Paper short abstract:

In Burkina Faso, artisanal gold mining extraction, rapidly expanding during the recent years, suffers from a lack of regulation at a national level. Our paper describes dynamics and mechanisms of autonomous rule-making at work in some artisanal gold mining (orpaillage) sites.

Paper long abstract:

During the last years, artisanal gold mining activities (locally designed as 'orpaillage') have undergone an exceptional growth in Burkina Faso. The number of sites has raised from a few dozens in 2003 to 800 in 2012. Currently, about one million people are working in the sector.

The juridical framework regulating artisanal mining, based on the 2003 mining code, can hardly follow the recent evolutions and stakes of the sector. Thus, artisanal gold mining is practiced in a situation of normative vacuum where 'de facto' national law is not enforced. The public debate and the political discourse often describe orpaillage as an "anarchic sector" or a "lawless world" - whereas the activity is not illegal in itself, though often practiced in conditions of illegality.

In our paper, we argue that these conditions of illegality do not imply an absence of norms and regulation. Our analysis, drawing on ethnographic material collected in sites located in Western and South-Western Burkina Faso in 2012, focuses on the mechanisms of normative production, concerning both the internal regulation of mining sites and their integration in the social and institutional local context.

Artisanal gold sites, considered by some scholars as "semi-autonomous social fields" (T. Grätz), are governed through a normative pluralism, articulated around the cohabitation between local regimes of access to natural resources, miners' behavioral patterns, and the market. Multiple registers - commercial, mystical, institutional, landownership-related - contribute to build the precarious order regulating the sites' existence and the relationship between the actors.

Paper short abstract:

In the Sahel gold mines, there are two different conceptions of environment: the one, more or less secret, of diviners and the other, more or less official, of geologists. Both of them generate coexisting but hermetic social, judicial and economic systems.

Paper long abstract:

Des recherches archéologiques font remonter l'exploitation de l'or au Sahel à millénaires. L'orpaillage est une activité traditionnelle, souvent féminine comme en pays lobi (sud-ouest du Burkina Faso) ou familiale, dansl'ensemble du Sahel et de l'Afrique en général, mais aussi individuelle. La diminution du couvert végétal (sécheresses, désertification, extension des aires agricoles, pastorales et habitées)liée à la paupérisation des zones rurales, a généré la découverte de nouveaux sites aurifères et la réactivation d'anciens lieux exploités.

Partir à la recherche de l'or, selon différentes modalités organisationnelles, traditionnelles ou récentes, est un acte social fort, spécifique, toujours lié à la divination : personne ne part chercher de l'or sans avoir auparavant consulté un devin pour ce faire. Tout le monde le fait et personne ne le dit. Et ceci est le coeur de notre communication d'aujourd'hui : des normes non dites existent dans toutes les sociétés, et, sans doute, dans tous les domaines : comment les apprend-t-on ?

Les orpailleurs suivent (intellectuellement) les devins, appelés "traceurs" en français d'Afrique, et sont suivis par les exploitants miniers : presque toutes les mines industrielles "modernes" du Sahel ont profité des découvertes des orpailleurs qui ont mis en application le savoir des devins. Devins et géologues ignorent leurs savoirs respectifs selon des logiques intellectuelles et culturelles qui, géographiquement, se suivent et ne se rencontrent pas.

Paper short abstract:

The residents of the slum, dwelling in bad living conditions, often break official norms. Still, they attribute positive meaning to these practices. The paper analyses the example of public burning of thieves - constructing the meaning of this act and ethical problems connected to it.

Paper long abstract:

Kibera slum in Nairobi is a very complex society. Among others, it is created by local practices, which are perceived as illegal actions in an official and external aspect, but the local community of Kibera interpretes them in a positive way. What is the reason for that?

To answer this question, we will examine a dramatic situation: a public executions consisting in burning a thief (namely, caught red-handed, alive, course).

The analyse will oppose the western researcher's point of view and the emic point of view.

The analysis of this situation had three aims:

(1) deconstruction of legal practices/illegal practices opposition from the anthropological point of view,

(2) the related, so called moral behaviour of Kibera's dwellers taking the law into their own hands in realities of poverty,

(3) position of researcher towards the behaviours, which were seen by her as culturally inappropriate.

All this could be expressed in the following question: is it possible to suspend "own cultural view"? If not, what can be done to execute ethical anthropologies? And what should a researcher know to take up the diagnosis of this type of phenomena?

