can be criticized for perceiving a resettler community as homogenous and for undermining their complex and local knowledge systems [50] (p. 8). Additionally, gender related issues, such as ownership of land, which is more than physical property, are not taken into account by the model. Cultural and social norms, habits, and values are not addressed either, although they have crucial impacts on coping and adaptation after relocation. [34] (pp. 23–24). Socio-political issues, such as the local autonomy and control of the relocated people, power differences within the affected community or the human rights of the resettlers are not addressed effectively [51] (p. 7).

In the context of this case study, the IRR model does not provide the most suitable tool for analysis, because in Ekondo Kondo, social as well as state norms played and continue to play a crucial role during the adaptation process, because power differences have to be addressed as well as gender issues, and because the resettled village community does not present a homogenous society as men and women experienced different challenges and changes and developed different coping strategies.

2.2.3. The Scudder and Colson Model

The Scudder and Colson model considers (re)settlement as a process of four stages and focuses on the adaptation of the community beginning with their reaction to the fact that they must relocate. These are the initial stage or recruitment stage, the transition stage, the stage of potential development and finally the handing over or incorporation stage [30] (p. 274) (see Figure 1).

During the recruitment stage, the future relocatees have to deal with the decision made by their government and (international) agencies that they have to relocate and especially where they have to move to [30] (p. 274).

The transition stage begins when the population becomes involved in the relocation process. This time can be stressful for the people because they are afraid of the future, do not know what exactly will happen to them, and often are not well informed. For this reason, they stay close to their old way of living and maintain a conservative stance, even though they have to move from their old settlement to the new site. People act risk-aversely because activities involving any risks could increase the level of stress. [30] (p. 74) During this time, relocated people try to transfer skills, such as farming practices from their former settlement to the new one, even though these skills may not be suited for the new site and situation [31] (p. 163). They do not change more than is absolutely necessary and hold on to the familiar because they want to create a feeling of security [30] (p. 272). When the relocatees begin to feel at home at the new site and are able to produce enough food for their families, there is a shift from the conservative stance to a dynamic one [31] (p. 163).

The stage of potential development is characterized by an increased initiative and risk-taking of the relocatees and the emergence of a dynamic society. To reach the stage of potential development, it is important that the relocatees intensify food production and experiment with the cultivation of cash crops to generate additional income [30] (p. 281). The stage of potential development is crucial for the economic sphere because people’s incomes rise, and they therefore have the possibility to invest in production and consumption goods [31] (p. 165).

The biggest shift between the transition stage and the stage of potential development is the change from a risk-averse population, which only produces for subsistence use, to a population that is ready to take risks and to try out several investment strategies for a higher production. This change will only be possible if people are able to produce enough food for their families, because then they “can easily shift into a risk-taking, innovative stance provided opportunities for development are available” [31] (p. 183).

The last stage in Scudder’s and Colson’s settlement process is the handing over or incorporation stage. As Scudder and Colson put it in words: “A resettlement-community is a long-term success as an entity when management of local production systems and the running of the local community are handed over to a second generation that identifies with the community” [30] (p. 275). People are operating in familiar structure within their familiar environment [30,31] (pp. 275, 167).

In sum, the Scudder and Colson model mainly focuses on the economic success after a relocation, though it also focuses to some extent on parameters such as initiative, risk-taking and handing-over. However, in my opinion, economic success is over-emphasized in this model since it is not the only indicator or reason for a successful adaptation Psychological and societal aspects as well as norms and values played a crucial role for the Ekondo Kondo villagers.

Hence, neither the Sendai Framework, nor the IRR model nor the Scudder and Colson model are entirely suitable for the case study of Ekondo Kondo.

3. The Political History and Present Situation in the Korup Area

3.1. Different Players and Different Conceptions: A Historical Overview on Korup National Park and the Village History of Ekondo Kondo

To provide a better understanding of the villagers’ situation and the reasons for their resettlement, I will give a short overview on the historical situation of Korup National Park and the emerging situation.

From 1884 to 1914, Cameroon had been colonized by Germany. After the First World War, Cameroon was divided in two parts and became British and French mandate territory from 1919 to 1960. Western Cameroon became a British territory, whereas the remaining parts (Cameroun Oriental) became French mandate territory. The area of Korup National Park was situated in Anglophone Western Cameroon.

Between 1931 and 1935, the Forestry Department began to demarcate forest reserves and in 1936/37 the area of Korup was defined as a forest reserve. In 1937, the British colonial government founded the Korup Forest Reserve [52] (p. 4). The villages situated in the reserve were given the status of enclaves and the villagers were allowed to hunt, farm and harvest to a certain level in the entire area [53] (p. 4).

In 1960, Cameroon became independent and the mandate territories were reunited and in 1961, the Anglophone Western Cameroon and the Francophone Cameroun Oriental became the Federal Republic of Cameroon. The unification entailed that the high degree of autonomy which the local authorities in Western Cameroon had under British law declined, and the whole national state fell under strict control of the central state following French law [54] (pp. 93, 95).

The Forestry Law of the United Republic of Cameroon was passed in 1974 and the structure of British “native authority” control of forest resources was replaced by the French structure which perceived forests as “land without masters” and therefore as state’s property [55] (p. 168). Nevertheless, “customary law as conceived of today by most inhabitants of the forest zone of anglophone Cameroon refers to the legal and customary procedures of the British colonial ‘native authority’ system of indirect rule” [56] (p. 40).

Due to international pressure from NGOs (WWF) and researchers in the 1970s and 1980s [55,57] (pp. 171, 95), forest conservation issues began to gain more attention on the national and international level. In 1971, European researchers started to appeal to the Cameroonian government to transform Korup Forest Reserve into a national park [57] (p. 95). WWF also pressured the national government in Yaoundé to reclassify the reserve as a national park [55] (p. 171).

In the mid-1980s, forest conservation issues gained further attention as a result of the Tropical Forestry Action Plan (TFAP), which was a program initialized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Bank and the World Resource Institute. The convention of TFAP was signed by the Cameroonian government in 1986. One of its aims was to raise funds for the conservation of tropical rain forests. These developments finally led to the amendment of Korup Forest Reserve as a national park in 1980 [55] (p. 163) and to the creation of Korup National Park in 1986 [52] (p. 4).

