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Property Relations by other Means: Conflict over Dryland Resources in Benin and Mali

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Abstract

Conflicts over natural resources and property concern the distribution of entitlements to resources and social identities. The highlighting of this continuity enables the insertion of conflict into a broader historical and theoretical framework dealing with social change, as well as access to and control over resources. However, this reveals nothing about the discontinuity between tensions over natural resources and outbreaks of conflict involving physical and symbolic violence. Case studies carried out in Mali and Benin provide an empirical basis for the discussion of the following set of exploratory hypotheses: they stress the continuity between conflict and property within the frame of a theory of access to natural resources; they emphasise the plurality of actors involved in disputes over natural resources in African drylands beyond the farmer–herdsman configuration; and they see resource conflict, property and policy as a matter of persuasion, that is, representation and narrative.

Les conflits sur les ressources naturelles et la propriété concernent la distribution des droits sur les ressources et la définition des identités sociales. Mettre l’accent sur cette continuité permet d’insérer le conflit dans un cadre historique et théorique plus large touchant au changement social et à l’accès et au contrôle des ressources naturelles. Toutefois, cela ne dit rien de la discontinuité entre tensions sur les ressources et déclenchement de conflits impliquant une violence physique et symbolique. Des études de cas au Mali et Bénin fournissent la base de discussion d’hypothèses mettant l’accent sur la continuité entre conflit et propriété dans le cadre d’une théorie de l’accès aux ressources naturelles ; montrant la pluralité des acteurs impliqués dans les disputes sur les ressources naturelles en Afrique sèche au-delà de la polarité agriculteur-éleveur ; concevant les conflits, propriétés et politiques des ressources naturelles comme une affaire de persuasion, donc de représentation et de récit.

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Notes

  1. We conceive belonging (in a broad sense: family, generation, lineage, gender, village, ethnic group, social class, religion and nation) as a second order resource enabling access to other resources (Boissevain, 1974).

  2. See also Lavigne Delville and Hochet (2005), Chauveau et al (2006).

  3. This report results from a study about the ‘factors underlying conflicts over access to land and water resources within Sub-Saharan drylands’ and was commissioned by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as part of the project ‘Novel forms of livestock and wildlife integration adjacent to protected areas in Africa (Tanzania)’.

  4. Narrative is conceived as the product of a situated way of selecting, sequencing and ordering events and ideas according to various purposes (persuasive, ideological, esthetic, etc.); see Genette (2007) on narrative theory, Ricœur (1983–1985) on narrative identity, also Roe (1994) on policy narrative.

  5. Kouri’ refers to seven villages that have had political ties with Kouri since the pre-colonial period.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Tobias Hagmann most sincerely for his invaluable editorial commitment, title suggestion and meticulous reading of previous versions of this text and Susan Cox for her careful proofreading.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Development Research (IRD), Nouméa

    Pierre-Yves Le Meur

  2. Laboratoire Citoyennetés, Ouagadougou

    Peter Hochet

  3. Advanced School for Social Sciences (EHESS), Marseille

    Peter Hochet

  4. Institute for Development Research (IRD), Ouagadougou

    Peter Hochet

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  1. Pierre-Yves Le Meur
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  2. Peter Hochet
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Correspondence to Pierre-Yves Le Meur.

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Le Meur, PY., Hochet, P. Property Relations by other Means: Conflict over Dryland Resources in Benin and Mali. Eur J Dev Res 22, 643–659 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejdr.2010.44

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