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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Hired Herders and Herd Management in Fulani Pastoralism (Northern Cote d'Ivoire)
Author:Bassett, Thomas J.ISNI
Year:1994
Periodical:Cahiers d'études africaines
Volume:34
Issue:133-135
Pages:147-173
Language:English
Geographic term:Ivory Coast - Côte d'Ivoire
Subjects:Fulani
agricultural workers
animal husbandry
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Labor and Employment
External link:https://doi.org/10.3406/cea.1994.2045
Abstract:Successful livestock raising is contingent upon the mobility of herds and their capacity to exploit range resources that are temporally and spatially unevenly distributed. The author argues that the flexibility of the Fulani in northern Côte d'Ivoire to adjust to environmental variability is constrained by their productive relations with salaried herders, who play a significant role in Fulani livestock raising and in carrying out opportunistic grazing strategies. Power struggles between herders and Fulani owners over the quality and control of labour adversely affect herding practices. Given their poor working conditions, low incomes, and weak commitment to herd owners, most herders do not devote much care to their work. The most dramatic manifestation of careless herding is the widespread problem of crop damage. Farmer-herder conflicts over this issue have led to the expulsion of Fulani herds from favoured transhumance zones. Thus it is at the juncture of environmental and political processes that one can explain why optimal grazing strategies are not being realized in northern Côte d'Ivoire. The article is based on field research in northern Côte d'Ivoire, including interviews with thirty salaried herders in the Katiali and Sirasso regions in 1992. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in French (p. 522-523).
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