Due to the National Park’s creation, it became necessary by law to resettle the seven forest villages [58] (p. 118). The idea of resettlement was discussed in public for the first time in 1981. The Senior Division Officer (SDO) of Ndian Division sent a letter to the chiefs of four villages situated in the prospective national park. [59] (p. 3) In 1982, the villagers who lived in the park area were informed of their necessary resettlement [52] (p. 80). They were supposed to follow resettlement instructions voluntarily and in return receive compensation if they “caused trouble, the armed forces would drive them out” (Gartlan 1982 cited in [60] p. 4). The villagers were told that they would be resettled because this would provide them with better opportunities and resettlement sites were discussed [52,59] (pp. 8, 3). However, Röschenthaler [52] (p. 80) stated that “the administration had problems to convince the villagers [to] resettle voluntarily”. Finally, the villages’ chiefs agreed to resettle even though Ekondo Kondo villagers felt that their village “is a good place. Our fathers were not fools when they chose this place to live in” (Infield 1988: 37 cited in [59] p. 23). In 1988, the Cameroonian government and different international donors, such as the EU and the WWF established the “Korup Project” to conserve biodiversity in the area [61] (p. 1, 6) and to ensure the well-being of the villagers living in and around the park [52] (p. 22). The Project resulted in the development of a master plan in 1989 but did not include consultation of the local population [61] (pp. 1, 3). For this reason, the Korup Project has been perceived in a very negative way by the villagers and only 50% of them were prepared to cooperate with the conservationists (Infield 1988 cited [61] p. 3). A combined conservation and development project was recommended and the villagers were promised roads, schools, training, and agricultural tools amongst other things in order to buy their collaboration [61] (p. 3).

On the national level, the end of the 1980s was marked by a deep economic recession and internal imbalances which led to the implementation of structural adjustment programs by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank [54] (p. 93). The creation of Korup National Park was part of an urgent agenda to conserve rainforests pushed on the Cameroonian government as part of a multi-donor and World Bank-inspired conditionality package of a structural adjustment program [55] (p. 171).

In 1990, political pluralism arrived in Cameroon and the forest management was supposed to be decentralized, with the Forest Strategy involving the self-organization of rural people in common initiative groups [54] (p. 97). However, on the one hand, local management and access for village communities were institutionalized [62] (p. 92), while on the other hand, the state was reinforced as the “ultimate owner of Cameroon’s national forest estate” [63] (p. 180).

The resettlements of the Korup villages should have been carried out from 1991 to 1993 and the five villages situated inside the park should have been built at their new sites [59] (p. 23). Because of the political reforms, changes, and pressure on the national level, the villages’ resettlement was not conducted immediately after the creation of Korup National Park as planned. The villagers, who were told for years about their resettlement while nothing was happening from their point of view, felt disappointed, and changed their minds. They did not want to support the idea of the national park anymore [52] (p. 81). Nevertheless, the EU decided to raise funds and to resettle Ekondo Kondo village as an example for the remaining villages. The villagers participated in the building process of their new village even though their wishes and opinions were considered neither when the Korup Project decided the resettlement site’s location nor when the village layout for the resettlement site was chosen [59] (pp. 8, 10, 27).

The resettlement of Ekondo Kondo village started in in April/May 1999, and officially ended in February 2000. Ekondo Kondo is now situated in the buffer zone in the Southwest of the national park (see Figure 2). Different stakeholders were involved in the processes of decision-making and the villagers’ resettlement. For all of them—the rural populations, the national government of Cameroon, and international conservation agencies (e.g., WWF) as well as donors, such as the EU—“the forest has many meanings as well as many uses“ [64] (p. 40). A source of problems concerning the Korup situation is the forest’s different perception of local populations and the international conservation agencies. “For West African cultures, the idea is one of socializing the forest, managing it for its useful properties and then leaving it to regenerate. In contrast, rain forest is seen, in the West, as simply timber or biodiversity ‘bank’.” [62] (p. 91).

International conservation agencies and donors who played an important role in the Park’s creation wanted the forest and its biodiversity to be conserved and wanted to spread their influence. To reach this goal, hunting and gathering had and has to be reduced or even stopped [61] (pp. 1, 6). From their point of view, all villages in the National Park should be resettled because conservation goes best in the absence of humans whose hunting activities reduce the wildlife population [59] (p. 13).

The national government of Cameroon enforced laws as signs of ownership and influence on the national park [61] (p. 6) and the South-Western provinces. Natural conservation was used as “a strategy to impose power on the citizens in remote areas and to declare ownership over territory” [60] (p. 6). The government searches to assimilate the entire nation’s populations in the nation state and to keep rural populations better under surveillance in remote areas, which, regarding the current situation, plays an even more important role in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon. The national government and the international conservation agencies and donors seem to vie for their influence on and power over the National Park. Since none of them want to lose prestige, none of them seem to be able to represent the local populations’ interests [61].

Local populations use their forest as a source of livelihood and resources. People hunt in the forest, collect firewood, and pick non-timber forest products (NTFPs, such as medicine or vegetables). The forest is used as a source for tools, building materials, and potential farmland and fulfils a variety of the villagers’ basic needs. It is the locus of potential powers and has its own history, which is closely linked to the villagers’ history and therefore has an important cultural and spiritual significance [65] (p. 103). Nevertheless, some villagers had high expectation for the future after the resettlement and supported the idea of relocation, “because this will change our lives. I will become a business man because of this” (Infield 1988: 59 cited in [59] (p. 4)).

Before the resettlement, Ekondo Kondo was a remote village and some villagers did not live permanently there. Roads and sources of water were distant, as well as the market and the closest hospital [59] (pp. 7, 8). The villagers’ high economic expectations were based on the road connection at the new village site. However, in general, there were different degrees of satisfaction towards the resettlement: young women hoped to become successful market-women in Mundemba whereas young male hunters expressed their dissatisfaction because it takes them a lot of time and effort to find good hunting and trapping opportunities at the new site [59] (p. 10).

3.2. The Study Site: Ekondo Kondo Village

The village of Ekondo Kondo was resettled in 1999/ 2000. Ekondo Kondo is situated in the South-Western Province of Cameroon, close to Mundemba town, the capital of the department of Ndian Division, in the buffer zone of Korup National Park (see Figure 2).

