Farmer-herder conflicts as 'contentious politics' - The case of Fulani pastoralists in West Africa

尽管人们对西非农牧民冲突的兴趣与日俱增，但常见的解释往往会导致人们脱离政治机构，剥夺他们的社会互动--包括暴力互动--的政治意义。这项研究试图通过考察牧民如何在当地和跨国层面上将农牧民冲突作为有意识的政治行为来体验、解释和参与，从而为这种本质上的理解提供理论上的反驳。为此，该研究项目将作为一项深入的定性个案研究，重点放在一个不同的族群--富拉尼人-在西非的半干旱地带有一个大型游牧社区。从概念上讲，这项研究将把涉及富拉尼牧民的农牧民冲突重新定义为“争议性政治”的例子，即“参与者之间的互动影响到其他参与者的利益，导致代表共同利益或项目的协调防御，政府作为目标、索赔的发起者或第三方参与其中”(Tilly and Tarrow 2012：7)。通过这样做，这项研究将有助于重塑围绕农牧民冲突的叙事，并开辟新的途径来解释它们如何跨越时间和空间被产生、重新解释或重新创造。这反过来将对安全和发展政策产生实际影响。

Despite the growing interest in farmer-herder conflicts in WestAfrica, common explanations often result in narratives that stripherding people of their political agency and deprive their socialinteractions - including violent ones - of their political meaning. Thisresearch seeks to offer a theoretical counterargument to suchessentialised understandings by examining how pastoralistsexperience, interpret and engage farmer-herder conflicts asconsciously political, both at the local and transnational level. Tothis end, the research project will be carried out as an in-depthqualitative case study focusing on one, diverse ethnic group - theFulani - with a large nomadic pastoral community scattered acrossWest Africa's semi-arid belt. Conceptually, the research will reframefarmer-herder conflicts involving Fulani pastoralists as instances of'contentious politics', that is "interactions in which actors makeclaims bearing on other actors' interests, leading to coordinatedefforts on behalf of shared interests or programs, in whichgovernments are involved as targets, initiators of claims, or thirdparties" (Tilly and Tarrow 2012:7). By doing so, the research willcontribute to reshaping the narrative around farmer-herder conflictsand open up new avenues for explaining how they might bereproduced, reinterpreted, or reinvented across time and space. This,in turn, will carry practical implications for security and developmentpolicies.