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This article zooms in on the ways in which forced migration articulates with labor migration in urban West Africa. Precisely, it reflects on how the refugee crisis contributes to labor migration and, inversely, how labor migration is used as a strategy to respond to the predicament induced by the adverse and often deeply humiliating living conditions of exile. To this end, we situate the article within broader scholarly debates on migration categories. We use the notion "exile" to refer to the social conditions induced by political persecution-related relocations from Mali to Niger and Senegal. Our discussion draws on data collected from freeborn Tuareg from Mali in Niamey and former Malian students who fled the dictatorship of Moussa Traoré. The results prompt a reflection that prioritizes the empirical connections between forced and labor migrations over their differences, something that is often taken for granted in the academic literature and in political narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to shed light on the history of politico-theological debates in Ghadames, focusing on two distinct case studies through discourse analysis. The particular geographical location of Ghadames, situated between two prominent states—Morocco and the Ottoman Empire—each with their respective caliphal claims, has historically enabled the scholars of the city to formulate and substantiate their own political stances. As a result, a substantial body of written materials, including chronicles, biographies, and letters, has emerged from Ghadames, reflecting the political discourse as articulated by its scholars, who adapted their perspectives in response to shifts in regional power dynamics. Notably, this adaptation was facilitated by the active intellectual engagement of the city’s scholars. In this context, the article investigates the politico-theological discussions in Ghadames from the 1750s to the 1850s, analysing the persistent yet varied arguments and justifications, as well as the intellectual milieu that intersected with them.

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This article draws a portrait of a civil movement named La Lil Tamyiz (“No to discrimination”), formed at the beginning of 2020 by a group of young Tuaregs originating from the regions of Ghat, Ubari and Sebha. It questions, from a socio-historical perspective, the evolution of the mobilisation to access Libyan citizenship undertaken by the Tuareg community since the 1950s. This movement includes an important number of young Tuaregs of Sahelian origins, who were born and raised in Libya but did not benefit from the same rights granted to Libyan citizens. As an illustration, their voting capacity is limited as to their possibility of registering in the public universities of their choice. They also cannot apply for a national passport. The movement's first goal is to gain access to “full” Libyan nationality, meaning naturalisation, inscription on the general population register and obtention of the ‘family booklet’. These inequities are a hurdle in their daily individual and professional lives. They also have negative repercussions by creating a differentiation between “Libyan” Tuaregs and “Sahelian” ones. The first group mentioned is originally part of the Kel Ajjer community that established itself between Algeria and Libya. Despite their historic transnational movements and connections between both countries, they were registered as Libyan citizens when Libya became independent. Since the 1950s, they possess a family booklet that grants them access to political representation and all public services. The “Sahelian” Tuaregs came later to the country, looking for better conditions in the 1970s, as they were hit by repeated droughts and growing political surveillance and repression by the Malian and Nigerien authorities at the time. In addition, in order to improve their living conditions and potential job opportunities, they also found under Ghadafi’s regime the possibility to be trained militarily, hoping to use these skills in further rebellions in their home countries during the 1990s. Some of them did return to Libya after and joined the ones who decided to settle with their families. Despite the decades spent in the Libyan South and the renewed demands for naturalisation, the only papers they possess are identity cards and changing administrative numbers. This lasting distinction in the community currently results in a flawed political representation and questions the ability to be recognised more broadly as a whole and legitimate part of the national ensemble. The first part of the argument will present these militants both as heirs of the instrumental relations that connected the Gadhafi regime with the Tuaregs from Niger and Mali and as representatives of a “new generation” who uses social networks, demonstrations and public addresses to national authorities, hoping to advance the ever-changing administrative procedures engaged during Gadhafi’s time and after. The second part will analyse the limits to peaceful mobilisations like La Lil Tamyiz. If the movement could structure itself and expand in the country and abroad, it is currently constrained in its capacity for action. The main hardships it faces are the blocked political situation at the national level, internal rivalries among the Tuareg community and, most of all, the multiplication of armed groups who confiscated the public space while framing the use of force as the ultimate tool to access rights. This research is based on a review of the leading publications about Tuaregs in Libya, on documents and publications issued by the movement as to a selection of interviews with militants in the country and abroad via written or oral exchanges using social media (Whatsapp, Skype). Additional interviews from my PhD fieldwork in South Algeria and North Niger are also used as complementary elements regarding the experiences of former Malian and Nigerien Tuareg fighters in the “Islamic legion” who have maintained family ties in Libya.

The article reports that both independent research and collaborative work are on both sides of the Niger-Burkina Faso border, where iklan communities have managed to grow and survive despite multifaceted obstacles. Topics include considered the activism of various NGOs in these two areas, as well as the tendency for low-status individuals in Tuareg culture to express their sentiments without reserve, meant that iklan actively shared their experiences; and recognized that enslavement was a historical practice deeply embedded within the Saharan-Sahelian region of northwestern Africa.