I conducted fieldwork 13 years after the relocation when the initial problems had been solved by the villagers and people had at least partly adapted to the new village (site). Answers of the Ekondo Kondo people rely on their long-term experience and perception. The village’s name varies in the existing literature: it is called either Ekodo Kondo, Ikondokondo or Ekundu-Kundu. I will use the name Ekondo Kondo as this was the most used name by the people I talked to.

The following information on the micro-background of Ekondo Kondo are based on my own observations as well as information I obtained from the villagers. There were 53 houses, a church building, a palaver hall (the traditional ekpe hall) and a primary school; but there is no health care center, no market, no electricity (besides a generator which worked twice during 25 days) and no water supply anymore because the pipes were destroyed. The closest hospital and market are located in Mundemba which requires at least two hours of trekking to reach (the distance is approximately nine kilometers). The village is reachable by foot and motorbike or, in the dry season when the street is passable, by an off-road vehicle.

The villagers’ southern farmland boundary between Ekondo Kondo and Mundemba is the Mo-River; the northern boundary, between Ekondo Kondo and Fabe, is a branch of the Manna-River. The eastern boundary, between Ekondo Kondo and Etoka, is the river Manion, and the western boundary, between Ekondo Kondo and Korup National Park, is the Manna-River. (Information provided by two male villagers during walks through the village.)

Ekondo Kondo is mostly occupied by large families with many children. Therefore, more young people than elderly live in the village, even though the children who go to secondary school in Mundemba town live most of the time in Mundemba. The village’s chief also lives in Mundemba, whereas the chief chancellor lives directly in Ekondo Kondo.

The main income sources are currently activities in the agricultural sector because hunting is very restricted. The villagers plant cassava, bananas, plantains, cocoyam and egussi (melon seeds) to sell these crops on the market in Mundemba or to transform them and pick NTFPs, such as bush mango and Eru (Gnetum sp.) (Eru is an NTFP which is collected in the forest by women. Normally, it is eaten as a vegetable together with waterfufu. Waterfufu is fermented, ground, and pressed cassava). Crops are cultivated for market and for subsistence, and include cassava, yam, plantains, bananas, cocoyam, pepper, maize, egussi, papaw, cocoa, palms, bush mango, okra, cucumbers, and sweet yam. The market in Mundemba is held twice a week and the villagers mostly sell their products there; sometimes they also trek to Nigeria to obtain higher prices. A one-way trek takes them a day.

The villagers also go fishing, collect snails and sell them to their neighbors. Women weave and sell hooks and baskets, and two of them also sell poufpoufs (poufpoufs, or baignés (in francophone Cameroon), are deep-fried lumps of dough, similar to a doughnut); two men work as guides in the National Park and one man owns a small bar in the village. For some villagers, hunting is still an important income source, but no villager relies solely on hunting. Many villagers own a small quantity of livestock (hens, ducks, and goats) which is normally held for private use (e.g., a feast at Christmas) or sold in case of an emergency.

The villagers’ biggest challenge is the destruction of their farms and crops caused by forest elephants. Witchcraft is a very important facet of life in Ekondo Kondo and for some (young and middle-aged) villagers it is essential in their everyday lives.

4. Research Methods

The resettlement of Ekondo Kondo is well documented and much has been written on this case in the literature (see Section 3) (In this paper, I will not discuss the political and ethical dimensions of the national park planning, which are intertwined with colonial history and recent relations between agencies from the Global North operating in the Global South). However, no research has been conducted on the relocation’s consequences for the villagers several years after the resettlement, and no model of adaptation after relocation has been used to depict the process of adaptation following the relocation. Since the resettlement of Ekondo Kondo is supposed to serve as a blueprint for the relocation of the other Korup villages, it is crucially important to understand and foresee possible difficulties of adaptation or even catastrophic events which could happen to the relocatees. For this reason, fieldwork in Ekondo Kondo, Cameroon, was required to collect first-hand data thirteen years after the relocation. It was followed up by the analysis of the gathered information and literature-based theoretical as well as conceptual work in Germany.

As an intern at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), I lived for almost four weeks in the village, which at the time had 260 inhabitants. I joined an internship program at the IITA which gave four Cameroonian and two German researchers the opportunity to conduct fieldwork in the areas of Korup National Park and Mount Cameroon. In workshops, we discussed our research topics as well as results and were trained on focus group discussions. IITA also provided access to the field. As interns, we stayed in pairs in the research villages, with each person conducting his/ her own research. Fieldwork was conducted in October and November 2013 (15.10.–08.11.).

4.1. Research Activities and Analysis of Collected Data

Before I started fieldwork, I did a literature review on resettlement and adaptation (models) after resettlement, as well as (the history of) Korup National Park and the Korup villages.

According to Mikkelsen [66] (p. 87) “a wealth of information [is] hidden in a variety of sources”. For this reason, the research methods of my fieldwork were based on three columns, which were (a) thick participation [67], (b) semi-structured open-guideline interviews and talks, and (c) focus group discussions. Collected data consisted of 152 pages of field diary notes I took during thick participation including own observations, experiences, impressions, gathered information, and notes from talks, 12 interviews (6 recorded, 6 non-recorded), and 2 recorded focus group discussion and time lines. (see Figure 3). Ongoing pre-analysis in the field enabled me to prepare the best way possible for the interviews and focus group discussions.

For the in-depth post-fieldwork analysis of the interviews and additional field material I coded the results using a social constructivist, interpretative approach. In this way I was able to extract important information and key messages from my research without losing the villagers’ voices. During the analysis, the focus was placed on the village’s experienced history as well as changes and challenges the villagers had to deal with after the resettlement. I analyzed data according to their topics and organized and coded it thematically into categories. I then distinguished sub-categories, working in part deductively, using related literature for categories, such as farm work and crops, children and house or gendered work tasks. At the same time, I worked inductively with my fieldwork data, since themes like the importance of hunting and the related emotional and social loss for male villagers or aspects of the beginning emancipatory process of the Ekondo Kondo women emerged from the field material itself. Within these sub-categories, the coded segments were grouped according to their content and, if possible, their rhetorical elements. Whereas I did this coding and analysis for the recorded interviews’ transcriptions and focus group discussions’ transcriptions as well as for my field dairy notes, I did not treat the time lines this way for two reasons: first, they already provide valuable information per se, which does not require any further analysis, and second I was able to use them to compare my analysis’ results of the category “the village’s experienced history”.

