The Micropolitics of Common Property Management on the Maasina Floodplains of Central Mali

The Micropolitics of Common Property Management on the Maasina Floodplains of CentralMaliAuthor(s): Matthew D. TurnerSource: Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines, Vol.40, No. 1 (2006), pp. 41-75Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Canadian Association of African StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25433866 .

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The Micropolitics of Common Property Management on the Maasina Floodplains of Central Mali

Matthew D. Turner

R?sum?

On fait g?n?ralement r?f?rence au syst?me ley?e de gestion agropastorale dans le Delta du Niger au Mali comme ? un mod?le de gestion de la

propri?t? indig?ne commune. Cet article examine l'?volution historique de l'ensemble des institutions li?es au syst?me ley?e. Cet historique r?v?le que ce syst?me n'a jamais vraiment ?t? codifi? explicitement comme l'avaient sugg?r? des analystes ind?pendants. Au lieu de cela,

pour offrir une gestion efficace et des lois ? l'acc?s qui ?taient loin d'?tre

fix?es mais, au contraire, variaient selon l'environnement et la politique,

le syst?me d?pendait des barri?res physiques et des syst?mes politiques existants. Ce serait donc une erreur de consid?rer ces institutions comme

s?par?es en quelque sorte de la politique, puisqu'elles ont ?t? inspir?es d?s

le d?but par la politique. Cette r?vision historique procure une fondation solide ? partir de laquelle il devient possible d'?tudier plus en profondeur les facteurs qui contribuent aux conflits actuels ayant aujourd'hui pour

objet la plaine inondable ? en particulier les conflits entre fermiers et

bergers. L'article prend pour ?tude de cas un clan de bergers de la

Maasina, sous-r?gion du Delta du Niger, pour explorer les r?les de la

m?moire, de l'id?ologie et l'ensemble plus large des sph?res politiques qui cr?ent les circonstances propices ? de s?rieux conflits fonciers entre

fermiers et bergers.

Introduction

Farmer-herder conflicts are often portrayed in the social scientific

literature as either the outcomes of zero-sum struggles over a

declining resource base (Bennett 1991; Homer-Dixon 1999) or of

the failings of common property institutions (Ostrom 1990; Sinclair and Fryxell 1985; Taylor 1992; van den Brink, Bromley and

4i



42 CJAS / RCEA 40: I 2OO6

Chavas 1995). Certainly, farmer-herder conflicts are strongly influ

enced by common property institutions and material conditions.

However, such treatments have contributed to views among resource management and development professionals that

conflicts can be managed or resolved simply by focusing on the

strategic politics that directly surround competing land uses (such as grazing and farming). For instance, in the case of farmer-herder

conflict, land-use zoning at the level of the village territory is often

promoted to geographically separate grazing from farming activi

ties (Marty 1993; Painter, Sumberg and Price 1994; Turner 1999a). While some form of land-use zoning may be necessary in particular

cases, I argue that these conflicts stem from a broader politics that

infuses the multi-stranded relations between "herders" and "farm

ers." This broader politics is driven by both material and ideologi cal motivations that run across and within these social groups

(Breusers, Nederlof and van Rheenen 1998). Political strategies and

positions taken by different groups have a long history and there

fore, in many cases, are not amenable to simple persuasion by a

na?ve outsider and can only be approached through an active recog nition of the web of politics that lies between and across these

social groups. Actions by outsiders to resolve conflict will likely be

seen as benefiting one group and therefore will be resisted overtly or covertly by others. Therefore, development or resource manage

ment programs directed at improving community-level manage ment and conflict management should be viewed less as a program of facilitation and innovation and more as a political negotiation,

where some features of the compromise "development package" are favored by one group while other features are favored by other

groups. In short, I will argue for the need to develop more complex

understandings of the broader politics that surround resource

access, management, and conflict. This view of natural resource

politics and conflict is consistent with prior work within the intel

lectual tradition of political ecology in all its variations (for exam

ple, Bassett 1988; Carney 1992; Moore 1993; Neumann 1998;

Robbins 2003; Schroeder 1999; Walker and Peters 2001; Zerner

1996; Zimmerer 1993). While certainly writing from this tradition, this article is inspired by the work of Pauline Peters (1987, 1993,

1994) and others (Goldman 1998) that critically engages with the

assumptions of influential common property management



Turner: The Micropolitics of Common Property Management 43

approaches to resource-related conflict (Feeny et al 1990; McKean

and Ostrom 1995; Oakerson 1992; Ostrom 1990, 1993; Runge

1986). I will use the case of conflict between and among livestock

herders and rice on the Maasina floodplains of the Inland Niger Delta of Mali to develop a framework of the broader politics that

often surround farmer-herder conflict in Sudano-Sahelian West

Africa.

Common property institutions can be defined as the informal

and formal rules, procedures and political structures that govern the use of common property resources. The Inland Niger Delta has

been described both as a center of tremendous precolonial achieve

ment in the realm of common property institutions (Gilles 1988;

Lawry 1990; Mclntosh 1998; Riddell 1982) and as an area of insti

tutional failure, spiraling conflict, and overuse of natural resources

(Barri?re et Barri?re 2002; Moorehead 1991). I will explore the

broader set of politics that surround conflicts over the uses of

flooded land in the Inland Niger Delta of Mali by focusing on the

internal and external politics that help shape the strategies taken

by a pastoral clan to maintain access to pasture land in competition with farmers and herders. This case will be used to argue:

1. The work of common property institutions depends strongly on the broader political and biophysical contexts within which

they developed and now operate. 2. The relationship, including conflict, between different social

groups is not solely explained by their competition over a

shared resource but by broader spheres of social relations.

Pastoralists and farmers in the Maasina interact through multi

ple economic (such as milk barter, landlord-tenant, livestock

entrustment) and social (such as friendship, former slave-noble

relations, inter-clan truces, marriage) channels.

3. These relations among these social groups have developed over

multiple generations of interaction. The meanings attached to

past interactions play a strong ideological role in affecting

contemporary conflict.

4. Ideology, irreducible to individual self-interest, plays an impor tant role in the political strategies adopted by the studied

pastoral clan. Some of the political strategies adopted cannot be

explained by short-term "economically rational" behavior but

by an adherence to the group's identity and to longer-term

understandings of past conflicts. Pastoral clan members




acknowledge that some of their political actions actually work

against their short-term economic interests.

5. As with most social groups, the strategies adopted by the clan

are not simply the result of a weighing of the group's interests

but rather result from an internal politics. Sub-groups within

the clan may promote political postures for the clan that may be not significantly contribute to furthering the clan's interests

vis-?-vis other social groups but work to promote the

subgroup's position within the clan.

These arguments will be presented over the course of this

article. The article will begin with short introductions to the

history and to the institutional features of agropastoral common

property management in the Maasina. These introductions will be

followed by a description of my research methods and an introduc

tion to the pastoral clan that will be the focus of this article. The

historical roots and institutional features of the Maasina agropas toral tenure system will then be described and analyzed. It will be

argued that that these institutions are very much an outcome of the

social and ecological contexts of the time and place in which they were developed. Changes in these contexts will strongly affect the

operation and relevance of these institutions. Clearly, how social

groups choose to operate across and within these institutions

strongly affects the prospects for improved management. I will

outline the strategies adopted by a pastoral clan in the Maasina and

the factors behind their adoption of a confrontational political

ideology that has contributed significantly to farmer-herder

conflict in area. I will then discuss the implications of these find

ings for development and conservation programs in the region.

