Project description
Land, migration and armed conflict in the Sahel
The Sahel is the dry savanna area south of the Sahara desert. Through various processes of land-use change during the last few decades, smallholders in the Sahel (pastoralists and farmers) have lost access to farmland and important grazing areas. Funded by the European Research Council, the LANDRESPONSE project will investigate the relationship between such processes of land dispossession and both migration and the recruitment to armed groups. Will smallholders who lose access to land resist (violently) or migrate? Why are some more prone to resist violently while others are not? The project will focus on Mali and potentially other Sahelian countries, and mainly use qualitative methods to generate new knowledge on the interactions between land governance, violent conflicts and migration.
Objective
Farmers and pastoralists in the Sahel continuously struggle to maintain control over land faced with rent-seeking elites, processes of modernization and uncertain land rights. The hypothesis of LANDRESPONSE is that smallholders who are dispossessed of access to land are more inclined to either migrate or resist violently. Violent resistance will be studied in this project with regard to the increasing numbers of armed groups labelled ‘jihadist’ in the Sahel and in particular in Mali. The project will investigate the nature of the links between land dispossession and elite capture on the one hand and violent jihadist resistance to governments as well as migration to North Africa and Europe on the other hand. These hypothesized links will be investigated using mixed methods with a particular focus on Mali as a ‘hub’ country in the Western Sahel in terms of both violence and migration. Following this conceptual framework, the objectives directing the project will be – first to investigate whether smallholders in the West African Sahel who are dispossessed of their land and/or fall victim to rent-seeking elites, are more inclined to either resist violently or migrate, and second try to assess why some smallholders are more prone to resist, even violently, while others remain compliant. With its pioneering engagement with these urgent political issues, the project will combine theoretical and empirical approaches from political ecology, critical agrarian studies and peace and conflict studies to generate novel insights about the motivations and agency of smallholders confronted with emerging challenges to their livelihoods. This interdisciplinary research will generate new knowledge on the interactions between land governance, violent conflicts and migration, which will both push the research frontier and provide new ideas for policy formulation.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
-
HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2021-ADG
See all projects funded under this callHost institution
Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1433 As
Norway
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.