Paper short abstract:

Based on case studies of social violence in Central African Republic, this paper analyses how popular justice is built around banal practices in the margins of the law. In a context of uncertainty, mistrust and violence, legality of standards action is constantly reinterpreted by civil society

Paper long abstract:

Partant d'une étude de cas de violence sociale en Centrafrique, dans un contexte d'anomie généralisée où le système juridique a perdu son efficacité, ce papier analyse comment la justice populaire se construit banalement autour de pratiques en marge des lois. Dans un contexte général d'incertitude, de méfiance et de violence, la légalité des normes d'action est réinterprétée en permanence par la société civile. Les citoyens, en quête de repères sociaux et culturels qu'ils ne (re)trouvent pas, tendent à redéfinir continument la légitimité de l'ordre social en fonction des rapports de force et des circonstances locales. Les processus de règlement des conflits et les formes de juridicité se révèlent alors imprécis et incertains, soulevant de manière récurrente des problèmes éthiques et moraux à propos des questions de réparation juridique. Ainsi, dans une société nominalement régulée par le droit positif de l'Etat, assiste-t-on dans les provinces à la résurgence effective de la loi du Talion dans les pratiques populaires de règlement des conflits.

Paper short abstract:

The contentious coexistence of different normative repertoires in the peripheral areas of Malian cities generates conflicting claims that develop into rival justifications between competing land rights.

Paper long abstract:

À partir d'études de cas maliens, ce papier examine les problèmes d'accès au sol et au logement de la population des quartiers périphériques des villes africaines par le biais des filières néo-coutumières de production foncière. L'examen des modalités effectives des transactions foncières montre que toutes les formes de propriété foncière sont enchâssées dans l'histoire. Bien qu'elles soient monétarisées depuis longtemps, les transactions foncières restent enchâssées dans des logiques historiques locales qui résistent toujours à une marchandisation complète de la transaction. Inversement, mais logiquement, les délégations foncières non marchandes ne sont pas gratuites. Ainsi, les relations d'hôte ou de tutorat procèdent d'un système de transmission complexe qui structure des rapports d'inégalité statutaire entre le diatigui et son hôte. Dans un contexte marqué par une compétition croissante pour la terre, la coexistence de répertoires normatifs différents favorise des revendications contradictoires qui dégénèrent en conflits. La plupart des conflits fonciers sont ainsi des « conflits de justifications » (références à des principes différents pour justifier des droits concurrents) et des « conflits de hiérarchisation » (désaccords sur la hiérarchie entre les principes de droits concurrents). La résolution des conflits est d'autant plus difficile qu'il y a désaccord sur la hiérarchie des instances d'arbitrage elles-mêmes hétérogènes.

Paper short abstract:

Following the increase of plot of land marketing in Antananarivo, most of the transactions are made up through an hybridisation between official norms and practical norms that leads to the generalization of a semi-informal land market.

Paper long abstract:

Les « mpanera tany » ou intermédiaires informelles entre le vendeur et l'acheteur jouent un rôle important dans la transaction foncière à Antananarivo. La complexité de mode de régulation foncière (système de mutations et de sécurisations foncières complexes, réglementations d'urbanisme contraignante et irréaliste, etc.) conduit au faible recours de la majorité de la population au service de notaire ou à l'irrégularité de titre foncier et de construction.

Avec la marchandisation accrue du sol, l'essor du marché foncier se fait par une hybridation entre « normes officielles » et « normes pratiques ». Ce qui conduit à l'essor du marché « semi-informel ». Ce marché domine largement le paysage du marché foncier à Antananarivo. En effet, au travers la spéculation foncière en cours autour des terrains qui se trouvent à proximité des infrastructures de transports en projets ou déjà réalisés (rocade Marais Massay, Boulevard de l'Europe, voie rapide By-pass), on s'efforce d'analyser dans un premier les interactions entre les règles normatives et les pratiques dans la régulation foncière. Comment la complexité des normes officielles fait apparaître des « normes pratiques » dans cette régulation ? Comment ces « normes pratiques » vont faire évoluer les normes officielles qui conduisent à leurs reconnaissances ? Dans un second temps, on étudiera les rôles des « mpanera tany » dans le développement du marché foncier « semi-informel ».

