Violence and Enclosures in the Forests of Southeast Cameroon: A Visual Essay

Violence toward the indigenous Baka people of southeastern Cameroon is carried out by both conservation and trophy-hunting guards. This visual essay examines the effects of violence and its relationship with the enclosure of the forest by conservation entities, trophy-hunting outfits, and a logging company. Photographic images provide a textured and embodied experience to the themes of violence and enclosures. Drawing from René Girard’s work on violence and sacrifice, Alice B. Kelly's work on conservation and primitive accumulation, and Kalyan Sanyal’s analysis of primitive accumulation and postcolonial capitalism, this essay explores how the forest becomes a production machine for capital accumulation, one that is continually maintained through violence.