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Social exclusion and political marginalisation are concepts entrenched in political science discourse yet resist scholarly efforts to assign their nature a rigid frame. Employing secondary sources within a historical-descriptive, explanatory and analytical research design, this study interrogates the impacts of claims of social exclusion and political marginalisation and their role in the Tuareg rebellion and the protraction of the armed conflict in Mali. It argues that, while armed conflict persists in Mali, the narrow interpretation, lack of consensus on determining thresholds, misrepresentation of poverty to represent social exclusion and political marginalisation, coupled with reductionist explanations of the crisis, have worsened the security situation in Mali and imperiling the probability of achieving sustainable peace. Hence, there is the need for the Malian government to respect salient issues in peace agreements reached with warring parties; adopt social policies encompassing job provision, poverty eradication, provision of basic infrastructure and security in the bid to address issues fuelling; and prevent a relapse into a future state of conflict. Lastly, the international community must collaborate with the Malian government to ensure peace deals beyond paper are implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The record labels Sahel Sounds and Sublime Frequencies position themselves as insurgent alternatives to the mainstream music industry's capitalist profiteering in the global circulation of Tuareg music. While they are rooted in an art scene promoting a new media ethics and mode of world music circulation characterised by David Novak [2011. 'The Sublime Frequencies of New Old Media'. Public Culture 23(3): 603-34] as 'World Music 2.0,' the relations of production among the Tuareg artists and American producers involved, in many respects, differ little from those of other labels. I argue that these producers' claims to subversive subject positions are primarily motivated by the values of their U.S. social worlds rather than those of northwest Africa, though these worlds are entangled. To this end, I situate these labels within a particular global network of music circulation, examining their remediation of salvaged recordings, production of new studio albums, and competing claims of ethnographic authority to show their ambivalent reckonings with the commodification process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the narratives of Tuaregs in northern Niger, which discuss life in Europe. The repetitive topoi identified within their rather critical narratives about Europe refer to the lack of time and space and consequently, the lack of freedom; appreciation of infrastructure against the backdrop of poor social ties; and absence of atmosphere. While Occidentalist perspective interprets narratives on Europe as the affirmation of identity and cultural values, I will introduce habitus into the analysis in order to include the embodied experience impact on the narratives and practices. I argue that contact and interaction with Europeans and travelling to Europe influences perceptions of Europe by Tuaregs. Furthermore the dialogic construction of ideas about Europe needs to be acknowledged. It is becoming increasingly visible how interaction, exchange and legal travel facilitate alternative versions of Occidentalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights key events in 2018 that affected the indigenous peoples in Niger, namely the Tuareg, Fulani and Toubou. Topics discussed include terrorism in the Sahel resulting in atrocities against the Fulani, the investigation mission of the Association for the Revival of Pastoralism in Niger (AREN) and the Niger National Human Rights Commission (NNHRC), and the extent of violence in the border area between Niger and Mali.

The article reviews major issues in 2018 that affected the M'bororo Fulani and the Tuareg, two of the peoples considered indigenous in Burkina Faso. Topics discussed include the war on jihadi terrorism in the Sahel, the Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review of the situation of minority and indigenous peoples in the country, and the future for pastoralism.

The article highlights key events in 2018 that affected the indigenous communities in Algeria. They include the passage of a law that would formalise Tamazight's status as an official language, violations of the indigenous peoples' rights and freedoms of assembly and expression, and the marginalisation of the Tuareg.

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The article provides information on the social and legal status of Niger's indigenous populations including the Fulani, Tuareg, and Toubou. It covers intercommunal conflicts stemming from discrimination and stigma against the country's pastoralists from Islamist groups as well as violations against the indigenous populations' right to access land.

The article discusses various issues involving the indigenous peoples in Mali, and it mentions groups such as the Tuareg Amazighs, the Songhaï, the Fulani (Peul), and the Moors Arabs in Mali. Cultural diversity and the use of the French language in Mali are examined, along with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Human rights violations and the French military's intervention in Mali in 2013 are assessed.

The article presents literary criticism of two books including "The Bleeding of the Stone" and "Gold Dust" by Ibrahim al-Koni. Topics discussed include mythical realism and mystic systems of nature and life described in North African literature, philosophies of Tuaregs related to magical stories and ancestral origin and aphorisms of Tuaregs.

