Comprehensive research by one team in different western Saharan locations, crossing national boundaries, constitutes a serious academic challenge. The findings of the lines of research concerning migration and artisanal gold mining, social transformations, and legal pluralism in the Saharan context are examples of fields whose results have significantly advanced and even challenged current academic debates.
The research on artisanal gold mining in Mauritania, although anticipated, produced much more significant results due to facilitated access to the field and the excellent work by a local team member. It was possible to confirm the presence of clear patterns of discord regarding land use that seem likely to exacerbate tensions, with serious implications for social stability, public health and the environment (e.g. the unregulated use of mercury and soil and water contamination). The role of the state also came into question because the government appears to be struggling to regulate artisanal mining sites, and an increasing number of newcomers (often arriving from abroad) continue to gather alongside historically nomadic groups in remote desert locations.
Another potentially groundbreaking result is the work carried out on the emancipation of a lower-status social group, the haratin (of slave-descent), here considered as a form of “ethnogensis”. If further data supports this proposal, when sufficiently developed it could challenge the traditional interpretation of the ethnic charters acknowledged in the western regions of the Sahara.
Another team member has identified the co-existence of traditional and modern legal practices among the Saharawi administration based in Tindouf, highlighting the pervasiveness of Islamic culturalized aspects that have often been disregarded when working in this particular context. This study of Islam and legal pluralism among the Saharawi constitutes a significant advance in the research devoted to this particularly sensitive area of research.
Adding to the above, the PI’s research on the inscription of more rigid Maliki legal norms into amended Mauritania’s penal code may signal the strengthening of “traditional” Islamic readings as a reaction to the recent social unrest that risks reconfiguring the overall social landscape of the region.
