CHANGING TIMES AND CHANGING WAYS: LOCAL KNOWLEDGE, POLITICAL ECOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE NIGER RIVER INLAND DELTA OF CENTRAL MALI by TODD CRANE (Under the direction of Robert Rhoades) ABSTRACT Ethnopedology, the study of local knowledge of soils, is moving beyond descriptive soil typologies to include knowledge of ecological processes of soil management and land tenure customs, as well as historical and political factors that influence land management. The Marka and the Fulani ethnicities have both inhabited central Mali for centuries, but they have occupied distinct subsistence niches: the Marka as farmers and the Fulani as cattle herders. Despite living in the same region, Marka and Fulani maintain distinct cognitive models of the environment and their places in it. Although their soil nomenclatural systems both use consistency and color as primary and secondary markers respectively, their actual classifications vary. This variation is explained by their different historical subsistence strategies. In recent decades, the Marka and the Fulani subsistence strategies have begun to converge into agropastoralism. Although their economic behaviors have become more similar, their ideologies about land management and their perspectives on land-use conflicts continue to be at odds. This is attributed to the maintenance of ethnic identities that are closely linked to subsistence behaviors, especially for the Fulani. Ideologies linking specific subsistence strategies with ethnic identity can affect decision-making and political positioning even when actors do not have a direct material interest in that particular subsistence strategy. Consequently, exertions and counter-exertions of power between farmers and herders, at the individual, local and national levels, reflect competition over control of land resources by user-groups with ethnically linked land-use interests. This competition over land-use has been reflected in historical power relations between user groups in the region, especially starting from the rise of the Dina in the 19th century. Both ethnicities perceive their environment from vantage points that are significantly shaped by their ethnic identities, which are in turn the result of the particular subsistence niches, political history and cultural values. These same factors influence their land management and political strategies in regards to rural development. INDEX WORDS: Africa, Mali, ethnoecology, ethnopedology, local knowledge, Fulani, Marka, agriculture, pastoralism, development, identity, political ecology, ethnic conflict, historical ecology CHANGING TIMES AND CHANGING WAYS: LOCAL KNOWLEDGE, POLITICAL ECOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE NIGER RIVER INLAND DELTA OF CENTRAL MALI by TODD A. CRANE B.A., Indiana University, 1994 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2006 © 2006 Todd Crane All Rights Reserved ii CHANGING TIMES AND CHANGING WAYS: LOCAL KNOWLEDGE, POLITICAL ECOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE NIGER RIVER INLAND DELTA OF CENTRAL MALI by TODD A. CRANE B.A., Indiana University, 1994 Major Professor: Robert Rhoades Committee: J. Peter Brosius Virginia Nazarea Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia August 2006 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To tweak a common expression, “It takes a whole village to raise an anthropologist”. In my case it took even more than that. This dissertation would not have been possible without the generous support, assistance, and encouragement by the following individuals and institutions. All of them played a part in the creation of this document. U bɛɛ sen b’a la. My advisor, Robert Rhoades, and committee members, Virginia Nazarea, Pete Brosius Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management team members: US – Keith Moore, Carlos Perez, Carla Roncoli, Oumar Badini, Ozzie Abaye, Christine Jost, Meriem El Hadj, Jeff Goebel Mali – Amadou Kodio, Salmana Cissé, Boureima Traoré, Karim Ouatara, Moussa Keita The Natural Resource Management Advisory Committee of Madiama The Madiama Communal Council People of the Commune of Madiama Ibrahim Diallo Issa Kané and Albadia Touré Augustin Témé Karim Traoré and Sekou Camara – for getting me started in the rich language of Bambara. Summer Cooperative African Languages Institute UGA Anthropology Department Staff – especially Labau Bryan, Margie Floyd, Charlotte Blume, Arnold Brunson, Lisa Norris The Flying Rats, The Malemen, Tepooka Two, and The Deryls My parents and in laws – for support all along the way, and for looking after the cats Sarah Hunt – for more things than could possibly be listed iv LINGUISTIC NOTES Over the course of the last several decades, linguists have