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The new connectivity, through mobile phones, social media, and wireless internet, is an agent in social change in the drylands. In this chapter, we present four case studies: the introduction of mobile apps in Mongolia and Kenya, the role of mobile telephony in the Sahel, and the introduction of online learning in the Negev Desert. Each of these case studies develops an argument around the role of connectivity in ‘giving a voice’ to the people living in drylands. Indeed, as the studies show, the new technology of communication is a resource for such populations, especially when we focus on the benefits of improved communication and access to information. However, the effective use of such a resource is hampered by the lack of knowledge of dryland dynamics among the developers of the new technology and by the imposed power relations of the State. Also, the technology may follow its own pathway, being appropriated by the population in unexpected ways and creating new power relations that may also lead to conflict.

Over the past decades, extremist violence and jihadism/religious movements have become an important factor in the political and economic developments of drylands. This evolution has been attributed to a variety of underlying dynamics that are typical for drylands, including increasing scarcity of land and water due to climate change; a growing population; the poor performance and authoritarian character of states; increasing displacements and resettlements related to large-scale investments; and progressive marginalization and exclusion of specific social groups. In addition, increasing levels of conflict between population groups have provided a fertile ground for recruitment by armed groups for self-defence and religious purposes, often along ethnic lines, and also to secure access to natural resources. The chapter discusses the backgrounds of these movements and shows how a jihadist movement in the Sahel transformed from a terrorist movement into a rural insurgency.

Urbanization in Africa also means rapid technological change. At the turn of the 21st century, mobile telephony appeared in urban Africa. Ten years later, it covered large parts of rural Africa and ? thanks to the smartphone ? became the main access to the internet. This development is part of technological transformations in digitalization that are supposed to bridge the urban and the rural and will make their borders blurred. They do so through the creation of economic opportunities, the flow of information and by influencing people's definition of self, belonging and citizenship. These changes are met with huge optimism and the message of Information and Communications Technologies for Development (ICT4D) for Africa has been one of glory and revolution. Practice, however, reveals other sides. Increasingly, academic publications show that we are facing a new form of digital divide in which Africa is (again) at the margins. These technological transformations influence the relation between urban and rural Africa, and between ?Africa' and the World, and hence the field of African Studies both in its objects as well as in its forms of knowledge production and in the formulation of the problems we should study. In this lecture, Mirjam de Bruijn reflects on two decades of research experience in West and Central Africa and discusses how, for her, the field has changed. The author was forced to decolonize her thinking even further, and to enter into co-creation in knowledge production. How can these lessons be translated into a form of critical knowledge production and how does the study of technological change inform the redefinition of African Studies for the 21st century?

It has become increasingly common to argue that climate change will lead to mass migrations. In this chapter, we examine the largenumbers often invoked to underline alarming climate migration narratives. We outline the methodological limitations to theirproduction. We argue for a greater diversity of knowledges about climate migration, rooted in qualitative and mixed methods. Wealso question the usefulness of numbers to progressive agendas for climate action. Large numbers are used for rhetorical effect tocreate fear of climate migration, but this approach backfires when they are used to justify security-oriented, anti-migrant agendas. Inaddition, quantification helps present migration as a management problem with decisions based on meeting quantitative targets,instead of prioritising peoples’ needs, rights, and freedoms., 0, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

La radicalisation est devenue un mot désignant notre monde en couleurs négatives. Ce livre cherche à comprendre ce que c'est que la radicalisation au Sahel et aux Pays-Bas ? Est-elle seulement négative? Quelle diversité de processus sociaux et politiques se trouve derrière ce concept? Les biographies de personnes nous dévoilent les messages cachés dans ce genre de dynamiques. Y a-t-il au fond un désir de changement social? Autant de questions soulevées, traitées, (partiellement) répondues, et autant d'autres que la lecture de ces recueils de textes aussi divers qu'intéressants, ne manqueront pas de susciter au lecteur contemporain.

Misleading claims about mass migration induced by climate change continue to surface in both academia and policy. This requires a new research agenda on ‘climate mobilities’ that moves beyond simplistic assumptions and more accurately advances knowledge of the nexus between human mobility and climate change., QC 20191205

Marginality does not mean isolation. In Africa where people are permanently on the move in search, inter alia, of a ?better elsewhere?, marginality means disconnection to obvious possibilities and the invisibility of the myriad connections that make life possible for the ordinarily sidestepped. This book is about the workings of networks of the mobile in Africa, a continent usually associated with the ?global shadows? of the world. How do changes in the possibilities for communication, with the recent hype of mobile technology, influence the social and economic dynamics in Africa?s mobile margins? To what extent is the freedom associated with new Information and Communication Technologies reality or disillusion for people dwelling in the margins? Are ordinary Africans increasingly Side@Ways? How social are these emergent Side@Ways? Contributions to answering these and related questions are harvested from ethnographic insights by team members of the WOTRO funded ?Mobile Africa revisited? research programme hosted by the African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands.