Paper short abstract:

Drawing from three cases of land conflicts related to land monopolizing (grabbing) by political elites, this article aims to understand the actors' game/behavior in the Burundi's land arena.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing from three cases of land conflicts related to land monopolizing (grabbing) by political elites, this article aims to understand the actors' game/behavior in the Burundi's land arena. The article illustrates the differences between formal theoretically applicable norms and the "real governance" in the settlement of land conflicts arising from the land grabbing phenomenon in Burundi, by emphasizing on three points. (1) This "real governance" creates and selects its norms within a plurality of normative frameworks. (2) If this process of norms selection is defined by the interests of powerful players, their application results from the way in which power relations are structured as the conflict progresses. (3) This game is not perceptible through public speeches. You must penetrate the unofficial sphere to be able to perceive it. Sorting out what happens in the hidden/unofficial sphere and the official sphere may also provide pathways / insights in how subordinate players could influence the course of events - agency

Paper short abstract:

The State of Senegal has an ambiguous attitude towards the normative pluralism in the family sphere. In theory, it represents an obstacle to the settling down of the law. In fact, it constitutes a resource for the State who tries to overcome his weaknesses by playing on different normative orders.

Paper long abstract:

Many normative orders are in competition to define what the legitimate model should be regarding family. Therefore, the building of Family Law has become a real challenge for the young independent African States that have to root their legitimacy.

Senegal made an original choice in 1972: the Lawmaker refused to copy the French Civil Law and introduced an option system regarding marriage and inheritance that allows people to chose between Modern law and Islamic law. Through this policy, the State of Senegal wanted to conciliate modernity and tradition and, at the end, to root the modern law within the society, thanks to an educational work.

But this work hasn't been done, which explains why the State didn't manage to confirm his central position and why Islamic law has won on the field. In face of this threat, a policy of implementation has finally been created (2004).

- How can we define this pluralism? What is the position of the State in this system?

- Regarding the position of the State, how can we analyze the "norme pratique" that arises from the field?

In a first approach, pluralism seems to reveal the incapacity of the State to impose his law. But in fact, the State is playing on the pluralism of norms to strengthen itself: through concessions done on the rules contents, the State appears as a central actor of the negotiations and is able to spill over its norm to the whole society.

Paper short abstract:

On the basis of narratives describing experience and setbacks of refugees and asylum seekers from Sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria, Congo, Mali), this paper analyses how they take risks with the European rules of asylum eligibility in order to get access to the resources that the asylum acceptance allows

Paper long abstract:

Ce papier voudrait analyser la complexité du jeu que les migrants construisent avec les règles d'éligibilité des normes européennes de l'asile. Dans beaucoup de pays africains, l'informalité avec son cortège de normes pratiques tend à se généraliser. Elle concerne autant la transgression des lois que celle des normes morales. Elle modèle les échanges et les transactions sociales au point d'être devenue une norme pratique du comportement. C'est dans ce rapport à l'informalité que se situent certains migrants africains dans leur quête de l'asile pour une vie meilleure en Europe. En effet, comment faire en sorte de correspondre aux critères d'éligibilité des normes européennes de l'asile ? Pour beaucoup d'immigrants, cela implique de bricoler quelques aménagements biographiques pour « bien correspondre » aux critères d'éligibilité. Ces « bricolages » concernent également les critères d'éligibilité pour bénéficier des prestations sociales offertes par les pays d'accueil. Ces bricolages, faits de petits mensonges et d'omissions volontaires, les placent de fait en situation de fraude à la législation sur les prestations sociales. Les critères d'éligibilité constituent en quelques sortes la « règle du jeu » avec laquelle les acteurs jouent et leur durcissement renforce la zone d'incertitude que construisent les pratiques des migrants. On se trouve ici dans une forme d'économie morale du « mensonge » qui met en regard l'impératif normatif avec les nécessités de la survie et les exigences de la morale.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the normative registers on which aspiring migrants draw to evaluate the trustworthiness and legitimacy of migration brokers, as well as how these normative registers relate to official norms of states.

Paper long abstract:

Although migration brokers are greatly admired public figures in Anglophone Cameroon, stories of duping are common. In this paper, I explore how aspiring migrants deal with the potential of deceit by migration brokers. By drawing on the cases of two aspiring migrants who failed to leave the country with the help of migration brokers, this paper unravels the socially grounded moralities that direct relations between aspiring migrants and migration brokers in Cameroon. I argue that relations between aspiring migrants and migration brokers cannot be understood through the lens of a Western European legal consciousness, but needs to be analysed through the moralities that shape the economy of departure. My paper develops an alternative way to conceptualise the credibility of migration brokers - not in terms of the supposed 'legal' or 'illegal' nature of their work, but in terms of locally operated distinctions between dokimen, feymen and big men. Starting from emic terminology, this paper proposes an evaluation scale of the 'powers' of migration brokers that goes beyond statist distinctions between smuggling and trafficking. In doing so, I question the relative place of state-enforceable law as opposed to the binding rules and customs generated in the social field of migration brokerage. The paper is based on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Anglophone Cameroon between 2007 and 2010 and illuminates the work of two NGOs that engage in so-called "travel consultations".