4.2. Thick Participation

Thick participation combines observations and natural talks [67] (p. 5) and includes the three main areas of apprenticeship and practice, observation and talks, and experience and use of the senses [67] (pp. 12, 15, 19). For my research, I focused on the areas of observation and talks, and experience and use of the senses. This enabled me to experience different perspectives, which were helpful to have in mind for subsequent talks. Additionally, I was able to experience knowledge which cannot be explained by words. I conducted thick participation to reveal differences between what is said and what is done, which enabled me to gain different categories of knowledge. In this way, I was able to confirm experiences or to reassess them differently. For this reason, I fed gathered information back into subsequent interviews, talks, and participative methods. I used the method of thick participation when I went to the farm or fishing with the villagers, during a village quarter meeting, on the market, during informal meetings in the evening when male villagers gathered at our hosts’ house, and with women in the kitchens or in the evening when they waved baskets.

4.3. Interviews and Talks

I conducted open guideline interviews [68] (p. 149) in which I aimed to allow for the interviewee’s spontaneity and association [69] (p. 155). To this end, I followed an open guideline for the interview, leaving room for the interviewees’ prompt and instinctive responses. Before I started with the interviews, I usually went to the farm with my interview partner and had a conversation while we both did the farm work. This was essential to decide if the chosen person was willing to talk to me and to experience farm work myself (i.e., thick participation). In some cases, these conversations already turned into interviews because some women preferred talking to me during farm work. All information I gained on the farms was written down in the form of memos [68] (p. 90). These helped me to remember the person I talked to so that I could adjust to the interview partner and prepare in the best way possible. I conducted four recorded interviews with men and two with women; additionally, six non-recorded interviews (four with women on the farms or in the kitchens, one with a man on the farm and one with a man in front of his house) (see

Table 1. Overview on the Interview Partners. Table: K.S.

Interview Partner	Age Category	Profession	Interview Location	Recorded
Mr. JX	Middle-aged	Guide + Farmer	House (inside)	Yes
Ms. MZ	Young	Farmer	Kitchen	Yes
Mr. VR	Old	Used to be a farmer	House (inside)	Yes
Mr. MC	Old	Used to be a hunter + farmer	House (inside)	Yes
Ms. RS	Young	Farmer	House (outside)	Yes
Mr. RV	Middle-aged	Farmer + raises goats	House (inside)	Yes
Mr. AY	Middle-aged	Farmer	Farm	No
Ms. AI	Middle-aged	Farmer	Farm	No
Ms. MA	Middle-aged	Farmer	Farm	No
Ms. PB	Young	Farmer	Farm	No
Ms. EL	Middle-aged	Farmer	Kitchen	No
Mr. BD	Middle-aged	Guide	House (outside)	No

). Furthermore, I got much information out of non-recorded conversations and by listening to people’s talks.

4.4. Focus Group Discussions

I conducted two focus group discussions, both on the topic of the positive and negative changes the participants experienced after their relocation. It was crucial to include old and young villagers in the focus group discussions because of their different points of view on and experiences with the resettlement. The discussions were carried out separately with women (1.11.2013, twelve participants) and men (24.1.2013, six participants) to prevent one sex from feeling inhibited to talk in front of the other. For the male focus group discussion, I invited two young, two middle-aged, and two elderly men. With three of them I had already conducted interviews, with one I conducted an interview in the time after the focus group discussion, and two of them were unknown to me but expressed their willingness and interest to participate. For the female focus group discussion, I invited six participants (two young, two middle-aged, two elderly). With four of them I had conducted interviews before the focus group discussion, the two other women were suggested by a woman I talked to several times. However, the female focus group discussion had twelve participants because some women brought a friend or relative with them, or women had heard about the event and wanted to attend. With one of the additional participants I had already conducted an interview and with another I conducted an interview following the focus group discussion.

I was able to extract “timelines” [66] (p. 92) out of interviews and the focus group discussions. These are simple means to chronologically depict events and changes which happened because of these events [66] (p. 92). With the help of timelines, I visualized the resettlement and its changes for the villagers of Ekondo Kondo.

4.5. Ethics Statement

As mentioned above, the IITA provided us access to the research villages. They had visited Ekondo Kondo before and asked for permission for two interns to stay there for four weeks. When we arrived in the village, together with two IITA members, we had a meeting with representatives of the village, explained the research to them and asked again for permission to stay there. They decided in favor of our stay and told us which family would host us. During the first days of our stay, we visited the chief chancellor and the pastor in the village and had individual talks with them. We also visited and talked to two elders and the representative of the village youth. Our host family was fully aware and informed of the purpose of the research and supported us. We contributed to the family’s meals and everyday life with rice, beans, soap, palm oil, and salt. When I met a person for the first time, I introduced myself and my research and asked for his/her collaboration. If the person agreed, I added him/ her to the list of interested people in my field diary. Every time I recorded an interview, I asked for permission to do so and explained that the interviewee could stop the interview at any time, I did the same with non-recorded interviews. When I took notes during talks or non-recorded interviews, I always let the interviewees know what I was doing. Informed consent was always given before I started with any of the research methods. The last day of our stay in the village, we had a village gathering where we officially expressed our gratitude to the villagers and had a farewell ceremony.

5. Results: Female and Male Coping Strategies and Adaptation

It is important to consider that in the Korup region, voluntary resettlement has not been unusual and some villages in the area have already changed their site due to various circumstances. However, there is a big (emotional) “difference between the villagers’ own decision to resettle and a situation in which the villagers are told to resettle even if they accept to do so “voluntarily” for the benefit of humankind.” [52] (p. 4).

In the following section, I will present research results for the case study of Ekondo Kondo. Coping and adaptation depend on different factors which influence the process of rehabilitation (see Section 2). Gender is an important factor which cannot be neglected since existing gender inequalities can be strengthened in the period following a relocation. However, a catastrophic event like a relocation can, at the same time, provide the opportunity for women to profit from changes they experience and question existing gender roles. Changes after the relocation which occurred to women and men are important because they affected the villagers’ behavior and their mode of living, their thinking, and their way of making their livelihoods. In the case of the Ekondo Kondo women, I argue that adaptation is a result of their coping strategies with a catastrophic event—the villagers’ relocation—whereas the case of the Ekondo Kondo men is different.

All coping strategies depend on the evoking event, its resulting changes, and people’s individual emotional as well as rational presuppositions. For this reason, it was important during my fieldwork to find out, which changes occurred for the villagers and whether they consider these changes as bad or good events.