'We cannot imagine life now without a mobile phone' is a frequent comment when Africans are asked about mobile phones. They have become part and parcel of the communication landscape in many urban and rural areas of Africa and the growth of mobile telephony is amazing: from 1 in 50 people being users in 2000 to 1 in 3 in 2008. Such growth is impressive but it does not even begin to tell us about the many ways in which mobile phones are being appropriated by Africans and how they are transforming or are being transformed by society in Africa. This volume ventures into such appropriation and mutual shaping. Rich in theoretical innovation and empirical substantiation, it brings together reflections on developments around the mobile phone by scholars of six African countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Mali, Sudan and Tanzania) who explore the economic, social and cultural contexts in which the mobile phone is being adopted, adapted and harnessed by mobile Africa.

Lorsqu’une catastrophe humanitaire fait la une des médias, la communauté internationale se mobilise à réduire les conséquences les plus sérieuses. La population du Tchad connaît cependant des crises endémiques qui ne sont liées à aucun élément déclencheur particulier# ; elle ne reçoit pas l’assistance internationale nécessaire pour faire face à ces problèmes. La présente étude concerne 111 ménages de migrants de la région du centre du Tchad, qui ont, à cause de la guerre et de la sécheresse, tout perdu, et qui vivent désormais dans de N’Djamena et de Mongo#; ces familles sont confrontées à la précarité et à d’autres éléments qui menacent leurs moyens de subsistance. Des méthodes qualitatives et quantitatives ont été combinées dans l’étude pour révéler l’histoire intrigante de leur vie quotidienne au milieu de crises complexes et endémiques. Des données anthropométriques et sanitaires ont été utilisées pour déterminer l’état nutritionnel des mères et de leurs enfants de moins de cinq ans. Des narrations de vie, des entretiens en profondeur et des observations participatives ont permis aux chercheurs de déterminer les stratégies de négociation que ces familles adoptent pour accéder à leur nourriture et à leurs abris, leur expérience de l’insécurité alimentaire et de la vulnérabilité sanitaire, ainsi que les conséquences que ces éléments ont sur leur vie quotidienne. Les résultats indiquent que 62% des ménages sont dirigés par des femmes, qu’il existe de forts taux de malnutrition aiguë (40-50%) et chronique (35-40%) et que 46% des mères sont sous-alimentées et anémiées. Les taux de mortalité infantile se sont avérés également élevés#: de 30% à 42%. 97% des enfants n’ont pas été complètement vaccinés, voire pas vaccinés du tout, dans certains cas. Aucun des ménages n’a accès à l’eau potable et aux services sociaux de base. La corruption endémique et l’abus manifesté par les autorités tchadiennes ont été identi$és comme sources d’insécurité quotidienne. Ces migrants con

Once a humanitarian disaster receives coverage in the global media, the international community usually mobilises to reduce the most severe consequences. However people in Chad are experiencing endemic crises that are detached from speci!c triggers, and they are not receiving any international assistance to help relieve the hardships they face. "is study involves 111 migrant households from central Chad that, as a result of war and drought, have lost everything and now have to live in squatter areas of N’Djamena and Mongo, facing uncertainty and threats while negotiating their livelihoods. Qualitative and quantitative methods have been combined in this study to reveal the intriguing story of their daily lives in the face of complex and endemic crises. Anthropometric and health data were generated to determine the nutritional status of mothers and their children under !ve. Life histories, in-depth interviews and participatory observation allowed the researchers to capture the negotiation strategies they use to access food and shelter, their experiences of food insecurity and sanitary vulnerability, and the consequences these have on daily life. Results indicate that 62% of households were female headed, there were high rates of acute (40-50%) and chronic (35-40%) malnutrition and 46% of the mothers were underweight and anaemic. Infant mortality rates were also high at 30%-42% and 97% of the children had had incomplete or no vaccinations. No households had access to clean water, sanitation or public-health services. Endemic corruption and abuse by the authorities were identi!ed as major sources of day-to-day insecurity. Theese migrants were not expecting any improvement in their livelihoods in the foreseeable future and saw these miserable conditions as normal.

« l’Afrique qui communique » Recherche sur les communautés mobiles, les technologies de la communication, et les transformations sociales en Angola et au Cameroun Si le concept de communauté demeure largement associé à sa dimension géographique, les études sur le transnationalisme dans les années 1990 ont conduit à envisager la communauté comme un réseau plutôt que comme un lieu. C’est dans cette optique que s’inscrit cette contribution, en développant l’idée de « chaînes de personnes » liées entre elles pour former une communauté. Les recherches menées au Cameroun et en Angola/Namibie montrent l’ancienneté d’une telle notion de communauté, dont les membres ont toujours été considérés comme des chaînes d’individus dans des lieux divers. Au fur et à mesure des contacts qu’ils établissent les uns avec les autres, les individus construisent et entretiennent des relations communautaires. Les nouvelles technologies de l’information et de la communication permettent de se focaliser sur la mobilité et les interrelations entre les personnes à travers leurs histoires de vie et la manière dont ils utilisent ces nouvelles technologies au quotidien., Although communities are still often conceptually bound to geographical place, transnational studies in the 1990s have led to viewing a community more as a network than as a place This contribution expands this argument by developing the idea of “strings of people”, with connections and communities being intrinsically linked. Based on material from Cameroon and Angola/Namibia, we argue that such notions of community have been in existence for a long time and that people have always viewed their communities as strings of people in various locations. As people contact each other, they construct and/or maintain community ties. Focusing on the life histories of mobility and connections, and on the ways in which people make new technologies fit into their daily lives, this article discusses relations between new ICTs, community, and mobility.