Games Without Frontiers: Development, crisis and conflict in the African agropastoral belt

Offering an in-depth analysis of two significant cases from the Horn of Africa and the Sahel, this chapter sheds light on the main factors that influence pastoral conditions, strategies and behaviours, and further the structural crisis of their world. The chapter first describes its analytical and theoretical framework. Pastoralism and its territories are introduced, taking into consideration both structural/global trends and local transformations affecting and defining their space. Pastoralists are conceived as rational agents, in their longstanding efforts to cope with and adapt to a shifting context, with a view to defend and evolve their livelihoods and the very existence of their communities. Three main behavioural and strategic patterns to pursue their physical, political and economic security are identified. The second part of the chapter applies this framework to the two cases, with the aim to empirically explore crisis and change in the pastoral world. In these two crucial cases, conflict, transnational networks, state weakness and shifting border regimes are reconfiguring the pastoral landscape.