This study is about dispute settlement in the Comoé Province, Burkina Faso. It focuses on ways in which four principal categories of actors-Karaboro agriculturalists, Fulbe agro-pastoralists, Tiefo Masters of the Earth, and local government officials-handle disputes related to landed resources. The study is based on four years of multi-sited fieldwork between 1988 and 1996, as well as studies of literature and archival material. To understand processes of peace and justice in dispute settlement, the study provides detailed accounts of internal socio-political and cultural dynamics within and between the main groups of actors as well as an ethnography of two cases of violent conflict. The main argument is that dispute settlement prevails in a social field of relations and rights. It is, on the one hand, a matter of mobilising key social relations in order to promote peace, to forgive and make future co-habitation possible. Host-stranger relations as well as those of neighbourhood and friendship are, for example, put to the fore. On the other hand, it is also a matter of claiming rights and attend to what different actors perceive as justice. Rights are articulated in different organisational structures such as the Land and Tenure Reorganisation, the Trade Union of Graziers and the Hunting Organisation. While external actors claim rights in public discourse, in practice they are likely to mobilise relations to 'arrange an affair'. Local actors promote ideologically the maintenance of social relations (for peace and prosperity) in dispute settlement, but look for their rights in practice. Disputes are thus located between peace and justice, but in the shadow of violent conflict. The study concludes that dispute settlement between Karaboro agriculturalists and Fulbe agro-pastoralists should not only be understood as a political run by different actors to gain in disputes, but needs to be situated within the domain of what is regarded as morally and socially 'acceptable' to public opinion beyond ethnic and socio-political boundaries.
Diss. Uppsala : Uppsala universitet, 1998