The Maasina of the Inland Niger Delta of Mali

The Inland Niger Delta is a twenty thousand square kilometer

floodplain, fed by the Niger and Bani Rivers (Figure 1 ) and a central

feature of rice farming, fishing, and livestock rearing activities of a

mix of ethnic and caste groups (Gall?is 1967). Fishing peoples

(Bozo, Sorogo) are thought to be the first people to settle the flood

plain and maintain fishing rights to waterways and floodplains as

well as control over the operation of small retention and diversion

dams throughout the Delta floodplain (Quensi?re 1994). Rice culti

vation has long been practiced in the less deeply flooded portion of the floodplain with the Delta seen as a major site for the domes




Figure 1 :The Inland Niger Delta

tication of Oryza glaberrima ? a cultivated species of African rice

(Port?res 1950). The Delta floodplain is also important dry season pasture for

the livestock of central Mali. Livestock-rearing Ful?e pastoralists

(also known as Fulani, Fula, Peul) control dry-season pastures on

the floodplain. Livestock herds converge on the floodplain at the

end of the rainy season and generally remain there until the early rains at the beginning of the subsequent rainy season seven to eight

months later. The use of floodplain vegetation for dry-season

pasture has been a common strategy of livestock rearers, particu

larly the Ful?e, since the precolonial period (Beauvilain 1977;

Dupire 1972; Gall?is 1975; Schmitz 1986). In most other areas of

West Africa, pastoralists have lost access to floodplain pastures to

irrigated agriculture during the colonial and postcolonial periods. The Delta Ful?e have been better able to maintain control of flood

plain pastures than the Ful?e in other areas.

There are few examples of pastoral pasture management in

dryland Africa that fulfill the commonly-stated criteria for effec

tive common property regimes ? a resource with well-defined

boundaries governed by a relatively closed social group with clear




rules regulating access (Feeny et al. 1990; McKean and Ostrom

1995; Oakerson 1992; Ostrom 1993; Runge 1986). The basic

features of pasture management in the Inland Niger Delta mirror

these criteria and for this reason, it is often used as an example of

an effective, indigenous pasture management system (Gilles 1988;

Lawry 1990; Riddell 1982; Schmitz 1986). The Inland Niger flood

plain is divided into approximately thirty-two pasture territories, or ley?e (singular ley?i), managed by resident Ful?e clans who grant access to their pastures to others for a fee ?

variously referred to as

tolo, conngi or coggu hudo (Legrosse 1999). There have been few

direct attempts to dismantle or replace the ley?e system by the

colonial or post-colonial state due to the size of the flooded areas,

history of Ful?e political dominance in the area, the social

complexity of this system, perceived political volatility of the

region, and limited outside commercial interest in the area's

natural resources (Gall?is 1967; Gallais et Boudet 1980).l As a

result, the basic features of this system have persisted to the

present (Ciss? 1986). Early dry-season movements into and through a clan's territory

are highly organized ? all herds first entering and moving within a

ley?i do so together in a specified order (referred to hereafter as corpo rate movements) along paths (gurti) through the floodplain vegeta tion between encampment points (bille) located on unflooded

islands (eroded remnants of fossil levees) called toggue. These move

ments are conducted in a prescribed order with the family herds of

the resource-controlling members of the host clan (jooro'en)2

proceeding in order of seniority followed by herds of other lineages within the clan, herds of other Delta clans, and then by outside herds.

The jooro (senior member of jooro'en lineage) collects a grazing tax,

traditionally paid in livestock but now in cash, which is charged to

each outside herd based on its size and duration of stay on the host

clan's pastures. Herds of the jooro'en from other Delta clans are often

granted free passage through other clan's territory.3 The term Maasina has been used to describe a variety of

geographic subregions of the Delta (Fay 1994). I use it in its contem

porary usage ?

referring roughly to the area fed by the Diaka River ?

representing the western third of the Delta floodplain lying south

of Lake Debo (Figure 1). The Maasina has a separate historic iden

tity from the rest of the Delta. This identity is tied to its early rule

by a warrior class of Ful?e, called the Ardo?e, from around 1400 to




1817. The Ardo?e were a warrior class of Ful?e who, while owning

livestock, did not concern themselves with livestock husbandry.4

Ardo?e families controlled particular areas of the floodplain and the

people living and working there including the livestock-rearing

Ful?e,- artisan castes (gold, silver, and blacksmithing and weavers);

and a myriad of different categories of rice farming, warrior, or arti

san slaves attached to Ardo?e or their clients (Ba et Daget 1984;

Gall?is 1959, 1967; Meillassoux 1991). The Ardo?e themselves

were attached as clients to the Segou Empire (Brown 1969; Vieillard

1960). Therefore, the political history of the Maasina is one of

multiple levels of clientage and servitude.

Sheku Amadou, an itinerant Islamic student / scholar, led an

Islamic revolution against the pagan Ardo?e and established an

Islamic theocracy, often referred to as the Diina (literally religion in fulful?e) in 1818 (Ba et Daget 1984; Brown 1969). In order to

consolidate its control over the herding peoples of the Delta, the

theocratic state sedentarized those pastoral groups that were fully mobile. Sedentarization involved the establishment of permanent

villages to which Ful?e families were tied.5 This was less of an

issue for the Maasina proper, where some evidence suggests that

the pastoral clients to the Ardo?e may have already sedentarized to

some extent in order to oversee their slaves and to better commu

nicate with their Ardo?e patrons. It is the more mobile pastoral clans in the central and more deeply flooded parts of the Delta

floodplain, immediately south of Lake Debo, that the imposition of

Delta rule led to drastic changes in livelihoods (for example,

Yallar?e, Jallu?e).

Agropastoral ley?e were established across the Delta during the

Diina. Livestock-rearing families with historic claims to pasture areas within ley?e were explicitly recognized as jooro'en during the

Diina. These ley?e were most likely modeled after the floodplain territories in the Maasina that had been controlled by different

Ardo?e families. In the Maasina, these ley?e were in fact often

former Ardo?e territories ? in those cases in where Ardo?e

converted to Islam and pledged allegiance to the theocracy, they retained some authority. In other cases, ley?e were granted as trib

ute to political allies ? particularly to the Islamic clerical class.

Outside of the Maasina, leybe were likely to be newly established

and granted to newly sedentarized pastoral clans ? these clans

often had a prior claim to the pasture areas of concern but these




claims were not likely as formally territorialized as that codified

during the Diina. Given the historical and social contexts within

which these leyhe were codified, the poles of regulatory authority and effective regulatory power over agropastoral land use varied

across leyhe. The more deeply-flooded leyhe in the interior of the

floodplain were sparsely populated and not attractive to rice agri culture. Therefore, the newly sedentarized jooro'en of the interior

leyde, by being granted regulatory authority over pastures, were

able to control future agricultural land use. In the Maasina, a long

agricultural history in which territorial authority had been in the

hands of the Ardo?e who held both agricultural and livestock inter

ests contributed to a situation in which jooro'en control over agri cultural land use was much more limited.

The Diina Empire fell to the Toucouleurs in 1862 with the Maasina peoples forced to abandon their lands due to their long

resistance to Toucouleur rule (Monteil 1932, 118). The Toucouleur

were defeated by the French in 1893 and the Maasina people returned to their homeland in mass during 1895. Given the long

history of the war and upheaval among the ruling classes of the

Maasina, leadership positions were undoubtedly contested at this

time. The leyhe structure persisted, as evidenced by early canton

toponymy, but the leadership positions within different Maasina

ley&e were those recognized by the French as customary authorities

resulting in a mix of pastoral clan elites (jooro'en); Islamic clerical

families, Ardo?e descendants, or descendants of the former warrior

slaves of the Ardo?e.

