Herders' Territorialities and Social Differentiation in Western Burkina Faso

Abstract

Some authors have linked the question of inequalities among pastoralists to rights of access to pastureland, but their analyses of pastoralists' rights of access generally focused on the privatisation of pastureland. We reveal that a wider range of power relations between farmers and herders, local and national institutions affects pastoralists' rights of access to pastureland. We demonstrate that socio-economic inequalities among the Fulbe people are linked to the unequal capacity of pastoralists to manage territorialisation processes to their own advantage. Reciprocally, the entrenchment of the territories that results from these processes reifies inequalities between pastoralists.