The Burkinabè State and Natural Resources Management: Internal Tensions and External Pressures

• In Event: 2180 - Section on Sociology of Development Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 03. Bureaucracy and Institutions II

Abstract

The relation between the state and customary property institutions in sub-Saharan Africa has been a tormented one: from colonial dispossession to the transformations successively imposed by developmental, socialist, and neoliberal imperatives. Burkina Faso has long constituted a paradigmatic example of this conflictual history, until the 2012 land reform. This article explores the implications of this reform, which sought to establish a new balance between state property and customary property rights: the retreat of state property claims gave way to a strengthening of customary institutions, but at the same time, the state manages to impose fundamental changes in the practice of customary land rights, through the establishment of “rural land charters”, a tool that essentially transcribes – while altering – local customary rights practices. Alterations include the conditions under which migrants may access land or the improvement of women’s land rights. Although to this day, the land reform is only partially implemented, I argue that it proposes a unique synthesis between customary rights and some elements of socialism inherited from the Sankara regime, which have survived in the political discourse and policies to this day.
This article is the outcome of a field research conducted in Burkina Faso, which consisted in archival research as well as semi-directive interviews with state administrators, academics, peasants and activists. It presents an analysis of the Burkinabè state and civil society, and the divergent interests of economic and political elites with regards to the implementation of the recent land reform.

Author

• Antoine Dolcerocca, State University of New York-Binghamton