5.1. The Ekondo Kondo Women

Female coping included the acceptance of the confrontation with a new situation resulting in a disturbance of the routine and well-functioning everyday life. When the Ekondo Kondo women were confronted with resettlement, they decided to engage in larger-scale farming after the relocation. Especially young women had the hope of becoming successful market women in Mundemba [59] (p. 10). Women needed food for their families and there was, at the same time, the opportunity for them to earn more money than before. Hence, they also began to cultivate for market use to generate income (interview Ms MZ on the importance of cassava for women after relocation) since the good road access to Mundemba enables them to sell their products easily. Mundemba market can be reached by a two- or three-hour hike, which means that the villagers can go to the market, sell their agricultural products, and come back home on the same day. They can also hike to Nigeria, where they get better prices for their products. Before the resettlement, the hike to Mundemba took two days through the forest in one direction. Good access to Mundemba is also important for women because there is a hospital there, which they see as responsible for the decreasing child mortality in the village. (Female focus group discussion on changes after the resettlement).

In the old village, women also used to be farmers and cultivated cassava, egussi (melon seeds), corn, and cocoyam, but they did it on a smaller scale. Because of the distance to Mundemba they mostly cultivated for subsistence use and less for market use. (Female focus group discussion on changes after the resettlement).

Women reduced their activities in the collection of NTFPs which is a labor intensive and time-consuming task. Before the resettlement, they collected many NTFPs, such as bush mango, shallots, or shea nuts, which they sold to generate income. The only NTFP they still collect today to generate income is bush mango because the market prices are very good (“bush mango sends our kids to school”). (Female focus group discussion on changes after the resettlement, interview with Ms EL on what women spend their money for) Every woman I talked to still defines herself as a farmer today.

For the Ekondo Kondo women, the first benefit is an economic one: they are able to earn more money than before the resettlement which they spend for their families and for themselves. With the higher income they can contribute to their children’s education. They spend money on school fees, books, exercise books, and school uniforms. If children visit the secondary school in Mundemba, their mothers also pay for their rent and food. Their financial contribution makes them proud and more independent, which is a second benefit. However, expenses related to their children are not the only purpose for which women use their money. For them, it is important to cook good meals. For this reason, they spend money on kitchen equipment, such as salt, Maggi cubes, and rice. Compared to cassava or plantains, rice is expensive and therefore a good means for a woman to demonstrate that she has money.

Women now have leftover money: they sometimes buy new clothes for themselves and their children or they might go to the hairdresser to look and feel nice (female focus group discussion on changes after the resettlement). Especially young women, who do not have (many) children, spend their money on their beauty and go frequently to Mundemba. If a woman does not have enough money, her friends will plait her hair. Women strongly bond to each other and support each other.

Female economic activities are not limited to farming. Some women invest in livestock (hens and goats), others in ingredients for poufpoufs, which they make and sell in the village. They also sell snails to each other when they collect more than they need for themselves. Some women weave baskets and fish traps which they sell. Several women worked together in a cassava farming group, and if someone produces garri, there are always people who help and are even paid for helping—e.g., for grinding the cassava.

Women stayed focused on the challenges they had to overcome at the new village site and did not distract themselves. It is only now that they allow themselves to invest money in “luxury goods”, such as visits to a hairdresser, new clothing, or soap for their body. As mentioned above, women support one other. They do not just work together on an economic level; they also strengthen each other very much on a personal level and support each other emotionally. There are many small female farming groups in Ekondo Kondo. “I am a member of a farming group of three persons. Next week, we will do two rounds: we will work two days on every farm. There are many small groups like ours.” (interview with Ms AI on female farming activities). This way, women can cultivate their farms faster and have time to discuss their problems.

The Ekondo Kondo women were able to uphold and continue the essential structures and functions in their families and the village. With their ability to accept challenges and to solve problems, they even were able to better their and their children’s situation—at first economically, then on a social level. They were able to absorb the resettlement’s consequences as disturbance and develop positive results out of them.

Female villagers have put effort into the biological, social, and emotional dimensions of adapting to the new village site. They dealt with new farming circumstances, new responsibilities, and a new role within family and society. They have experienced positive and negative challenges after resettlement. The Ekondo Kondo women were able to profit from the positives but are still recovering from the negative emotional loss of the old village. From an emotional point of view, only one woman expressed being truly happy to live in the new village during the female focus group discussion. Additionally, they are sure that their new houses are bad and will leak soon (female focus group discussion on changes after the resettlement).

All these experiences have consequences for the women personally, but also for their children as well as the whole village society. Female financial security, the improved access to the hospital, as well as their stronger relationship of their activities to the village site lead to less stress and sorrows. Women can now support themselves personally and financially, because they have the time and psychological capacities to deal with more than the pure survival of their families. They decide how they want to live and what they want to spend their money on. This beginning emancipation process is best demonstrated by two young pregnant women who told me that they did not want to marry, as well as a middle-aged woman who decided to get divorced from her husband and now lives with her sister. Ekondo Kondo women are beginning to decide with whom they want to have sex and whether they want to marry or raise their children alone, which is a crucial change.

In summary, female coping in Ekondo Kondo is about adaptation and problem solving. Through larger scale farming they have gained more financial freedom and security. They discovered their own personal strengths and were able to emancipate themselves to a certain degree. In the case of the Ekondo Kondo women, the result of coping is a form of adaptation which leads to their empowerment. This results in a stronger position within the family and village society, and more personal opportunities, such as divorce.

5.2. The Ekondo Kondo Men

When Schmidt-Soltau conducted a survey in 1999 and asked the villagers of Ekondo Kondo whether they were satisfied with the chosen location for the resettlement site, men expressed many concerns. Young male hunters answered that it took a lot of time to find good new places for hunting and trapping, and elder men expressed a strong emotional bond to the old village site, where they wanted to be buried next to their relatives [59] (p. 10).

Before the resettlement, men mostly hunted in the forest and were not much involved in farming. After the resettlement, their role began to change. They had to drop hunting and become full-time farmers or search for a different job. Now, men own several larger farms. However, there are challenges and threats preventing some of them from identifying as farmers.

