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Title: | Your 'Terroir' and My 'Action Space': Implications of Differentiation, Mobility and Diversification for the 'Approche Terroir' in Sahelian West Africa |
Authors: | Painter, Thomas Sumberg, James Price, Thomas |
Year: | 1994 |
Periodical: | Africa: Journal of the International African Institute |
Volume: | 64 |
Issue: | 4 |
Pages: | 447-464 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Sahel |
Subjects: | rural development agropastoralism Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Development and Technology Economics and Trade |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/1161368 |
Abstract: | This article addresses the question of whether the 'aménagement/gestion de terroir' approach, as it is currently being promoted in the French-speaking countries of Sahelian West Africa, is compatible with the realities that agropastoralists in those countries face day-to-day. It is particularly concerned with three characteristics of life in the Sahel that have important implications for how agrarian populations manage resources, and whether the 'terroir' approach, which aims to increase the effectiveness of local-level natural resource management, addresses these characteristics. First, the Sahel is characterized by considerable agro-ecological diversity and socioeconomic differentiation. Second, Sahelian populations are often very mobile as a result of their efforts to deal with changing opportunities and constraints that affect their pursuit of a livelihood. And, third, Sahelian populations commonly use multiple strategies for risk management, including, but not limited to, those which focus on the 'terroir villageois'. In exploring this question the term 'action space' is used to describe the geographical and temporal distribution of the combination of options that smallholder agriculturalists and pastoralists exploit as they pursue their livelihood. The concept of action space is more inclusive and more flexible than the concept of 'terroir villageois'. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. |