Professor Till Förster, Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Basel, Switzerland

“In this study, Frei makes the central argument that face-to-face situations and encounters in co-presence are still the normality of sociality and the orientation of social actors in Bamenda and among its diaspora. Hence, mediated sociality is normatively evaluated according to how far it corresponds to this form of direct sociality in co-presence. Mediated sociality is limited and in deficit. Not only does it not comply with the imperative of physical co-presence, it cannot succeed to medially evoke all the senses, which are central in a face-to-face encounter.”

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