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

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

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.