Date of Award
Summer 2025
Document Type
Open Access Dissertation
Department
Educational Studies
First Advisor
Allison Daniel Anders
Abstract
The author produced an autoethnography to address the transnational experiences of sub-Saharan African women’s (SSAW) across traditional and Western gender roles, martial relationship dynamics access to higher education, and migration, in Cameroon and the United States. This work contributes to much needed literature about Cameroonian women’s experiences after migration to the U.S. It represents the unique challenges SSAW face, balancing traditional expectations grounded in Bamiléké culture with modern aspirations in a Western, industrialized economy. The author’s aims were threefold: first, to represent intersectional experiences at the axes of culture, place and transnational geographies; gender roles, marital dynamics, and migration; and experiences in higher education in the U.S. after migration; second, to amplify an underrepresented voice among transnational Cameroonian-born women; and third, to work autoethnographically in order to avoid potentially activating trauma among other SSAW in the use of other forms of inquiry.
The literature review addresses the social construction of gender in Cameroon and the U.S.; SSA and SSAW immigrants’ experiences focusing on acculturation stress and gender role attitudes; the role of gender in contemporary SSA immigration waves in the U.S.; access to and experiences in higher education in the U.S. by SSAW; and the analytical tool of intersectionality. The methodology includes a definition and description of autoethnography, and represents its strengths as well as its limitations. Th author noted it as a compelling choice when committed to contextualizing an individual’s everyday experiences within cultural, historical, political, and historical contexts.
The autoethnographic chapters chronicle the author’s immediate family’s history, emphasizing their commitment to education and how it intertwined with her personal story; her courtship with her future husband, post-secondary education in Cameroon, and early career as a graphic designer; her migration to the U.S. to join her husband through family reunification, and her subsequent experiences as a native French-speaking SSAW learning English. Specifically, the author recounts her migration experiences focusing on transnational gender roles and marital relationship dynamics, immediate and ongoing barrier, her early adaptation and work to build resilience, new intersections of identity, and triumphs in accessing higher education. An epilogue concludes the dissertation, addressing the autoethnographic constructions and returning the reader to the present. The author also addresses intersectional experiences, briefly revisits her personal and intellectual goals, and shares implications.
The dissertation enriches our understandings of SSAW’s diverse experiences across transnational gender roles, marital relationship dynamics, higher education, and migration in the U.S. The work also serves as a tribute to the strength, resilience, and aspirations of SSAW. Readers are invited to engage with these stories, and advocate for greater representation in academic literature of studies addressing SSAW experiences, and promote the continued development of infrastructure and support services for integration, mental and emotional well-being among all immigrants including SSAW.
Rights
© 2025, Agnes Noutsa Nzomene Kahouo Foda
Recommended Citation
Nzomene Kahouo Foda, A. N.(2025). Cultural Identity and Transformation: An Autoethnographic Journey of a Cameroonian-Born Woman Navigating Gender Roles, Marital Relationship Dynamics, Higher Education, and Migration in the United States. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/8433