A large percentage of the Maasina population was slaves at the

beginning of French rule (Meillassoux 1991; Mission Socio

?conomique du Soudan 1963). Their uneven and gradual emanci

pation resulted in a shifting of control over agricultural usufruct

from the level of the leydi to that of the village.6 Maasina jooro'en are best described as only owning grazing usufruct ? not cropping usufruct. Increased control by former slaves over the product of

their labor has resulted in a broadening of livestock ownership across social classes and along with it a renegotiation of the live

stock entrustment contract to the detriment of herding families.7

When asked about the problem of low remuneration for livestock

management, livestock owners state that they are unwilling to

increase remuneration for herding services because the Ful?e steal

their cattle while the Ful?e state that they must steal cattle to meet




subsistence needs. This decades-old standoff plays an important role in increasing the distrust between herders and farmers.

Fieldwork Methods and Introduction to the

Hadankoo?e I first began living and working in the Maasina with a twenty-six

month research stay from 1987 to 1989.1 have maintained contact

with the region since, having last visited the Maasina in March

April 2003. From the very beginning, I was identified socially and

politically with a particular Ful?e clan who were my initial hosts.

This identification was so strong that it made it difficult for me to

work with other Ful?e clans in the area. Therefore, much of what I

have learned in terms of political strategy has largely come through

my knowledge of this clan. To protect the anonymity of the clan, I

will refer to it using the pseudonym of Hadankoo?e.

The Hadankoo?e are known as one of the earliest Ful?e clans

to settle in the Delta ? their arrival preceding that of the Ardo?e.

With the arrival of the Ardo?e, the Hadankoo?e became somewhat

rebellious clients.8 The Hadankoo?e are made-up of fourteen herd

ing families who are members of three major lineages ? two of

which are considered jooro'en and the other not.9 The jooro'en of

the Hadankoo?e are land-rich compared to other Maasina jooro'en. The Hadankoo?e share their ley&i with three other jooro'en groups with ownership of pastures simply defined through ownership of

encampment points and paths. As the oldest and most senior

lineages ? the Hadankoo?e jooro'en generally precede others to

those encampment points in the leyU visited in common.

The Hadankoo?e are known across the Maasina as being highly confrontational in response to competing land claims by herders

and farmers and resistant toward government monitoring and regu lation. Some of these confrontations have turned violent with

significant injuries occurring and, in one case, the loss of life. As a

result, the Hadankoo?e are variously dismissed as living in the

past; vilified as undisciplined bandits and thugs; and admired as

vigorously defending a way of life from significant threats posed by the state and other social groups. While their political strategies

may be seen as extreme, they are consistent in terms of underlying motivation, logic, and execution with those of less confrontational

Ful?e clans of the Maasina. As will be described further below, their strategy is explained in part by their lack of wealth and their




highly seasonal income of cash that is needed to bribe local offi

cials.

My investigations of the politics that surround the farmer

herder and herder-herder relations were part of a number of field

studies on the ecology, land-use strategies, and tenure conventions

within the Hadankoo?e leySi conducted during different periods across more than a decade. My understanding of Hadankoo?e polit ical strategies to maintain access to land and the underlying factors

contributing to their conflicts with other groups comes from my attendance at clan meetings where political strategies were

discussed; my participation in herding Hadankoo?e livestock and

on-the-ground observations of conflicts as they occurred; my infor

mal, "in-the-moment" discussions with different people about

their interpretations of Hadankoo?e actions,- and my direct ques

tioning of Hadankoo?e and others about Hadankoo?e relationships

(including conflict) with other groups in the past or present. Over

the course of my time in the Maasina, I have come to realize that

the conflicts that I have observed on the ground are not simply the

result of careless herding or poorly-placed fields. Instead, these

conflicts, although far from predictable, arise from the choices

made by the Hadankoo?e and other groups. Strategic decisions are

made that increase the potential for conflict to occur. These

choices are complex ? the underlying motivations and logics

behind these strategies are not captured by the narrow "rational

choice" thinking that forms the basis of much common property

theory. Before presenting my analysis of Hadankoo?e decision

making, I will provide a more thorough description of the nature of

the tenure institutions that influence agropastoral management in

the ley be system.

Social I Ecological Context of Tenure Institutions

The basic institutional structure that governs the use of pasture resources in the Delta has not changed significantly since the nine

teenth century. As during the Diina, the floodplain is divided into

pasture areas controlled by one or more herding clans who tax

outsiders for pasture use based on the size of the outsider's herd.

What has changed is how these institutions function. The ecologi cal and social contexts within which these institutions operate

have changed ?

leading to changes in how these institutions func




tion. Since contemporary farmer-herder and herder-herder conflict

is driven in part by competing claims over resources on the flood

plain, it is important to understand these changes particularly as

they affect the potential for inter-group conflict. In this regard, I

will refer back to the brief history outlined above to make some

general points about the contemporary relationship between prop

erty institutions and conflict.

A major limitation of the leyhe system for agropastoral manage ment is that it is solely a system of control over grazing and not

cropping practices (Gallais et Boudet 1980). This system stems

from the historical context within which it was first developed in

the Maasina. At that time, all farmers were slaves who farmed

where specified by their masters, who were in turn clients of the

Ardo?e. Therefore, the location and seasonality of cropping and

grazing was under the control of a single authority. It was not

necessary to delineate rules and processual forms of negotiation between farmers and herders because of the severely unbalanced

distribution of power at that time. This balance has shifted with

the gradual and uneven emancipation of slaves during the early colonial period; the recognition and elevation of village-based

authority by the French in relation to the more regional jooro'en

authority,- and the growing economic power of groups other than

the herding Ful?e since the 1960s. In some leySi, jooro'en clans were able to effectively take control over cropping usufruct due to

their singular authority at the beginning of the colonial period. In

contrast, it is more common in the Maasina for contemporary

jooro'en to best be described as owners of grass with very limited

powers or leverage to limit agricultural encroachment onto pasture areas.10

Despite their common form, the effective loci of decision

making authority vary significantly from ley?i to ley?i due in part to the different political contexts in which they were originally formed. While the institutional form of the ley&i spread from the

Maasina to the rest of the Delta floodplain during the Diina, the

ability of the jooro'en class (elite herding Ful?e) to control cropping activities is generally less strong today in the Maasina compared to

that of jooro'en in the more pastoral ley&i of the interior Delta that were newly formed during the Diina. Most of these jooro'en have

been able to use their authority over pastures ?

pastures that were

too deeply flooded in the past for rice agriculture ? to claim



5^ CJAS / RCEA 40: I 2OO6

authority over cultivation activities (Ciss? 1986; Keita 2002).n A more thorough consideration of the Maasina ley&i reveals

that it represents a more fluid territorial form than that suggested

by simple skeletal descriptions. In the Maasina, the territorial

boundaries that separate the leyhe of today reflect the contours of

Ardo?e power over people and settlements in the past rather than

pastoral tenure prerogatives. In the Maasina, it is not unusual to

find more than one Ful?e clan within the same leyhi that holds

claims over distinct but unbounded pastures. These claims to

pasture are based on their ownership of encampment points (bille) from which livestock graze the pasture. In this way, pastoral tenure

on the Maasina floodplain is much more similar to the point centered pastoral tenure of the Sahel drylands than is commonly understood (Turner 1999b). When herding Ful?e describe their

claims over a particular pasture, they do not generally refer to

boundaries but to their ownership of encampment points. In cases

where the herds of different jooro'en clans utilize the same

encampment point, there usually are rules of precedence ? that is,

one clan always proceeds others to the encampment point. In situ

ations of adjoining encampments controlled by different jooro'en

clans, ownership of pastures that fall in between is assigned not

through boundaries but through a specified interval (in days) of

arrival times at encampments by clan herds.

