Joseph Ambouroue-Avaro

Joseph Ambouroue Avaro was born in Port-Gentil (Gabon) in 17 August 1934. After obtaining his French Baccalaureat in Libreville, he pursued his studies in history and geography in France at the Sorbonne (Gray, n.d., Nwèndogo). His thesis was focused on the people (Orungu and Nkomi) of the lower Ogooue area in the 19th (Gray, n.d.). The fact he was subjected to the harassment of Gabonese authorities is strongly believed to have "destroyed" its "promising careers as scholar" (Gray, n.d.). He sadly died in 17 November 1978 in the crash of an airplane that he rented from AERO-CLUB of Libreville. Circumstances of his crash remained unclear (Nwèndogo, n.d.).
In his work, Joseph Ambouroue Avaro aimed to demonstrate how a local society, well organized, will lose its socio-cultural organization and structure, during the colonization. Because of the new ideals that came along with the western acquaintances, individualism took advantage over solidarities; inequalities in social bounds increased, and materialism became the main factor of concern in the society (Nwèndogo, n.d.).
References
Christopher Gray, n.d. http://www.africa-research.org/templates/text/Gray94.htm
Gaston Nwèndogo http://www.mandji.net/ambouroue.shtml