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to study the decline of the Tuareg, and explore the emergence of traditional elements of Tuareg culture to circumvent formal barriers to trade. Design/methodology/approach -- This paper examines the history of the Tuareg through the lens of the New Development Economics. Findings -- This paper examines three elements of past Tuareg wealth: the caravan trade as spontaneous order; the unintended consequences of forced modernization policies under colonization and post-colonial states; and contemporary problems from hindered freedom of trade. The bad news is that the Tuareg are facing impediments from failed states with low economic and political freedom. The good news is that traditional elements in the Tuareg's entrepreneurial culture are re-emerging to circumvent formal barriers. Research limitations/implications -- The literature on the Tuareg is largely pessimistic, as the Tuareg's traditions have largely been quashed by post-colonial boundaries and failed states. The New Development Economics offers a new perspective, with two implications. First, there is hope for the Tuareg, and a possible win-win, if the local states adopt a policy of laissez faire and international trade, rather than assimilation or repression. Second, this theoretical lens can be used in other cases throughout Africa (and the world) involving post-colonial borders. Originality/value -- There already exists a rich literature on the Tuareg. This paper uses the New Development Economics to examine the history of the Tuareg's decline - and to find hope in traditional elements of Tuareg entrepreneurship emerging to circumvent local failed (and predatory) states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Education et Societes is the property of INRP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Spirit-themed dreams--whether visitations or soul travels--are altered states that pose special challenges to the anthropologist. They are rooted in subjective personal experience, but their meanings are shaped by culturally and socially constructed religious knowledge and power. This article offers a case study of one Tuareg man's dream of an elderly female spirit, based on my fieldwork in a small rural community in northern Mali, where residents include Tamajaq-speaking, Muslim, semi-nomadic, and socially stratified Tuareg, as well as Arabic-speaking Kunta, with whom the Tuareg residents have cultural ties but also long-standing tensions. This case study does not represent all local experience, but does illustrate an individual's interpretation of widespread social, religious, and political predicaments in that village and region. Many Tuareg, whose own cosmological and social systems are at odds with but also influenced by those of North African Islam, express ambivalence toward Kunta efforts to impose more 'orthodox' Islamic practices. I show that this spirit dream expresses both religious influences and ambivalence toward them. I explore the meaning of reticence surrounding the spirit's name and analyze the spirit's multiple and interpenetrating identities. More broadly, the article shows how dreaming, though psychological and subjective, is also situated in wider contexts of historical, sociopolitical, and religious encounters. Further, it reveals how the cultural models pondered in dreaming and waking interpretations of dreams can involve cultural dissonance and mixed sentiments, rather than agreed upon models, and can refer to past, present, and future concerns. I argue that several possible 'kaleidoscopic' identities emerge to describe this spirit figure, thereby reflecting interweaving and contentious models of gender and religion in the dreamer's community. The article shows the importance of ambiguity in dreams and ambivalence in dreamers as an index of intersecting and colliding meaning systems, contested social changes, and opposed interests. [Keywords: Dreams, spirit possession/mediumship, religion, gender, Africa], This article approaches dreaming through a case study revealing one dreamer's subjective experience of a community's wider social divisions and conflicts, which revolve around religion, gender, and politics. Specifically, I [...]

The article focuses on the social, economic and political conditions of indigenous peoples in Mali as of 2017. Topics include the implementation of the peace agreement in the country, the commune-level elections, and the humanitarian situation and human rights in the country. Also discussed is the recognition of cultural diversity under the Constitution of Mali and the National Pact's recognition of the specific nature of the Tuareg-inhabited regions.

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We examined the settlement structure from the Kel Tadrart Tuareg, a small pastoral society from southwest Libya. Our objective was to apply spatial analysis to establish the statistical significance of specific patterns in the settlement layout. In particular, we examined whether there is a separation between domestic and livestock spaces, and whether particular residential features dedicated to guests are spatially isolated. We used both established statistical techniques and newly developed bespoke analyses to test our hypotheses, and then discuss the results in the light of possible applications to other case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to present the crisis in the Republic of Mali, a country with the largest democratic advances in West Africa in the nineties. However, in 2012 and 2013 Mali experienced a crisis which had led to a military coup. The collapse of state institutions in Mali destabilized the entire region. The author of article devoted particular attention to the process of decentralization of power in the nineties. A series of reforms that gave hope to alleviate the Tuareg issue. The author tried to describe the origins of the crisis in Mali in 2012/2013. She focused on the issue of the Tuareg returning from Libya and an accurate description of the course of events. The declarations of independence of Azawad, the military coup, Tuareg denial by the Islamists or the entry of the French army to Mali are the key points of these events. The author mentioned also the presidential elections that bring a chance for stabilization in Mali. As the events in the Sahel have an impact on other countries in the region the author would like to present the effects of the crisis on the situation in Niger, Mali and Libya. The author's aim was to present a forecast of opportunities and threats for Mali and the region. This topic is very dynamic, the situation in Mali seemed to stabilize but the violence erupted further in the northern part of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the pastoralist Peul and the Tuareg as the indigenous peoples in Burkina Faso. The Tuareg and Peul most live in areas that are geographically isolated, economically marginalised and frequently the victims of human rights abuses. The Constitution guarantees health and education for all, but the nomadic populations can just enjoy the rights to a very limited extent due to lack of proper infrastructure and resources.

