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Historical case studies of famines and migrations in the West African Sahel and their possible relevance now and in the future

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Abstract

Case studies of three famines that occurred in rural northwest Nigeria during the latter half of the twentieth century are presented. Research found that continuum models and entitlement theory did not adequately conceptualize famine-related migration, though they may be more accurate now and in the future. Projects examining the climate-migration nexus should consider the possibility that famines and large-scale migrations from the Sahel will occur as a consequence of both heavy, poorly timed rainfall and intense droughts. The savanna’s historical function as a refuge for stressed Sahelian people continued into the 1980s, but research is urgently needed to determine whether that is still true.

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Notes

  1. Harnischfeger’s (2004) article is to date the most comprehensive review of conflict in the Nigerian savanna. In 2014, Google Scholar showed that it had been cited only once. In that article, Harnischfeger cited a work by James (n.d., though evidently between 1996, when Zamfara state was created, and 2004) in which are listed more than 20 farming “colonies” that had been established in the savanna by Hausa “famine migrants” from the Sahel. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom reported that sectarian violence had claimed the lives of about 14,000 people in Nigeria’s “Middle Belt” (savanna) since 1999 (Reported on the Voice of America’s Web site, April 17, 2013). The figure on fatalities may also include urban violence.

  2. See Schapendonk and Steel (2014) for a biographical approach to investigating migration from Nigeria and Sudan to EU countries.

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to David Helgren and Evelyn Ravuri for very helpful comments on earlier versions of the article. The criticisms of Population and Environment’s editor and five anonymous reviewers were extremely valuable; one reviewer offered especially detailed and insightful comments. Fieldwork was supported by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation award and by awards from Michigan State University. The author is indebted to Dr. Mohammed Iliya and his colleagues in the Department of Geography, Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto, for making research in northern Nigeria possible.

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  1. Department of Geography, Saginaw Valley State University, University Center, MI, 48710, USA

    John Grolle

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Grolle, J. Historical case studies of famines and migrations in the West African Sahel and their possible relevance now and in the future. Popul Environ 37, 181–206 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-015-0237-4

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