The importance of encampment points in defining rights to

local pastures is illustrated further by considering how the western

boundaries oileyde in the Maasina are defined. Most of the Maasina

leyde fall along the western edge of the Delta floodplain. Their

western boundaries are the western edge of the floodplain. As a

result, the size of a leydi's area fluctuates in relation to flood magni tude. In high flood years, livestock congregate at encampments

further to the west in preparation for the coordinated movement

into the leydi. What is of most interest here is how Maasina herd

ing Ful?e refer to that western boundary. To them, an area only becomes part of their leySi if it is completely surrounded by flooded

land. In other words, rather than conventional notions of the flood

plain edge, the Ful?e conceptualize the edge of their territory by the

string of unflooded islands (togge) that serve as the locations for

encampment points.

Many of the conventions governing the movements of live

stock within Maasina ley&e are not specified spatially. Instead,



Turner: The Micropolitics of Common Property Management 5 3

spatial restrictions result from the combination of social rules and

ecological constraints. While it has been argued that the lack of

rigid spatial boundaries allows pastoral management to respond to

environmental variability (Turner 1999b), the Maasina example

illustrates how flexible response requires a cohesive and function

ing political system. Over the past thirty years, the floods entering

the Maasina floodplains have been historically low. As a result, the

ecological constraints to herd movements on the floodplain have

changed drastically. Under higher flood conditions, entry points onto the floodplain are few and paths (gurti) across the floodplain of

a fixed number (due to deep water and dense vegetation). Moreover,

cattle can disperse much less widely from encampment points due

to flood heights. Certainly, dry periods occurred in the past. One

can trace innovations, such as specified intervals (as described

above) between the first arrivals at nearby encampments for differ

ent clans, to periods in which prior biophysical constraints were no

longer enforcing priority access to particular pastures ? either

because the livestock stationed at competing encampments was

able to arrive earlier than before or disperse further to graze.

While such innovations have been arranged between jooro'en

clans over the past thirty years, the drastic reductions of floods

during the 1970s and 1980s; the encroachment of cropped fields

onto pastures,- and a decline in the leadership capabilities of the

jooro'en (due to external and internal changes) have led to gover nance failures and conflict (herders-herders, herders-farmers) over

the timing of livestock movements on the floodplain. In periods of

low flood, biophysical constraints on the timing and location of

herd movements onto the floodplain decline significantly. As a

result, competitive pressures to move onto the floodplain sooner

increase as Ful?e clans seek to ensure that their herds arrive at

pastures before those of other clans and that outside herds do not

pass through leybi without paying grazing taxes. Earlier movement

onto the floodplain, driven by herder-herder competition, increases

the chance of crop damage caused by livestock especially given

growing proximity of rice fields to livestock encampment points. In

this way herder-herder competition and farmer-herder conflicts are

strongly inter-linked.

Faster livestock movement through the floodplain takes differ

ent forms. Skipping encampments but following the same paths between encampments has been practiced widely in the Delta over




the past three decades of low floods. A major constraint to a full

fledged rush to the remaining, more deeply flooded pastures in the

interior are: existing precedence and arrival interval conventions, as well as government regulations regarding the date of livestock

crossing the Diaka River. Movement routes are highly interlinked ? conventions of precedence and arrival interval along one route

are likely to affect the rate of movement along other nearby routes

that share one or more encampment points. However, recurrent

drought conditions and competition among Delta clans for shrink

ing pasture areas have led to reinterpretations of leyhe tenure

conventions. In 1980, the Hadankoo?e switched the route they took into the floodplain. They took advantage of reduced flood

levels to arrive at a contested pasture prior to another clan. The

earlier movement has resulted in Hadankoo?e herds moving

through heavily cultivated areas, in many years, prior to the rice

harvest. As a result there has been recurrent violent and nonviolent

conflict, not only between herding clans but also between the

Hadankoo?e and farmers. This change was strongly questioned by the highly-respected Livestock Service official in the area who

argued that this violated, at least in spirit, the Diina conventions

surrounding livestock movements. Because of this influential offi

cial's resistance, the Hadankoo?e have, since the switch, pursued a

political strategy combining high-risk defiance and bribing of

government officials. As a result, the Hadankoo?e seek to maxi

mize their pasture tax revenue (for bribes) by admitting many outside herds who find the Hadankoo?e's early entry onto the

floodplain attractive. In so doing, they increase the potential for

conflict with rice cultivators.

The Hadankoo?e argue that despite the claims of government

official, there is no convention promulgated during the Diina or

before that stipulates that the same paths should be followed every

year. They argue that it is the ownership of encampments that is

primary. The Hadankoo?e control a relatively large floodplain

territory and therefore they argue that they should have the right to

visit encampments in the order that they choose. This argument

certainly rings true if one considers how Ful?e pastoralists utilize

encampment points across Sahelian dryland pastures. Due to the

spatial heterogeneity of rainfall, some encampment points and

transhumance corridors are not visited across a number of years.

The question is whether there were different tenure conventions




for the floodplain pastures of the Maasina. This is a difficult histor

ical question that I cannot answer. It may very likely be the case

that paths remained the same in the past not through formal or

informal rules but through the fact that there were very few options to vary pathways because of higher floods. At any rate, Hadankoo?e

decisions deviate from the spirit of Maasina norms of agropastoral

management. The fact that they hold rights of precedence for

encampment points visited by other jooro'en clans within the

ley^i, means that their rapid movement across the floodplain increases the chance of farmer-herder conflict more broadly.12

Their actions however do resonate strongly with a cultural

pride among the jooro'en of the Maasina that emphasizes their

independence, defiance, strength, and tenacity in defending their

land claims not only against the claims of "former slaves" but also

those of the state. For this reason, many of those in the Maasina

who strongly disagree with the Hadankoo?e position still hold a

nostalgic admiration for the Hadankoo?e's defense of their auton

omy and freedom.

A Web of the Farmer-Herder Relations in Maasina

A closer examination of the tenure institutions that underlie the

celebrated ley&e agropastoral system in the Maasina reveals that

the meanings and workings of tenure conventions change with

social and ecological context. In the Maasina, ley?e conventions

were promulgated during a feudal period in which the hierarchy of

power was clear and stark. Many of the features that helped the

agropastoral system operate at the time were not codified in the

form of rules and boundaries but were provided by existing social

and ecological structures or were negotiated as circumstances and

needs changed. In situations of ecological and social fluctuation or

change, these processual rules, in contrast to the rigid rules and

boundaries, are flexible and responsive to change (Niamir-Fuller

1999) .13 ?t^ tYit responsiveness and flexibility of such systems

depend on functioning political institutions.

An area where leySe codification is particularly lacking is the

adjudication of farming and herding practices in the Maasina. As

described above, the powers and interests of "farmers" and

"herders" have also changed since the time of Diina. Rather than

the herders being closer to the lines of formal state power during the Ardo?e and Diina periods, former slaves have, through the




control over their own economic surplus and greater recognition and association with the colonial and postcolonial states,14 gained

significantly in power vis-?-vis the herding nobles. The lack of

rules, boundaries, and procedures for accommodating herding with

farming is an outcome of the period in which the leybe system

developed ? at that time, there was no need for these institutions

given that farmers, as slaves, had little decision-making agency. Now the power situation is more balanced and there is a strong need to develop new institutions that will help facilitate such

accommodation. Given the high spatiotemporal variation of flood

ing across the floodplain, these new institutions cannot simply be

a system of rigid rules and boundaries but must also incorporate

political procedures for land-use decision-making and negotiation

(Niamir-Fuller 1999). As described above, farmers and herders in the Maasina inter

act on a daily basis and have relations that are multi-stranded ?

that is, their relationships are governed by a broader set of political economic relations than simply their competing uses of land.