developed standardized orthographies for both Bambara and Fulfulde (the language spoken by people of the Fulani ethnicity). Across West Africa, literacy programs in national languages have simultaneously become more prevalent. When spelling out Bambara and Fulfulde words, I have opted to use the contemporary orthographies of those languages, which involve a few characters not found in the Cyrillic alphabet. Below is a brief guide to these unfamiliar characters. At times this practice may be confusing, as there is already literature, especially Francophone literature, that uses a Francofied spelling. For example, when I refer to a joro, the Francophone literature, and hence much Anglophone literature as well, writes dioro. Where Cyrillic spelling would write nyamaku, I instead use the orthography for national languages which spells it ɲamaku. With the exception of some place names, I have chosen to use this orthography out of respect for the languages that use it, and to promote, or at least support, increased literacy in African national languages. As these characters do not exist in standard font packages, everywhere they occur in this dissertation, they are in the font Gentium, which was designed to be universal linguistic font, covering all orthographies (outside of character-based, Asian languages). This font is available for free download from the Summer Institute of Linguistics website. Found only in Bambara ɛ = e with guttural stop (no capital) ɔ = o with guttural stop (no capital) v Found only in Fulfulde Ɓ ƃ = implosive b Ɗ ɗ = implosive d ƴ = y with a guttural stop (no need for capital version in Fulfulde) Found in both Bambara and Fulfulde Ŋ ŋ = ng Ɲ ɲ = ny In both Bambara and Fulfulde, the letter “C” is pronounced like a hard “ch”, as in “chocolate”. vi ACRONYMS BCEAO – Banc Central des Etats Africains de la Ouest (Central Bank of West African Nations) IER – Institut d’Economie Rurale (Institute of Rural Economy) HM – Holistic Management® PLLA – Participatory Landscape/Lifescape Appraisal LAM – Les Amis de Madiama (The Friends of Madiama) NRID – Niger River Inland Delta NRMAC – Natural Resource Managament Advisory Committee SAM – Social Accounting Matrix SANREM – Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management. US-AID – United States Agency for International Development vii TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………...… iv LINGUISTIC NOTES……………………………………………………………………... v ACRONYMS………………………………………………………………………………. vii LIST OF TABLES …………………………………………………………………............ xii CHAPTER 1 Problem Statement………………………………………………………… 1 Cultural ecology of Niger River Inland Delta ……………………... 2 Culture, cognition and adaptation………………………………….. 4 2 Theoretical Background …………………………………………………… 14 Local knowledge vs. indigenous knowledge ……………………… 14 Local knowledge and scientific knowledge……………...………… 22 Local knowledge in development………………………………….. 29 Ethnopedology……………………………………………………... 35 3 Geographical and Historical Introduction to Research Site……………….. 46 Overview of Mali ………………………………………………….. 46 The Commune of Madiama…………………………………………49 Historical human ecology: The long durée in brief………………... 55 Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management ….….. 75 viii 4 Methodologies……………………………………………………………...84 Methodological concerns…………………………………………... 85 Participant observation…………………………………………….. 87 Ethnoecological interviews………………………………………… 93 Politics and identity…………………………………………………97 5 Resource Tenure, Social Structure and History…………………………… 99 Social structure and land tenure……………………………………. 99 Trees and tenure……………………………………………………. 105 Pasture tenure systems………………………………………...…… 107 Case studies in land tenure dynamics in Madiama………………… 110 Discussion and conclusions……………...………………………… 117 6 Local Knowledge of Soils………………………………………………...... 120 Marka ethnopedology……………………………………………… 122 Fulani ethnopedology…………………………………………….... 136 Comparisons and conclusions……………………………………… 145 7 Identity and Subsistence Strategies………………………………….……... 150 Marka identity……………………………………………………… 153 Fulani identity……………………………………………………… 161 Conclusions………………………………………………………… 171 8 Decentralization and Farmer-Herder Conflicts…………………………...... 173 Decent of the herds and regimes of management………………….. 173 Farmers’ and herders’ perspectives on causes of conflict…………. 184 Farmers’ and herders’ perspectives on conflict reduction………..... 191 ix Conclusions………………………………………………………… 198 9 Discussion and Conclusions……………………………………………….. 199 Ethnopedology, cognized models and land management ………… 199 Implications…………………………………………………………204 Works Cited………………………………………………………………............... 206 Appendices…………………………………………………………………………. 217 Appendix 1: Ethnoecology interview schedule……...…………………….. 217 Appendix