The biggest problem men face is their farms’ and crops’ destruction by forest elephants: ”If they [the elephants] destroy my farms, we won’t have anything to eat.” (talk with Mr AO on elephants destroying crops and farms). Plantains, bananas, and cocoyam are destroyed almost on a regular basis. Since elephants are protected in the National Park and its buffer zone and the villagers are forbidden by law to catch or kill them, they feel that their President (Paul Biya) takes more care of the animals than of them—“God is the only one who takes care of us” (interview with Mr JH on threats and fears after the relocation). The challenge and threat men have to face is the fact that hunting is prohibited now.

There are additional problems for the Ekondo Kondo men aligning with the prohibition of hunting: they have lost their socially recognized role as hunters and have had to identify with a completely new role as farmers. This is an emotional disaster for them: it is very difficult to give up the role with which they identified their lives and those of their ancestors. When a boy shoots his first monkey, he will be called a man. His mother will cook the monkey and he will serve it the other men who will come to celebrate him. They will all eat a small piece of the meat and then hold a speech for the new man in the village. I had the possibility to join such a ceremony and felt how important and special this evening was for the boy/ man.

Another problem is the fear that Nigerian hunters will come to the forest and hunt there. “We don’t want them to enter the forest.”, said a male villager of Ikenge, which is one of the Korup villages (M2, Ikenge cited in [52] p. 97). This “entering the forest” could cause serious problems because according to the widespread tradition in the area, animals such as elephants, crocodiles or buffaloes were and sometimes are still perceived to be people. These animals are always related to persons and if a hunter kills such an animal, it means that a person has been killed. These animals therefore cannot be killed randomly, and if they are, expiatory rituals must be carried out. [52] (p. 37) Additionally, people believe(d) that important men transform into elephants [62] (p. 82). Hence, the male villagers have another reason to keep on hunting as they feel they are protecting their people when they occupy their forest. There are still villagers today who believe that people can turn into elephants to take revenge on others.

The difficult situation caused by the hunting prohibition is now slowly changing because there is a “change from a society based on tradition and belief to a society based on money and written laws” [53] (p. 25). Thirteen years after the resettlement and the social changes, not all men have given up their role as hunters completely, but they are less involved in hunting than before the resettlement. There are men in Ekondo Kondo who do not hunt anymore because of God and the government’s laws, and there are men who do not want their sons to be hunters (interview with Mr RV on income creating activities).

A positive change after resettlement, which was mentioned by men during the focus group discussion, is the passable road connecting the village and Mundemba town. Sometimes, visitors come to the village to buy goats. Since the markets are easily reachable via this road, men can now sell their products easily for good prices. Another positive change for men is the better housing, which is the exact opposite of what women expressed. (Male focus group discussion on changes after the resettlement) The reason might be their different roles in household tasks. Whereas men barely work in the household, women spend much time with cooking and preparing meals. For them, it is crucially important that their kitchens are adapted to their needs. However, the kitchens were built in the European style and were not adapted to open fireplaces and the resulting smoke. For this reason, women had to build their own kitchens as separate and open buildings.

The changes men perceived as positive led to more financial freedom. However, they do not seem to take much advantage of this situation. They spend money to support their children’s education and some invest in livestock, but they rarely take the opportunity to invest in other economic activities or spend money to make themselves happier. In Ekondo Kondo, alcohol plays an important role in the male villagers’ daily routine and many men spend money to buy it. Since men are not allowed to hunt and kill animals and many of their farming activities are related to season work (e.g., clearing a farm), they have more free time now, which they spend in the village. They have time to experience the feeling of being (spiritually) lost and to think about their social role and position. There are men who still go hunting because they cannot accept the current situation. A few others use the time to deepen their knowledge on farming.

The Ekondo Kondo men reacted differently to the relocation than the women did. A crucial difference is that they do not work together on an economic level. They neither farm together nor buy products from each other on a regular basis. However, they support each other in cases of emergencies be it in personal talks with close friends, or in village quarter meetings, when they lend each other money to send their children to school. Men have accepted being more involved in large-scale farming, but it was and still is very difficult to deal with the prohibition of hunting. There are men who still hunt on a regular basis, but others do less hunting, and some men have dropped it completely.

The Ekondo Kondo men were able to contribute to upholding and continuing the families’ and village’s essential structures and functions. However, they lost their identities as hunters and are still dealing with this consequence. For this reason, it is hard to determine whether the resettlement or the prohibition of hunting is the catastrophe of more importance. In interviews and talks, men rarely mentioned the resettlement per se, but often mentioned the fact that they are not able to hunt as they did before. Therefore, men have to overcome two sorts of catastrophic events which are directly linked to each other.

There are men who are large-scale farmers now and who are economically successful. For them, farming is a way to find their new role within the village society and their family. They identify with the crops they cultivate, which is “serious food” for them (talk with Mr AY on crops on the farm and the elephant problem). These men are on the one hand idols for other men in the village, on the other hand they are perceived as a threat by others who are not successful farmers because they do not invest much time in agriculture and mainly use their old family farming methods which are neither adapted to the new soils nor to the new circumstances.

Through large-scale farming, they have gained more financial freedom, security, and free time. Some men are slowly beginning to experience the advantages of large-scale farming and to identify themselves as farmers. In the case of the Ekondo Kondo men, the result of coping is a form of adaptation which leads to adopting a new identity—e.g., as a farmer.

In summary, there are two main male coping strategies: (i) Ignorance of the hunting prohibition, which results in the danger of going to prison. Men still feel like and identify as hunters. Nevertheless, it is not the same as being hunters before the resettlement. They are stressed because they live in constant fear of being caught. (ii) Acceptance of the hunting prohibition, which results in pursuit of other economic activities, such as (successful) large-scale farming.

6. Application of the Research Results: Relocation, and then? The Ekondo Kondo Model

In this section, I will link my findings of the Ekondo Kondo case to the adaption model of Scudder and Colson [30] the IRR model [49], and the Social Framework for Projects [42], and present the Ekondo Kondo model as a more holistic counterpart which helps to analyze the consequences and their threats or opportunities in the process of adaptation after the catastrophic event of a resettlement. Whereas the Sendai Framework provides a general overview of the issue of disaster risk reduction, the IRR model and the Scudder and Colson model haven been specifically developed for cases of resettlement. Additionally, they are specific models for the cases of impoverishment risk reduction and the (socio-) economic consequences of resettlement. Therefore, both can provide valuable insights in certain scenarios, but are not suitable to illustrate general processes of adaptation after a relocation. There are other models examining the specific case of resettlement which focus on specific perspectives—e.g., on psychological adaptation [41].

