Within the upcoming European Conference on African Studies (ECAS, Prague, June 25-28), the Prin research group “Socio-Environmental Crises and Local Responses in African Drylands: Lessons from the Global South (SECA)” is organizing a session entitled “Destabilizing Western Visions on African Drylands: socio-ecologies, narratives, practices.”
The portrayal of African socio-ecosystems as “degraded lands” has characterized Europe-Africa relations from the colonial era to the present day. Colonial powers have looked at African arid zones essentially through the interpretative framework of eco-scarcity, which posits that overpopulation and overgrazing are the root causes of desertification. This view has survived decolonization and still informs much of today’s development and environmental conservation policies, producing projects aimed at controlling human and non-human populations that systematically ignore silvo-pastoral territorial logics.
Since the 1980s, however, some authors have questioned this approach, highlighting its ideological nature and shifting the focus to the capacity of traditional socio-environmental systems to respond to changes in arid areas. The session will draw from these perspectives, which have deconstructed the paradigm of arid zones as “uncultivated lands,” in order to critically read the new “green” narratives of major institutional actors. In this sense, Sahelian spaces offer fundamental insights for exploring pluriversal visions that could inform other ways of thinking about territory in arid zones, destabilizing dominant narratives.