Any institutional innovation to work towards an improved accommodation of farming and herding in the Maasina must be

developed with a clear recognition of the strands that bind and

separate these social groups. Two major areas of long-term distrust

between the farming and herding groups in the Maasina include:

the entrustment contract and remuneration of herding; and

agricultural encroachment and crop damage compensation. Institutional innovation is much needed in the Maasina but should

not be seen as something produced though some sort of technology

transfer ? it is necessarily a political process requiring significant

skills in negotiation and facilitation of hard compromises. Given

the entrenched interests on both sides of these issues, the challenge will be finding a package of trades and compromises across both

spheres that could be politically palatable to different groups.

The prospects for reducing the potential for farmer-herder

conflict and for effectively managing conflicts as they occur require

effective political institutions at the local level. Effectiveness is deter

mined not only by institutional form and configuration but by the

political stances and strategic reasonings held by different groups that

have been shaped by years of conflict and government (mis)manage ment of these conflicts. In this way, the political history at the level

of the administrative district, as first lived and then interpreted by




local groups, plays a significant role in the nature of farmer-herder

conflict today and the prospects for improving farmer-herder relations

in the future. In the next section, I will describe the Hadankoo?e

historical experience and how it has shaped their ideology.

Political Ideology and Conflict Strategies of the

Hadankoo?e Like other Ful?e clans of the Maasina, the Hadankoo?e have faced

recurrent droughts and poor flood conditions; the extension of fields

onto their pastures,- a decline in livestock wealth; and a growing

dependence on the entrustments from large livestock owners. Their

economic vulnerability has increased tremendously across the past

thirty years. Half of Hadankoo?e families owned less than five cattle

in their herds in 1989 and this rate of ownership has continued to

decline since. Hadankoo?e families support themselves not from

livestock rearing alone but through the joint pursuit of other activi

ties such as rice farming, cattle rustling, and begging. If there were a

group in which one would expect to pursue "economically rational"

strategies, it would be the Hadankoo?e. In their case, the pursuit of

political strategies that are not materially advantageous in the short

term does real harm to their families. Not only are Hadankoo?e

families under severe subsistence stress but the clan has suffered

from weak and contested leadership.15 There are significant internal

divisions within the clan that seem best resolved, at least temporar

ily, by threats from the outside. As will be further developed below, economic status and political divisions among Hadankoo?e families

have strongly shaped the political strategies adopted by the clan.

A major historic event that has shaped the Hadankoo?e political

ideology and strategy occurred soon after independence in 1962.

Because of deep floods, the Hadankoo?e had temporarily shifted the

path they took onto the floodplain ?

abandoning the path along which they led all in order to follow the herds of another clan to

which they maintain strong ties. After several years, the

Hadankoo?e chose to return to their path and at this point, a clan

that had always followed them along this route protested to the

newly-appointed government authorities, arguing that it was they who actually owned the path. The case went all the way to the

district judge who, as paraphrased by the Hadankoo?e today, ruled

against the Hadankoo?e's invocation of tradition by stating that the new independent government of Mali, as with the colonial govern




ment before, could determine who had rights to resources as they saw fit. The Hadankoo?e today think of this event with bitterness

and shame16 ? they see themselves as having been taken advantage

of and take two lessons from this experience.

First, given the state's ignorance of local history and tenure

institutions and its arbitrary exercise of power, it is important for

the clan to continue to use all of its paths, encampments, and

pastures to avoid losing them. Since 1980 when the main herds of

the Hadankoo?e followed yet another path (as described above), the

Hadankoo?e send some milk animals along their original path (and behind the herds of the other clan) to ensure that they maintain

rights to a few encampment points still under their control.

Moreover, it is important not to allow a competitor for floodplain resources to intrude on Hadankoo?e resources without a fight.

Once an intrusion occurs without contestation, the other clan can

claim rights in the future. Second, the Hadankoo?e were out

maneuvered by the other clan with respect to dealing effectively with government officials. The Hadankoo?e have since vigorously worked to create and maintain "friendships" with local as well as

national-level government officials. Such friendships are made

through gifts given by the Hadankoo?e. It is not uncommon for the

Hadankoo?e to request support from national-level government officials in Bamako in cases of local disputes.

These lessons combined with the Hadankoo?e's view of them

selves as an elite, pasture-rich jooro'en clan have led to a consis

tently confrontational posture on their part. It is commonly stated

that the Hadankoo?e "love problems." When faced with the

prospects of conflict with other herding groups, the Hadankoo?e

will hardly ever back down or cooperate unless forced to do so.

Rather, their actions show a consistent pattern of choosing to

demonstrate their claim to a resource by getting to it first even if

such actions will lead to the payment of bribes or fines to govern

ment officials. Since 1980, when the Hadankoo?e shifted their

floodplain path, a yearly conflict has developed resulting from the

Hadankoo?e arriving earlier to the interior pastures along the

Diaka and grazing pasture lying between one of their encampments

and that of another clan. They have openly resisted the orders of the

local district commander in both their choice of route and arrival

time. For a number of years, they faced imprisonment until their

bribes led to reconsiderations. From the Hadankoo?e perspective,




if one will need to pay government officials anyway to get a hear

ing, it is best to grab the resource and pay ? a situation that could

be interpreted as the government's acceptance of their ownership claim.17 Such a perspective can be understood given what I

observed during my years in the Maasina. Despite the local peoples' demands for administrative decisions to be made in writing, ad-hoc

decisions in favor of one group or the other were made on a yearly

basis, which worked to maximize bribe income. In 2003, the

Hadankoo?e argued that their strategy was successful since they have not had to pay to take the new path for a number of years.

However, they readily admit that there is no guarantee that they will not have to pay again for this privilege and that their grazing tax income is now consumed by bribes to avoid crop damage

charges that their early entrance causes.

Competition for dwindling pastures is what has driven the

early entry onto the interior pastures of the Maasina. This early movement has not only led to increased conflict with other herders

but also conflicts with rice farmers, since the herds of the

Hadankoo?e, or of those that follow them, can damage fields near

encampment points. Over the past twenty-five years there has been

recurrent problems between the Hadankoo?e and local rice farmers

over crop damage. These problems have increased dramatically in

recent years with improved conditions toward long-term average flood depths. Farmers have sought to farm in less-deeply flooded

areas moving closer and closer to encampment points. When

harvests are delayed and herds return early to the floodplain a tense

front exists where cattle dispersing from encampments and unhar

vested fields meet. This is a particularly socially corrosive form of

conflict since the farmers are either from the same or neighboring

village to the Hadankoo?e. Young men, who have been away on

rainy-season transhumance for five months, are not expected to

herd when herds first arrive back home during the early dry season.

It is the young boys and older men that herd at this time. What we

see among the Hadankoo?e and most certainly the herds that

follow them18 is that there is often little herding diligence, even

though this is the time that it is most strongly needed. Livestock

are driven to the cropped frontier and are left there. It is up to the

rice farmers to keep the livestock out of their fields (day and night).

During November 2002, I was questioning a senior Hadankoo?e

about this practice at one of their encampments. They admitted to



6o CJAS / RCEA 40: I 2OO6

this being a strategy to make the rice cultivators pay in physical exhaustion for putting their fields so close to the encampment.19

As we were having this conversation, a cry went out along with a

rush of young Hadankoo?e men toward the source of commotion

in the distance. As it turns out, a Hadankoo?e herder had been

attacked by a woman who accused him of allowing his cattle to

graze her rice. This led to a broader physical battle that ended trag

ically with a rice cultivator being severely injured. This incident cost the Hadankoo?e dearly as they had to pay a very large sum of

money to get their young men released from incarceration.