I combined the Scudder and Colson model, the IRR model, and the Social Framework for Projects, added the findings of the case study of Ekondo Kondo and developed the Ekondo Kondo model (see Figure 4). The Ekondo Kondo model is an attempt to generate a model which is as general as possible but adaptable for the specific case of resettlement.

Ekondo Kondo may not represent a typical case of rehabilitation after relocation: according to Sharma [25] (p. 910), women are one of the social groups who suffer the most from displacement projects. In the case of Ekondo Kondo, however, women were those who quickly took the opportunity to become better off than before the relocation. This window of opportunity was opened by the Ekondo Kondo men’s difficulties coping and adapting. Hence, even though women are often a more vulnerable social group than men, relocations can be an opportunity for them to profit from the social restructuring (see Section 2.1).

Models are always simplified and generalized to reduce complexity and depict something in an understandable way. In my opinion, a model of rehabilitation and adaptation should comprise as many aspects of different key challenges as possible without going into details. A generalized model which can be considered under individual circumstances should be the goal. For processes of coping and adaptation, it is problematic to consider the model’s stages as following one another because many events happen simultaneously and on different levels. I do not favor a model which classifies human behavior as rational step-by-step action because it does not allow for emotions and irrational actions, which certainly are human. Therefore, I will present the Ekondo Kondo model (Figure 5), which shows different key challenges of adaptation after a disaster.

The model focuses on resettlement seen as a process composed of relocation and rehabilitation (see above). For this model, I defined rehabilitation and the way to adaptation as an open-ended process which is subdivided into key areas that the affected population has to go through. This process must be open-ended, because the adaptation process after a relocation fluidly merges into the “normal” and constant adaptation to the environment. Human beings have always had to continually adapt to their environment—for example after a flood.

The center of the model is the relocation which is the starting point of time (illustrated by the dashed arrow) and adaptation (illustrated by the solid arrow). As time progresses, processes of adaptation become more complex. During the first period following the relocation the key challenge of adaptation is the fulfilment of people’s basic needs. It is important for them to deal with changes, which directly affect the making of their livelihoods—e.g., their new farms, land, or the environment. It is their priority “to meet their subsistence needs” [31] (p. 162). For Ekondo Kondo, this meant establishing a new relationship with another part of the forest the villagers did not know before. During this time, people got to know the new site and its characteristics—e.g., the soils of their new farms, the river where women fetch water and wash their clothes, the parts of the forest where they now live or the places where they find Eru and snakes.

When the relocatees are able to fulfill their basic needs, there are additional key challenges they have to deal with in different stages. The effect of a key challenge on people depends on several predispositions, such as gender, capacities, experiences, or interest (illustrated by the colored dots), as these predispositions shape their individual ways of coping and adapting [15,26]. The relocatees are not confronted with these challenges one at a time, but rather in parallel, since the challenges and their consequences can overlap or influence each other (illustrated by the dashed lines). However, the key areas can clearly be distinguished from one another. Following the black arrow of adaptation to the outside of the circle and crossing the area of the basic needs, there are the five key challenges of spatial dynamism, society, state norms, identity, and luxury and distraction. I also left one sector free, since it is possible that in the years to come, there will be additional challenges people have to overcome. The arrows of time and adaptation can be moved like clock hands into each key challenge’s area to assess the influences of individual factors, such as gender or experiences, on the adaptation process. The dashed outside line illustrates that the process of adaptation has finally reached the relocatees’ rehabilitation and then fluidly merges into the process of constant everyday adaptation of humans to their environment. The pattern of the colored dots in Figure 5 is randomly chosen. It is supposed to illustrate that the exemplarily chosen influences (gender, capacities, vulnerabilities, experiences, and interests) are factors during the process of adaptation which can be evaluated separately from one another. According to the evaluation, a certain group of the resettlers—e.g., women—can have reached a different level of adaptation in different key areas. Hence, one is able to compare different marginalized sub-groups, such as people who are especially vulnerable (e.g., illiterates), people who have certain interests (e.g., an organic farming group) or people who have already experienced relocation (e.g., elders) and compare their levels of adaptation in the different key areas. Additionally, one can combine different factors and evaluate a certain marginalized group very precisely—e.g., illiterate women who participate in an organic farming group.

I will present the key challenges moving clockwise through the model. The first sector represents processes of spatial dynamism. The own dynamic of a settlement site itself must be taken into consideration. For the villagers, this is a way of appropriating the new settlement or to finding another home somewhere else. This spatial dynamic can be a movement from one site in the village to another due to the villagers’ professions (for example, a shop owner moves closer to the main street or a fisherman moves closer to a river). In Ekondo Kondo, there are two processes of spatial dynamism taking place: one is due to education and working opportunities, the other because of social status. Students, who attend secondary school in Mundemba often do not come back to the village but try to find work in the city. The other process is the orientation of the village elite to Mundemba town. The chief of the village lives in Mundemba with his family. The town is much more expensive to live in than the small rural village. Additionally, the chief’s sphere of influence covers a bigger spatial area since it now reaches from Mundemba to Ekondo Kondo. Both facts lead to the chief’s social rise. Another key challenge is at the resettlers’ societal level: changes are continually happening in Ekondo Kondo village’s society. The old traditional elite lost some of its influence because people live closer to the city and have adopted its lifestyle (several conversations in Ekondo Kondo 2013, own observation). New societal organizations, such as farming groups have continually been created. These include the female cassava farming group, the newly founded common initiative group, but also the church community and newly established communities, such as village quarters. The societal level includes what Koenig called “possibilities to change the distribution of power within the displaced community” [70] (p. 8). In Ekondo Kondo, changing power distribution is not only symbolized by the shrinking influence of the elites but also by the growing empowerment of the Ekondo Kondo women.

An important key challenge on the personal level is identity. Women were able to develop personal strength and independence, whereas many men are still struggling with finding a new social identity and incorporating it into their lives. This challenge correlates with the key challenges of society and state norms, as both shape the preconditions and limits of the individual development of a person’s identity. This can be illustrated by the Cameroonian government’s hunting prohibition, which leads to an identity crisis among the Ekondo Kondo men. State norms have an influence on local people’s lives and their practices [71] (p. 163). The importance of predispositions for the process of coping, such as gender in the case of the Ekondo Kondo hunting prohibition, cannot be emphasized enough.

