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

尽管人们对西非的农牧民冲突越来越感兴趣，但通常的解释往往导致剥夺人们的政治能动性，剥夺他们的社会互动（包括暴力互动）的政治意义。本研究试图通过考察牧民如何在地方和跨国层面上有意识地经历、解释和参与农牧民冲突，为这种本质化的理解提供理论反驳。为此目的，该研究项目将作为一个深入的定性案例研究来开展，重点关注一个多样化的民族——富拉尼人——一个分散在西非半干旱地带的大型游牧牧民社区。从概念上讲，该研究将把涉及富拉尼牧民的农牧民冲突重新定义为“有争议的政治”的实例，即“行动者对其他行动者的利益提出要求的互动，导致代表共同利益或项目的协调努力，其中政府作为目标、索赔发起者或第三方参与”（Tilly和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述，并为解释它们如何在时空中重新产生、重新解释或重新发明开辟新的途径。反过来，这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.