This incident illustrates a basic point in the Maasina: crop

damage is usually avoidable and problems of widespread crop

damage result from broader political strategies. It is true that rice

fields often resemble the vegetation that surrounds them (often of

the same genus, Oryza) and so if a farmer does not mark his / her

field with cloth tied to a stick, it is easy to herd livestock into the

field unawares. For this reason, rice farmers usually mark their

fields. If fields are marked, most crop damage is avoidable ? herd

ing become more difficult with fields near encampment points but

fields can be avoided. While the proximate cause of crop damage is

lack of herder diligence, the conflict that I witnessed was bound to

happen ? there were too many unmanaged herds in proximity of

unharvested fields for conflict to have been avoided. Therefore, while Hadankoo?e elders talking to me at the encampment were

not physically involved in the battle, their decisions to enter the

zone early and to accept large numbers of herds into their territory are truly the major causes.

Farmer-herder conflict is socially corrosive. As mentioned

earlier, farmers and herders in the Maasina are often connected

through numerous social and economic ties as neighbors, friends,

buyers/sellers of milk, and livestock owners / herders. As with

other Ful?e groups, the Hadankoo?e often feel much more

comfortable spending time relaxing, talking, and joking with rice

cultivators in the village (Riesman 1977). Their relationships with

peers within the clan are much more formal. Farmer-herder

conflict, despite its strong seasonality, may, over a number of years, work to erode these ties to the detriment of all concerned. The

Hadankoo?e strategy of confrontation with rice farmers is the same

as that with other pastoral clans: use the resource as you see fit and

then pay government officials to rule in your favor or to release you




from jail. This strategy is expensive ? the Hadankoo?e, while

land-rich, have low incomes by Maasina standards. They must

admit many outside herds onto their pastures to raise the funds to

pay government officials to the detriment of their livestock, their

pastures, and their relations with local farmers. Each year virtually all of the money they obtain in the form of pasture taxes is spent in

the form of bribes. The situation is a vicious cycle. With this in mind, I have engaged in a number of discussions

over the years in which I openly questioned Hadankoo?e about

their strategies and proposed alternatives. This long-term conver

sation has been most revealing. I will recount here my recent

discussions following the farmer-herder altercation of November

2002. Besides the money they had to pay in order to purchase the

release of their herders from jail that year, they also had to pay off

district-level officials to forgive the crop damages charged to them.

This was a considerable amount of money that actually amounted

to more than the original crop damages! I made the point that not

only were they paying more than they would have if they had

worked solely through the village chief, their money was being used to line the pockets of government officials rather than staying within the village. Seemingly, both economically and politically

disadvantageous! Hadankoo?e responded differently to my ques tions. Some vigorously defended the approach using the same ratio

nale of that used in herder-herder disputes: if we crop damages are

paid, it suggests that farmers have rights to farm in close proximity to encampments. A cultural elitist variant, for which I cannot

historically verify, is that the Hadankoo?e have never paid crop

damages and never will. Others, made up largely but not solely of

non-jooro'en members of the clan, have expressed disagreement with these confrontational politics arguing that it is a policy that

cannot be sustained.

With Op?ration de Bornage, a government program that began in

1978 and attempted intermittently (into the mid-1980s) to formally

recognize and mark encampment points in the Maasina, there has

been a rule that fields not fall within a 1 km radius of recognized

encampment points (Falloux 1983). Given the density of encamp ments and fields, this policy, while making technical sense, was

politically unfeasible and was never enforced. Present policy discus

sions suggest that the no-crop radius may be reduced to 0.5 kilome

ters ? a more reasonable radius but still one in which it is unclear




whether government officials would be inclined to enforce. I have

not known of any ease in which a local government has prohibited the cultivation of a field due to its proximity to an encampment

point. However, I am aware of many fields within 100 meters of

government-recognized encampment points. The lack of enforce

ment can be explained not only by a lack of commitment and

resources on the part of the state but by the limited proactive lobby

ing by the Hadankoo?e to keep fields from being established near

their encampments. I know of only one case where Hadankoo?e

resistance to the siting of a field actually led to conflict. This

occurred in 1985, when the Hadankoo?e confronted and beat a

farmer for plowing within three hundred meters of an encampment

point. Nine members of the Hadankoo?e were jailed. Questions arise

once one recognizes that this farmer's field was one of a dozen that

were found within three hundred meters of the encampment point

(including some farmed by the Hadankoo?e themselves!). Why was

this farmer singled out? It turns out that this farmer was a livestock

owner who had taken entrusted cattle back from a Hadankoo?e

member without giving a reason for doing so. Such an action was

seen as a dangerous precedent by the cattle-poor Hadankoo?e, so

they sought to punish him by excluding him from near their encamp ment. Clearly, the Hadankoo?e, while certainly willing to punish

farmers by inflicting crop damage, have shown very little initiative

to resist the siting of fields near their encampments. There are four reasons for this. The first reason is the insidious

nature of field encroachment ? the pasture lost as each field is

plowed is often not worth the political and financial capital to fight for. Second, why attempt to proactively block the expansion of

fields if the government has shown no inclination to seriously consider such pleas of support? Third, in the few floodplain areas

where the Hadankoo?e have some control over agricultural

usufruct, individual Hadankoo?e members have acted as hired

advocates for individual farmers ? an example of the ease in which

individual actions can work against the clan's interest when lead

ership is lacking. Fourth, dealings with government officials are

expensive ? no matter whether the goal is to win the release of a

jailed member of the clan or to urge the government to prohibit

farming in a particular area. The clan's cash reserves are highly

seasonal ? they are only replenished through grazing tax collec

tions, following which they are either quickly spent on payments




to the government (most commonly) or divided among jooro'en of

the clan. The Hadankoo?e do not generally have the cash necessary to stop the opening of fields when they occur during the mid-late

dry season and early rainy season.20 They do have cash reserves

when the unharvested rice and livestock converge at the beginning of the dry season.

These reasons together help explain the few efforts made by the

Hadankoo?e to block the expansion of cropped fields before it

occurs. Instead, the Hadankoo?e "fight" encroachment through the threat of unremunerated crop damage by their cattle ? a strat

egy that is financially costly and socially corrosive. While these

factors act as considerable barriers to finding local level solutions

that avoid conflict, I see the Hadankoo?e's reliance on their

confrontational approach as symptomatic of the leadership void

within the clan. The leadership position of the jooro is contested by two individuals with poor leadership abilities. Weak clan leader

ship, poverty, and self-seeking behavior have together lowered the

political cohesiveness of the Hadankoo?e clan. The clan is, in fact,

highly fractured. As a result, political action is more likely to occur

in reaction to direct threats of violence, imprisonment, or fines.

These threats are more easily manufactured and felt through adher

ence to the confrontational political strategy adopted by the

Hadankoo?e. In this way, recurrent conflict can be seen as keeping the Hadankoo?e together.

Moreover, there are individuals in the clan for whom the clan's

confrontational politics is less costly in a material sense and bene

ficial in terms of stature within the clan. These individuals consis

tently support the continuation of the clan's confrontational style ?

by both emphasizing these outside threats and exacerbating

existing inter-group problems. Generally, it has often been the few

most politically powerful members of the clan, who manage the

collection and storing of grazing tax revenue, along with the clan's

political negotiators who benefit individually. Political negotiators are clan members that have a refined ability to argue and speak

persuasively. This is a highly respected ability in Maasina culture.

The political negotiators are needed to negotiate payments with

government officials,- persuade farming and other herding groups of

the rightness of Hadankoo?e actions; and explain and convince

clan members of the external threats that exist. The "out" groups within the clan are those that are not articulate nor politically



64 CJAS / RCEA 40: I 2006

powerful. While some are members of one of the two jooro'en

lineages of the clan, they have never seen a share of grazing tax

revenue. They are also ones that are more open to emphasize the

costs of the Hadankoo?e's confrontational politics, but are disem

powered and will only occasionally lash out against the confronta

tionalists in an uncoordinated and ineffective manner.