The article offers information on the Songhaï and the Tuareg that represent the largest groups in northern Mali. The Tuareg are semi-nomadic pastoralists with a distinct culture and way of life where they have their own concept "temust," that can be translated as "nationality" or "identity." The political and social structures and alliances are being reproduced in the membership of political orientations and armed groups in Mali.

The 1992 decentralization reform in Mali failed to address the deficiencies embedded within the state. The resurgence of the Azawad crisis and the coup d’état of March 2012 have made these limits striking. After a brief account of the causes behind the century-long decay of Tuareg people, I will show that the 2013 elections may only represent an ephemeral solution unless strong policies of institution strengthening are deployed and the northern elites are put in condition to exert legitimate authority. The decentralization reform and peace agreements of the 1990s and 2000s have further increased the weakness of security forces. Moreover, they proved unable to provide northern elites with adequate means for securing legitimation and activating a process of institutional anchoring. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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The article discusses the national policies of Burkina Faso government for its 60 different ethnic groups including the pastoralist Peul and Tuareg. These include the refusal to recognise the existence of indigenous peoples in the Constitution of Burkina Faso, the limitation of rights experienced by the nomadic people despite the Constitution's guarantee of free education and health due to lacking resources and the support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The article discusses the national policies of indigenous populations in the Niger government including Peul, Tuareg and Toubou who are all transhumant pastoralists. These include the Constitution of June 2010 which does not explicitly mention the existence of indigenous peoples in Niger, the rights of pastoralists which are set out in the Pastoral Code, adopted in 2010 and the recognition of priority use rights in pastoral homelands.

The article discusses the national policies conducted by the Algerian government regarding the indigenous peoples of Algeria including the Amazigh, the Mozabite and the Tuareg and the refusal to recognize their indigenous status. Topics include the recognition of Amazigh language as national identity in the 2002 Constitution, the civil and political rights of the Amazigh people including the banning of Amazigh Democratic Party (PAD) and the demand for the return of their lands.

The paper questions the widespread perception according to which Tuaregs' relationship to citizenship would be characterized by hostility, skepticism or indifference, a perception which is often applied to transnational minorities, in particular when they are associated to a mobility culture and/or a remote territory. It focuses on both mobile and sedentary Tuaregs from Niger and Mali in their various and complex relationship to state membership, which spans legally from statelessness to multiple citizenship, and practically from semi-passive attitudes toward the state to active assimilation. The paper shows how new forms of belonging, including belonging to the state(s), have emerged among Tuaregs together with the reconfiguration of territorial and community bonds, and seeks to assess the impact of some variables, such as mobility and territorial localization, on individual and collective attitudes towards citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the plights of the nomadic Tuareg and Berabiche ethnic groups in Mali in relation to the threat of jihadi militants in North Africa. Topics include discrimination against Arabs and Tuaregs by Malians, a 2012 civil war caused by the militant group National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), and poor social and economic conditions in Mali.

The article presents a profile and discusses the work of the Nigerien fashion designer Sidhamed "Alphadi" Seidnaly. Born in Timbuktu, Mali to Tuareg parents, but a citizen of Niger, Alphadi first worked in tourism before becoming interested in fashion. The author notes the influence of both Tuareg and Nigerien dress and fashion on Alphadi's work. In addition, the author comments that Alphadi often borrows from other African aesthetic traditions, making his fashions pan-African. Other topics addressed include Alphadi's role in the haute couture industry and his participation in various editions of the Festival International de la Mode Africaine (FIMA).

In the West African Sahel, Islam induced processes of cognitive change as spaces and history were given new meaning over time. In the expanding Muslim universe, they were reconstructed with reference to the core regions of the Islamic world and the founding events of Islam. This brought issues of cognitive dissonance to the interpretation of the past, when people were simultaneously confronted with different and incompatible heuristic heritages. This paper investigates such changes in the representation of the past in the Tadmăkkăt / Ǝssuk valley of northern Mali between the Middle Ages and the 1980s. As social interactions were restructured and renegotiated among nomads from the seventeenth century onwards, some groups formulated new status claims by borrowing afresh from the Islamic repertoire. The commercial role the area had played in the Middle Ages ceased to be worth remembering. A new interpretation of the past was imposed upon the valley, and even well-dated Arabic medieval inscriptions were given new meaning. After 1980, the rise of Tuāreg nationalism fostered yet another interpretation of the past of the ancient site. Cognitive dissonance is also displayed in the descriptions of the course of the Niger provided by Leo Africanus in the 16th century, and Muḥammad Bello in the 19th.