Research projects

Tuareg Elites’ Narratives in Mali and Niger: Comparing (Symbolic) Politics

Project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Postdoctoral Fellowship and Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships Program Doctoral Scholarship)

The goal of this axis is to continue further the research started during my Ph.D. My doctoral research supervised by Dr. Cédric Jourde (University of Ottawa) focuses on a comparative study of the relations between the Tuareg communities and the states of Mali and Niger.

These two countries experienced Tuareg armed rebellions in their contemporary history. Four Tuareg rebellions occurred in Mali (1963, during the 1990s, 2006 and 2012-2015) and two in Niger (in the 1990s, almost synchronic with Mali, and between 2007 and 2009). The primary goal was to understand why political violence is used by the Tuareg communities in Mali and Niger. The usual causes described by the literature are: 1- the lack of political inclusivity in the political state institutions and security agencies, 2- the lack of economic development of Northern Mali and Niger, where many Tuareg communities are living and 3- the issue of self-governance wished by some components of these Tuareg communities, particularly in the nomadic communities.

However, in this frame, the complexity and diversity of the relations between the Tuareg communities and the states and the competition between Tuareg elites are completely forgotten and ignored. Understanding the Tuareg rebellions bring us to diligently study the Tuareg world and to question the narratives of the Tuareg political elites (leaders and brokers in the armed groups, civil society, state administration, elected representatives and main tribal chiefs). Few studies have been realized on Tuareg elites and on the competitive political visions which are influencing the conflictual and peaceful relations of the Tuareg communities with the state. While historians and anthropologists conducted very sharpened studies on the Tuareg political mosaic, the goal of my dissertation was to contribute to this body of research through fieldwork (8 months) conducted in Mali and Niger with a political science perspective. My objective was to understand the relations of power between the states and Tuareg communities. My results show Tuareg are excluded from the national story in Mali in contrast to their portrayal in Niger. The prejudice between Tuareg and other ethnic groups are also deeper in Mali than in Niger. Finally, the armed conflicts in Mali can be explained by the historical ambiguous relation between Tuareg elites and representatives of the state oscillating between conflict and collaboration. This relation is caused by internal rivalries among Tuareg elites. Meanwhile, in Niger, many Tuareg elites from the different tribes are integrated in the structures of decision, leading them to campaign for peace and to prevent any conflict within their communities.

To date, this research has been published in the journals Politique africaine, Cahiers d’études africaines and the Canadian Journal of African Studies. However, all these papers focused on the Malian case. To present my comparative results, I am currently writing an article comparing the (symbolic) politics used by the Tuareg elites in Mali and Niger. It is the dense version of the manuscript coming from my dissertation.

To complete these results, my intention is also to take my doctoral research further by focusing more on the micro-dynamics of the conflicts in the Sahel region, more particularly on specific Tuareg communities in Mali and Niger. Furthermore, few studies explored generational, social and statutory hierarchies (“castes”) and gender clashes to understand the conflictual relations between the Tuareg communities and the Malian and Nigerien states. These three dynamics can lead to other conflicts and will be explored during my postdoctoral fellowship.

More details soon. Stay tuned!

Identity and Conflict in the Sahel: Narratives of/on Tuareg and Fulani

Workshop and Special Issue in preparation with Dr. Abdoulaye Kane. Project funded by the Sahel Research Group.

The contemporary Sahel is increasingly marked by the mobilization and use of ethnocentric, tribal or community-based narratives to (re)shape and polarize the relations between and within communities. These narratives are often driven by elites, who are themselves increasingly solicited as “research brokers” by the media or by analysts and researchers seeking explanations for violence in dangerous and unstable areas difficult for foreigners to access. These narratives, of course, need to be interpreted and analyzed critically.

This workshop seeks to bring academic researchers of the Sahel together for a critical dialogue around the evolving nature of imagined and constructed Sahelian ethnicities. The recent spiral of increased violence in the name of ethnic groups in the Sahel reinforces essentialist conceptions of ethnicity, which do not reflect the complex relations among the imbricated cultures of Sahelian communities. We are interested in ethnographically and historically informed analyses of belonging that go beyond the usual “us-vs-them” dichotomies that are increasingly instrumentalized by Sahelian elites from different communities. We use the term “elites” broadly here, to include: “traditional” elites (e.g. tribal leaders, ‘ulema, cadis, leaders from dominant social strata, and others); government political elites; high administrative officials; thought leaders from civil society and social movements; social notables; elected representatives and also leaders and cadres of armed groups.

The workshop aims to develop a reflexive agenda for the analysis of the discourses, representations and memories told by Sahelian elites, and to contextualize them through the multiple positionalities and interests of these elites and the different types of relations between Sahelian communities. Our specific focus is on the Tuareg and Fulani communities of the region. The ongoing security and political crisis in the Sahel is now frequently framed as a Fulani or a Tuareg “question” or “problem,” placing ethnicity or ethnic belonging as a centrally important dimension for understanding conflictual dynamics across varied national contexts in the region. Our workshop theme is motivated by the urgent need to examine the prevalence of discussions on Fulani and Tuareg communities as being at the center of current conflicts in the Sahel. The prime goal of the workshop is to bring academic perspectives that go beyond simplistic ethnocentric narratives on the Fulani and Tuareg “questions” to the analysis of the ongoing “crisis” in the Sahel.

The workshop will be divided into three themes. The first addresses meta-narratives about Fulani and Tuareg communities, aiming to deconstruct and analyze the ethno-nationalist discourses used by Tuareg and Fulani elites. The second theme addresses the hierarchical struggles between dominant social groups and marginalized voices, both within ethnic groups and between ethno-linguistic groups. The goal is to explore the multiple layers of meaning embedded in ethnocentric narratives. Finally, the third theme aims to address how the narratives used by elites—or used against them by new players—intersect with political struggles over the distribution of local resources, and how these are deepening the fractures, tensions and conflicts between communities in the Sahel.

Following the workshop, authors will be asked to revise their papers in light of the discussion and feedback, for publication in a special issue on the theme. 

You can find here the link to the program of our symposium.

Stayed tune!