In sum, the confrontational political ideology of the

Hadankoo?e has been shaped over time by a number of factors

including: their limited ability to control land uses within their

ley&i; real barriers faced by the clan to proactively limit field

encroachment; the clan's experience with the state's limited inter

est to resolve or manage past conflicts; the clan's elite identity,- and

the clan's leadership void. The Hadankoo?e's confrontational

approach is a sign of political weakness despite the enduring self

image of cultural superiority. With the recurrent flood failure over

the past thirty years, the pastures controlled by the jooro'en of the

Maasina have declined in value while those of in the interior of the

floodplain have increased. At the same time, these pastures have

become more attractive as fields to rice farmers. These increased

pressures have further exposed the limited ability of the

Hadankoo?e to manage effectively, through recognized channels, the negotiations over pasture with other clans and the opening of

new rice fields on their pastures. Their willingness to confront, with violence if necessary, provides them some strategic leverage

in an environment of limited state power. While the Hadankoo?e

are known for their confrontational approach ? the difference with

other Maasina jooro'en is the extent to which they have come to

rely on this approach ? the same pressures are felt by other clans.

Other clans also often utilize confrontation as a political strategy. It is just that for the Hadankoo?e, the strategy has become habitual

due to a combination of enduring leadership problems and the

amount of pasture that is stood to be lost. While this strategy works

to reinforce Hadankoo?e self-identity and group cohesiveness, it is

economically costly.

Prospects for Conservation and Development Programs in the Maasina

The leyde system of agropastoral management is widely regarded as

a model indigenous common property management system.

Superficially, it has all the necessary institutional features identi




fied by theory: a closed social group controlling access to a

geographically- and physically-defined resource through a clear set

of rules and regulations. In tracing its history in the Maasina, I have

argued that the ley&e system has always failed to meet these crite

ria for good reason ? the resources in question were too variable in

space and time to allow for the effective operation of rigid rules of

access. Moreover, the operational effects of leyhe institutions

change as the social and ecological context within which these

institutions are embedded change. It is clear that both the social

and ecological conditions that surround the leyhe system are very

different from those that existed even thirty years ago. There is a

strong need to modify these institutions to improve agropastoral

management, reduce the potential for conflict, and to manage

conflicts as they occur.

How best to do this? I have mentioned that while external

interests have led to fundamental changes in the social and ecolog ical contexts that surround leyde management, the institutions of

the leybe system remain largely intact. This represents a tremen

dous opportunity and constraint to future conservation and devel

opment work in the area. An opportunity in that, unlike most areas

of Africa, indigenous management principles are still practiced, and a constraint in that these management principles need to be

scrutinized and then modified so that they can function effectively in the contemporary ecological and social context. The ley?e

system, as practiced in the Maasina, has failed to evolve with

changing circumstances as the region was brought under colonial

and post-colonial state rule.

A fundamental precondition for any successful program is ideo

logical change ?

namely, to reduce the prevalence of unyielding confrontational stances to more pragmatic negotiative stances.

The confrontational ideology of the Hadankoo?e is most revealing in terms of ideological development. I find that two major factors

that contribute to the habitual confrontational stance taken by the

Hadankoo?e are: the ineffective and damaging "mediation" of

disputes that has been followed by state agents since the colonial

period; and the leadership vacuum that exists today within the

clan. State mediation of local disputes has actually worked to

prolong and intensify local conflict (see also Moritz, this issue). It

has been in the best interest of local government officials to not

make hard and fast rulings but to maintain uncertainty (and




conflict) across years to maximize bribe income. There has been a

somewhat na?ve hope placed on the democratization and decen

tralization programs of the Third Republic of Mali (Benjaminsen

1997; Fay 1995; Kassibo 2001). Local governments more account

able to the local population are thought to increase the potential for

more effective, less corrupt governance. My observations in 2002

03 are discouraging in this regard: the locally-elected chef du

conseil communal not only continued the rent-seeking activities

of past administrators but also he was much more effective in doing so given that he was much more knowledgeable of the area.

Clearly, democratic reform in the Maasina will require the mobi

lization of the moral and political support of a range of religious and

customary authorities to work with elected officials. The case of

the leadership crisis of the Hadankoo?e suggests the need for

reform in how customary leaders are chosen and for the introduc

tion of measures to ensure the accountability of customary leaders.

Accountability should be measured with respect to not only their

responsibilities to their social group but to the broader community. Farmer-herder conflict is especially demanding in this regard.

At a minimum, strong leadership must exist in the positions of

jooro, village chief, and chef du conseil communal. Over the past

thirty years in the Hadankoo?e's home territory, leadership in all

three of these positions (or their equivalents) has been severely defi

cient. Under such conditions, there is very little potential for insti

tutional innovation and change. Even under better conditions, it is

important to understand that farming and herding groups are

engaged in multiple political spheres. Well-meaning innovations

(technology or institutional) introduced by resource management

projects will not have a neutral effect on these longstanding politi cal engagements (Ferguson 1994). They will be interpreted politi

cally and promoted and fought accordingly. Therefore, it is

impossible not to explicitly recognize the political implications of

different interventions. Within the Maasina context, conservation

and development interventions are best viewed not as technocratic

exercises but political programs of leverage, negotiation, and strat

egy. An implicit assumption in most conservation and develop ment work is that the major players in an area will become engaged

in the project because of the material benefits it offers. Given the

strong ideological motivations that help shape the political strate

gies of players such as the Hadankoo?e, this "induced participa




tion" assumption is called into question. For the Hadankoo?e to

seriously and constructively engage, a mix of constraints and

opportunities need to be constructed that will lead to political

negotiations seeking to balance the gains and costs incurred by each group of a bundle of innovations across multiple political

spheres. This is hard work for which the outsider is often ill

equipped. It will require the active involvement of multiple

customary and state authorities ? not simply as passive partici

pants in group meetings but as active political agents, conceiving of

a common vision of the future and working toward it without

outside support.

Notes 1 Unlike the colonial experience in other floodplain areas of West Africa, the leyhe system of the Inland Niger Delta was not completely replaced. As in other parts of French West Africa, the French did pass laws to national

ize "unused" land but these laws did not significantly impact local tenure

institutions in the Inland Niger Delta. French taxation as well as cattle and labor requisitions did affect the pastoral economy of the Maasina. In addi

tion, the French have regulated the timing of crossings onto the floodplain at the beginning of the dry season since 1936 with the establishment of the Conf?rence annuelle de bourgouti?res (continued in the post-colonial period with the re-establishment of these annual conferences in 1966). Since the late colonial period, there have been attempts to more clearly demarcate pasture boundaries; demarcate encampment points, document

access rights; and formalize already existing rules of access (Gallais et

Boudet 1980; International Livestock Centre for Africa 1981; van

Duivenbooden, Gosseye and van Keulen 1990). These works have not

precipitated significant changes in local management. 2 The pastures within a particular Delta leyhi can be controlled by differ ent pastoral clans. Each clan can be composed of multiple lineages among

which only certain are viewed as controlling pasture areas (jooro'en). Other lineages of the clan normally cannot trace their descendance back to the original Ful?e occupants of the area ?

entering the clan at a later date.

It is not uncommon today for herd managers to literally buy themselves into a clan's corporate herd (an intermediate stage between outsider and

clan member status) ? a long process during which the herder first

becomes friends with clan members (through gifts and livestock entrust

ments) culminating in a lump sum payment to the clan. Although non

jooro7en members of the clan do not benefit from grazing tax revenue, they do directly follow jooro'en herds onto pastures without paying grazing tax. 3 The corporate herd movements on the floodplain most likely existed in




the Maasina prior to the Diina for reasons of security. As reported by Ba et

Daget (1984), transhumance herd movements were made in a highly orga nized fashion to and from rainy-season destination points off the flood

plain to the northwest to avoid raids from the Bamana and Twareg. As

recently as the 1960s, Maasina milk herds moved off of the floodplain

during the peak flood season in a highly organized fashion followed by

herding families (men and women who are not with transhumance hered).

