New Perspectives on Land Dispossession, Violent Conflict and Migration in the West African Sahel

Project Information

LANDRESPONSE

Grant agreement ID: 101054410

DOI

10.3030/101054410

EC signature date 30 September 2022

Start date 1 October 2022

End date 30 September 2027

Funded under

• European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 2 095 696,00

EU contribution

€ 2 095 696,00

Coordinated by

NORGES MILJO-OG BIOVITENSKAPELIGE UNIVERSITET
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LANDRESPONSE (New Perspectives on Land Dispossession, Violent Conflict and Migration in the West African Sahel)

Reporting period: 2022-10-01 to 2025-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The Sahel is the dry savanna area south of the Sahara desert. The countries along this zone have been in a political and security crisis for the last decades with increased levels of violence. 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 investigates 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 mainly uses qualitative methods to generate new knowledge on the interactions between land governance, violent conflicts, and migration. In general, we find that smallscale farmers and pastoralists who are dispossessed of land and natural resources join armed groups in large numbers. We also find that dispossession may spark migration in various ways both to urban areas, to other rural areas and to other countries. At the current stage of the research, land dispossession practices can be considered to cause mobilities within the countries and outside. In both migration and conflict studies, land dispossession is a neglected topic, especially related to the Sahel and in Africa in general. In this way, By focusing on land dispossession as an independent variable, Landresponse will contribute to new knowledge by opening and new field of research.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The projct has commissioned seven case studies on Chad and Mali carried out by Sahelian researchers, supported and supervised two studies on land dispossession carried out by young researchers (from Cameroon and Burkina Faso) as part of the Land Deals Politics Initiative network and, supervised a master's thesis on land dispossession in Ghana. In addition, the PI and two postdocs have carried out qualitative research with Sahelian partners in Mali, Ghana and Ivory Coast.

PhD fieldworks:
PhD Candidate 1 conducted eight months of fieldwork (January-August) in central Mali.
PhD Candidate 2 conducted six months of fieldwork and archival work in northern Nigeria.
PhD Candidate 3 works on quantitative large-scale data on mobility in Mali.

Publications::

1. Benjaminsen, T.A. 2024. Climate Security and Climate Justice: Recognizing Context in the Sahel. Edward Elgar. (https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/climate-security-and-climate-justice-9781035325177.html) Book/monograph
2. Benjaminsen, T.A. & B. Ba. 2024. A moral economy of pastoralists? Understanding the ‘jihadist’ insurgency in Mali. Political Geography 113 (2024) 103149.
3. Ibrahima Poudiougou, « Défendre le village et combattre pour le terroir : la mobilisation armée des groupes d’autodéfense à l’épreuve du travail agricole en Pays Dogon, au centre du Mali », Revue internationale des études du développement, 255 | 2024, 97-118, DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/11zhk

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

This project will build a new theory by reframing the conceptual basis on what we think about peasant motivations, responses to land dispossession, and elite capture. This interdisciplinary approach will help to bring together fragmented literatures on jihadism and conflict, migration, agricultural investments, and urban expansion to form a comprehensive framework to move each of these disciplines forward in a more interdisciplinary and less fragmented way. The project will potentially have a high impact in understanding conflict and migration in the Sahel – both theoretically and policy wise. If successful, it has great potential to provide a major breakthrough in addressing knowledge gaps in the research field by providing a new coherent framework linking causes of conflict and migration. The project will generate new empirical and policy relevant knowledge as well as novel scholarly ideas and concepts related to the causes of radical extremism and migration in the Sahel. Cross-case comparisons and syntheses resulting from the project’s empirical work will improve our understanding of the multiple pressures and interests influencing smallholder farmers and pastoralists. The project has the potential to open a path for future research to address related challenges in the area, as well as raise awareness of this important and pressing issue internationally.