Finally, there is the key challenge of luxury and distraction, which can be an indicator for the economic wealth of those, who decide to invest money or time in it. Equally, it illustrates a certain joy for and enjoyment of life, and it demonstrates what kind of luxury is important for whom. The Ekondo Kondo women are not a homogenous group. They prefer different luxury goods due to their age, number of children or family status. The sphere of luxury and distraction also illustrates people’s economic success and their advanced emotional rehabilitation and is an important step towards adaptation, since the villagers experience posttraumatic growth and come to recognize their own capacities for not only absorbing disturbance but also for improving their own situation.

7. Summary and Discussion

In this study, I presented my research results in the theoretical context of coping and adaptation in the conceptual process of resettlement. Thirteen years after the resettlement, the villagers had experienced positive changes, such as decreasing child mortality, the proximity to the market and the hospital, and the passable road to Mundemba, as well as challenges, such as the prohibition of hunting, the destruction of their farms by elephants, and the emotional arrival at the new village site. Men are confronted with the search for their social role and identity as well as their feeling of being lost, which is catastrophic for them. It is an important finding, that women seem to have successfully gone through a process of adaptation and took the relocation as a window of opportunity to empower and emancipate themselves to a certain degree, whereas men do not seem to really accept their new social role, despite having new opportunities.

These changes and challenges illustrate, on the one hand, the importance of state rules and social norms for communities. These directly affect the resettlers but in a different way than before the relocation [71] (p. 157), be it on the personal or on the societal level which is not illustrated by the existing models. On the other hand, the challenges and changes illustrate how differently groups of the same community, in this case women and men, are affected by the consequences of a relocation and how they cope with and adapt differently to the same situation. This issue is acknowledged in the existing literature, but no adaptation model truly depicts it.

The positive and negative effects of changes which occurred to female and male villagers of Ekondo Kondo and their way of coping with these challenges led me to develop the Ekondo Kondo model of rehabilitation and adaptation as a process of going through several key challenges. The Ekondo Kondo model is intended as a theoretical contribution to the assessment of adaptation and rehabilitation processes for different (marginalized) social groups after resettlement. It is developed for the specific case of resettlement but can be used for a general assessment. Therefore, it provides the missing link between general models for general cases, such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster and Risk Reduction, and specific models developed for specific cases, such as the IRR model or single perspective models. The Ekondo Kondo model brings content from the IRR model, the Scudder and Colson model and the Social Framework for Projects together with fieldwork results. For this reason, it is able to include several perspectives (relocatees’, planners’ and evaluators’, activists’).

The Ekondo Kondo model focuses on resettlement as a process of relocation and rehabilitation which provides the opportunity for a more detailed view of processes of coping and adaptation. The process of adaptation is subdivided into key challenges which the affected populations have to face. These steps sometimes happen at the same time and overlap, but they can clearly be distinguished from each other thematically. Relocation causes people to react, adapt, and change their way of living which happens as they confront these key challenges (basic needs, society, etc.). Therefore, rehabilitation illustrates people’s different ways of dealing with changes. This “re-development” [20] (p. 60) happen on the economic and the social level [2,21] (pp. 28, 5). However, there are two important issues to consider. First, these levels cannot be treated separately since they are interconnected and influence each other. Economic questions play an important role on the social level and vice versa, such as the question of who is allowed to cultivate what kind of crops. Second, the social level is very complex as it is composed of very different aspects, such as culture, religion, or power structures. These aspects influence people’s ways of coping. Additionally, predispositions, such as gender, interest, or vulnerabilities, influence how a relocated person reacts to her/his new environment [15,25] (pp. 3, 910).

Depending on the predispositions of a social group—e.g., women—the key challenges can manifest in different ways. For every predisposition, the impacts of the individual key challenges are different and have to be taken into consideration—e.g., for women differently than for men because they experience different threats and benefits at different times. However, although one group of relocatees does not always face a key challenge to the same extent as others, and even though their reasons to face a key challenge might differ from one another, the key challenge still exists for all relocatees.

Therefore, “[s]imple one-size-fits-all solutions are bound to fail” [40] (p. 128). For this reason, it is important to take the relocatees’ experiences and perceptions into account which differ according to their predispositions. It is important to assess these alternative perspectives to get an impression of the whole picture. Only then will it be possible to do justice to people who experienced a disastrous situation (namely relocation) and at the same time to detect windows of opportunity for their empowerment and emancipation.

As mentioned above, the article is based on fieldwork conducted in 2013. Since there are reason to consider this data outdated, I will present caveats to and arguments for my research related to “outdated” data. The first caveat is that the situation in Ekondo Kondo presented in this paper will have changed and must not be taken for reality as it was in 2013. This paper presents the village and its inhabitants thirteen years after the relocation, not as it is today, which might contribute to prejudices. Second, the article also presents the political situation from 2013. On this level, laws might have changed and/ or newly adopted which could influence the villagers’ lives. Third, these data have been used to develop the Ekondo Kondo model. Today, the blind spot in the model perhaps could be filled which would lead to a more developed model than the one presented. For this reason, it is crucial to test the model, change, and adapt it according to updated data whenever they will be collected.

The data presented in the article, however, can still be from great relevance. First, the village of Ekondo Kondo was one of the villages which has been located in the area of today’s Korup National Park. It has been resettled as a blueprint for the other Korup villages of whom five are still located in the national park and which could be resettled in the future. Data gained in Ekondo Kondo can be used as a blueprint for the other villages because positive effects and negative challenges could be similar for those villagers. Difficulties the Ekondo Kondo villagers had in their new village could be better foreseen, understood, and mitigated. Cernea wrote already in 1985 [4] (p. 213): “Since recovery from displacement can be protracted, it is often necessary to continue […] sociological monitoring well after populations have been relocated, frequently even after a project has been closed.” If several evaluations are carried out and compared to each other, researchers will be able to see how people continually adapt and how they changed their lives. Furthermore, such analyses must be made based on the predispositions of different social groups, since the “merging point” from the process of rehabilitation after relocation to people’s constant everyday adaptation might be different for different groups and different key challenges. The data presented in this article contribute to a continuous qualitative monitoring of the resettlers which needs to be continued in the future for revealing the villagers’ process of adaptation. For such a project, different sets of data from different periods of time will be necessary.