Presently, highly organized corporate movements of family herds only occur upon entry to a leybi's floodplain pastures during the early dry season.

4 Artisanal, political, and warrior castes that do not specialize in livestock

husbandry are not uncommon Ful?e societies across West Africa (Kintz

1985). 5

Today, all Ful?e of the Delta have permanent concessions within

villages. The demands of livestock mobility require that members of the

family (boys and young men) are gone with the transhumance herd (garci). The management of the milking herd (benndi) may require the movement

of the family away from the village as the dry season progresses to satellite

camps closer to remaining forage resources.

6 To ensure social stability and the generation of tax revenue, the French

attempted to engineer a transition from a master-slave relationship to a

sharecropping relationship in which former slaves would provide crop

shares to their former masters (Marty 1920, 278; Roberts 1997). This

attempt to shift property rights from people to land led to significant confu

sion and struggles over harvests and land given that these two forms of

ownership were far from congruent in the precolonial period (Roberts

1997). For example, the jooro'en of the Maasina, as clients of the Ardo?e, most likely only controlled grazing usufruct but not cropping usufruct.

Their slaves farmed land that was only available to them through the

assent of the Ardo?e. In areas of the Maasina in which Ardo?e or Diina

elites were unable to the reassert their control, other freemen (rim_e) may have been able to the gain control over cropping usufruct through their

control over the crop shares of their former slaves. More commonly, the

crop share persisted, not as payment for the use of a particular piece of land,

but as a tribute to former masters. Such tributary payments have greatly eroded over time and are now seen as voluntary payments (Turner 1992). 7 During precolonial times, livestock in the Maasina were largely owned

by the Ardo?e and herding Ful?e. While the Islamic clergy most likely invested in livestock during the Diina, the fraction of people owning live

stock (sheep or cattle) was relatively small compared to the total popula tion. When describing livestock populations in the Maasina during the

Diina, informants generally state that single herds controlled by noble

families were much larger but the overall livestock population of the




Maasina was lower. During the colonial period, livestock ownership

increasingly became more widespread across all social groups which lead to a greater retention of livestock in the area and contributed in turn to the

rapid growth of livestock populations in the 1950s and 1960s (Turner

1993). Herding Ful?e had long managed the cattle of nobles through entrustment contracts (Ba et Daget 1984). As livestock ownership became

more widespread during the colonial era (with fewer number of entrust

ments per owner), the terms of such contracts have moved against the

herding Ful?e. The decline in the remuneration for herding services has

only accelerated over the past thirty years with declines in livestock

ownership among herding Ful?e. A herder during the Diina was paid by the

milk produced by animals in his care along with yearly gifts of clothing and

cattle from livestock owners (Ba et Daget 1984). Today, a Ful?e herding

family can only expect the milk from half of the milk cows among the

cattle entrusted to it by a particular livestock owner. This represents a

particular area of tension between the livestock owners and herding Ful?e.

The Ful?e argue that the present entrustment contract, unless the herding family is able to build up a very large herd (over two hundred head), provides an income that does not cover subsistence needs of the herding

family. Those that have the smallest herds have thus turned to selling the

cattle entrusted to them, telling livestock owners that the cattle are lost. This is a downward spiral since once a herder gains a reputation of stealing cattle, it is much more difficult to gain entrustments from livestock owners (Turner 1992). 8 The Hadankoo?e tell a story that depicts the uneasy clientage of their ancestors to the Ardo?e. In the story, the Ardo?e killed Hadankoo?e calves to feed their dogs while the herders were grazing their cattle. Once the

Hadankoo?e discovered the reason for their lost calves, they burned the

dogs in the Ardo?e huts and then fled to the east, only returning years later after mediation by the maccu?e ardo. 9 The Hadankoo?e corporate herd includes six herds of families who have

bought themselves into the corporate herd (see note 2) and are not formally members of the clan but do benefit from early access to Hadankoo?e

pastures without paying grazing fees. 10 Often it is the more deeply flooded parts of their lands that jooro'en have

been able to maintain broader control (beyond simply grazing) over land use in the Maasina. These are lands that were most likely rarely if ever

cultivated in the past and therefore competing claims to these lands did not

develop. 11 This authority, while generally stronger than in the Maasina, is far from secure ?

it is variously contested by religious authorities, local state offi

cials, and village-based leadership. 12 More rapid movement by the Hadankoo?e past encampments to which



70 CJAS / RCEA 40: I 2006

they proceed others allows others to move more quickly into the flood

plain as well ? thus increasing the potential of farmer-herder conflict across a wider area than that controlled by the Hadankoo?e. 13 For example, it is hard to imagine the operation of the present agropas toral system, given the sensitivity of pasture productivity, floodplain access, and grazing management to fluctuations in the timing and magni

tude of floods. 14 This began, as elsewhere in French West Africa, with the recognition of

village-based authorities as the indigenous representatives of native people ?

thereby undercutting the power of the jooro'en. Post-colonial policies favored farming over livestock rearing activities (Niamir-Fuller 1999). 15

Avoiding details that would identify the clan, the present leadership void can best be described as resulting from rules governing the inheritance of clan leadership. The jooro, or head of the jooro'en clan, is defined as the eldest member of the clan's lead herd. Nearing this death in the late 1970s, the former jooro, who had shared a herd with his younger half brother, separated from that brother to ensure that the jooro's son would become the jooro. The problem has been that the new jooro has had significant difficulty maintaining a viable herd both in terms of animals and herding labor. If he doesn't maintain a herd, the position of "jooro" reverts to his

uncle. The resulting ambiguity along with the limited leadership abilities of the present jooro (due in part to his difficult economic situation) has led to less than effective leadership. 16 This sense of shame is part of a broader sense of loss felt by the

Hadankoo?e about decisions made by the clan in the past. The past jooro, who died in the late 1970s, gave to a particular group of cultivators the cultivation rights to a large portion of the deeply flooded pasture areas of the Hadankoo?e. These rights were never exercised in the past due to the

depth of flooding. At the time, the gift was simply a gesture with little

material implications. With the decline in flood depth over the past thirty years, these areas have become heavily sought after by rice farmers and

Hadankoo?e pastures have become fields. 17 I have had long discussions with Hadankoo?e members about the

meaning behind the payment to a government official after an infraction

in order to avoid imprisonment or other sanctions. I argued that such

payments tend to reduce if not negate their ownership claims since they will not be able to use the resource without future payments. They counter by insisting that post-hoc payments of this kind do not reduce

their claims ?

these bribes are seen as "gifts" to induce the officials to see

the situation as they do. 18

Many of those following the Hadankoo?e are transhumance herders

who are away from home but for whom the arrival to the edge of the Diaka

has many distractions related to the concentrations of people, money, and




products that the Maasina has compared to where they have just spent four

to five months in the northwest. 19 It is not as simple as this. Given the number of outside herds allowed in

by the Hadankoo?e, it would have been difficult to properly herd one's

herd if one was so inclined. In addition, it would be easy to simply treat

such standoffs as those between two social groups. The reality is closer to

that of competition between two production systems since some of the

"rice farmers" cultivating near the encampment are herders themselves ?

even Hadankoo?e. One of the Hadankoo?e lost all of his harvest to cattle

during the second night of no sleep. He was kidded by other Hadankoo?e

for falling asleep and losing his rice. 20 Individual livestock wealth is not liquidated in support of clan interests

except in crisis situations in which another clan member faces imprison

ment.

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Documents

The Micropolitics of Common Property Management on the Maasina Floodplains of Central Mali