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This article examines the geopolitical shifts in Mali following its rejection of western intervention and subsequent partnerships with Russia. Mali is used as a case-study to explore the role of digital connectivity within global crisis ecologies. It challenges the narrative attributing Mali's coup solely to external influences, emphasizing the agency of local actors and new digital practices. Focusing on the role of 'videomen' in disseminating the narratives of Yèrèwolo, Mali's foremost anti-French and pro-Russian political movement, it examines how these actors shape public perceptions of Mali's new military leaders and their international partners. Using an assemblage framework to analyse smartphones' affordances, the nuanced dynamics shaping political legitimacy are elucidated, emphasizing the performative nature of authority in the digital age. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and quantitative analysis of online content, the article highlights how smartphones empower users like videomen to influence political dynamics amid crisis and geopolitical tensions. By reconstructing past events and reclaiming patriotism, videomen strategically use the political transition to outcompete traditional media professionals. The study underscores the need for understanding how localized dynamics shape broader political developments and international relations, offering insights into similar trends in other west African nations facing military coups and increased Russian involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sorghum and pearl millet have adapted to the socioecological environment in the dryland of West Africa and have been the staple crops for many years. Engaging key stakeholders and improving the sorghum and pearl millet breeding process is essential to addressing the evolving demands of end-users and environmental conditions. Unlike most trait preference studies focusing on men and women farmers' trait choices, we examined sorghum and pearl millet key value chain actors (VCA), including producers, processors, traders, and consumers. We identified their preferred traits of varieties that need to be mainstreamed into the breeding pipelines. Drawing on the past efforts and experiences of the sorghum and pearl millet breeding programs from the last 30 years, the study was designed to integrate gender equality in sorghum and pearl millet breeding decisions and traits prioritization in West Africa. This process was implemented in phases, leading to the drafting of gender-responsive and client-oriented product profiles. The paper elicited an understanding of how the roles and interests of sorghum and pearl millet VCA influence their varietal choice and adoption decisions. The study found both differences and similarities in the trait preferences of the men and women VCA. Most women, mainly in the production and processing nodes, prefer varieties with specific food and grain quality traits, while men prioritize grain yield and biotic stress resistance traits. Even though both men's and women's varietal choices align with their roles in production and consumption, grain yield was commonly desired across gender, crop, and value chain segments. The findings revealed that the gendered interest of actors in the crops' value chain determines their choice of variety. Gender responsiveness requires identifying and understanding the needs and choices of the sorghum and millet VCA and mainstreaming these into the breeding pipeline. The approach employed in the study elicits the understanding, roles, and interests of the various actors and how these factors influence men's and women's decisions to adopt a crop variety. All major stakeholders should co-develop product profiles for the variety being developed to enable co-ownership, increase adoption, and improve gender equity in agricultural technology development and deployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last 30 years Europe has attempted to strengthen its territorial borders with Africa through new migration governance practices. This article takes its point of departure in recent mass expulsions of Malian migrants from Algeria to reception centres in Niger to analyse the interlinked processes of deportation from North Africa to Mali and the increased dissatisfaction among the deportees 'assisted' by EU funded return and reintegration programmes in Mali. Through the analytical lens of the 'anti-politics machine' (Ferguson 1996), the article argues that the attempts to transform European borderwork practices into a 'softer' and 'more humanist' approach to migration management create new, contested, border zones aiming to obstruct African migrants' mobility. The article shows how these new, EU-driven, migration management regimes, which are increasingly disconnected from local politics and mobility practices, spur contestations in Sahelian countries of origin, transit and reception. Thereby, the article provides insights into the unintended effects of how EU return governance is implemented, who it benefits, and who it leaves behind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to "re-narrate" the history and practices of deportation from a less Eurocentric perspective. Until today, academic debates about deportations have primarily focused on the Global North, even though countries in the Global South, for example on the African continent, have implemented similar policies and discourses against non-nationals for decades. While Mali has been affected by the deportation of its nationals from France since independence, the Malian State takes an ambivalent stance towards the management of expulsions, repatriations, and deportations vis-à-vis other African, European, and international actors. In the 1990s, Malian civil society started to organise against unwanted forms of forced return. Consequently, today Malian returnees are met with very particular social, economic, and institutional regimes. This paper counters the Eurocentric discourse surrounding the deportation of Malians and, in particularly, takes into account the historicity and the importance of deportations and repatriations implemented across the African continent since the 1960s and the reactions to it up until today. The article makes the theoretical case that deportations within the African continent are particularly constitutive of the postcolonial African nation-state and society, while deportations from the Global North remain particularly "symbolically significant". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]