Suchergebnisse

Peter Oksen's comments on our paper about farmer–herdsman relations
in Burkina Faso raise some interesting issues, notably regarding
problems of interpretation of oral and archival sources and regarding
the broader relevance of insights gained from an in-depth case study.
Before answering straightforwardly to his objections, it is useful to
clarify the misunderstanding which appears to exist about the meaning
we attribute to 'symbiosis' and 'symbiotic relations'. In our article we
restricted the use of these terms to the way in which past relations
between farmers and herdsmen, depicted as undifferentiated groups, are
often represented. In discussions about the change of these relations,
the emphasis is on progressive deterioration, again without attention
paid to the possible existence of intra-group differentiation or of
heterogeneity of relations across group boundaries. In this regard, it is
remarkable that from colonial documents the interests of farmers and
herdsmen emerge as equally irreconcilable as they are often considered
today, and that, just as at present, competition over scarce natural
resources constituted a major factor in inter-group relations. If we
therefore reject 'symbiosis' as a correct description of formerly existing
inter-group relations, we do not intend to imply that complementary
links – such as those we describe for present-day relations between
Mossi and Fulbe – did not exist in the past. A major aspect of our
argument is that inter-group relations, whether past or present, cannot
be subsumed under simplifying labels such as 'symbiosis'. Neither can
changes in these relations be understood in terms of uni-directionally
processes of deterioration. Hence, present-day 'complementary' links
across the ethnic boundary – established by certain, but not all, Mossi
and Fulbe actors – are but a manifestation of the continued presence of
diversity of relations, not of 'symbiosis'. They point to mutual interests
between certain actors belonging to different ethnic groups, not
between the groups as such.

Conflicts between farmers and herdsmen are certainly not new
phenomena: they already occurred at the time of the biblical
patriarchs. In West Africa, conflicts over the use of scarce natural
resources between farmers and herdsmen are said to be on the
increase. The occurrence of such conflicts is generally attributed to
growing pressure on natural resources, caused by population increase,
the growth of herds and the extension of cultivated areas outpacing
population growth. That such conflicts appear to oppose two ethnic
groups – generally Fulbe herdsmen versus a population group
of
farmers – is explained by the fact that not only has overall competition

over natural resources increased due to a saturation of space, but that

at the same time a balance between the two groups has been broken.
The convergence of production systems, as a result of farmers engaging

in cattle breeding and herdsmen in agriculture, entailed the disappearance

of both ecological and economic complementarity between
the two groups – a process that is said to have been accelerated
by the
droughts of the 1970s and 1980s. The interpretation of these conflicts

depends on the – sometimes implicit – assumption that formerly,
in an
often unspecified epoch in the past, relations between farmers and
herdsmen could be conceived of in terms of symbiosis – a relationship

based on mutual dependence and mutual advantage with implied
complementarity in the ecological and economic spheres.