Paper short abstract:

Through the examination of the terms of disputes and conflicts settlement in Kinshasa's Great Market, this paper will analyse how social actors manipulate the plurality of norms governing their daily interactions.

Paper long abstract:

Abstract: Through the examination of the terms of disputes and conflicts settlement in Kinshasa's Great Market, this paper will analyse how social actors manipulate the plurality of norms governing their daily interactions. Indeed, commercial transactions are done on short term credit and the agreements are not written. Therefore, the effective rules of their enactment are ceaselessly readjusted according to the micro-variations of the overall trading context. This situation, that renders interpersonal agreements precarious and commercial transactions uncertain, is particularly favourable to cheatings and defaults that end in disputes and conflicts. These conflicts highlight the fragility of the informal regulation process implemented by traders to make their business possible.

Paper short abstract:

In Senegal, official and practical norms are daily interconnected throughout the repression of a road breach: the inappropriate car parking. Although the repression of this infraction is partly illegally assumed by drivers' associations, they pay a great attention in preserving a legal aspect in doing so.

Paper long abstract:

In Senegal, the "maraudage" or the "maraude" design, for the public transportation drivers, the action of boarding passengers outside bus stations. The maraude has thus been officially identified as a breach in the highway code as well as in ministerial decrees. It is called "inappropriat car parking" or "unfair competition". Nevertheless, the repression of the maraudage is not assumed by the Police officers but by the representatives of drivers' associations. In this case, the respect of official norms is in fact illegaly assumed by a non-official organization. Hence, how do the representatives of these drivers' associations legitimate themselves on the roadside among administrative representatives in order to tax the drivers? My hypothesis is that, however illegal their practice can be, the action of the drivers' association is allowed thanks to the close relationships they maintain with the official norm and with the practices of its representatives (Police officer, municipal collector, etc...). The representatives of the drivers' associations are playing on this ambiguity to legitimate themselves on the roadside. The struggle against maraudage happens on the margin of the cities, in spaces saturated with administration (I). In these spaces, a solidarity that transcends professionnal cultures appears between the drivers' associations and administrative representatives (II). These two entities develop a similar relationship to the user (III).

Paper short abstract:

This paper shows that the Algerian public health administration did not prohibit health personnel to create their own "area of uncertainty" in a global socio-political context favouring an administration dominated by a protean bureaucracy.

Paper long abstract:

La question des normes professionnelles est appréhendée à partir des logiques sociales qui sont celles des professionnels et des gestionnaires de la santé. Nous essayerons de montrer que la centralisation administrative n'a en aucune façon interdit aux acteurs de la santé, d'élaborer leur "propre espace de jeu" (De Certeau, 1990). En effet, l'injonction administrative et politique semble au contraire renforcer les logiques de transgression et de contournement des normes professionnelles, particulièrement dans un contexte sociopolitique qui a privilégié une organisation dominée par une bureaucratie difforme fonctionnant moins à la norme qu'aux relations personnelles. Il s'agit donc d'indiquer les multiples tactiques des acteurs de la santé, non seulement pour se protéger face aux différents pouvoirs formels, mais aussi pour constituer leur territoire qui leur permet de déployer leurs propres normes pratiques. Elles leur semblent "justes" et nécessaires face au flou organisationnel qui interdit toute possibilité de santions positives ou négatives en l'absence de toute légitimité sociale reconnue et instituée dans le champ de la santé.

Paper short abstract:

The present paper tries first to give an overview on the remains of originally colonial laws in order to discuss perspectives of legal re-adaptation.

Paper long abstract:

As every society, the African ones where based on their own laws until the arrival of colonialists. The history of contemporary African law is closely linked to colonization, even if the current laws are not exclusively influenced by the "West". The colonial law has been a very effective instrument in order to stabilize the power of the colonialists. Thus, the "Code Napoléon" of 1804 was not only an ideological means of political domination but also a means of acculturation and assimilation refuting diversity. The result was the neglect of African laws and a kind of legal dualism: on the one side the occidental law based on liberalism and individualism, on the other one African law based on oral sources and a communitarian idea of society. The neglect of African law continued until the 1970-ees when some pays started reforms in order to adapt their legislation to traditional African law. Some sensible aspects, as for example law concerning personal liberty or penal law, are until today closely linked to the "Code Napoléon". Nowadays, legislation and codification is an important issue, as the neglect of African law has to be considered as a cultural denial which contributes to the crises legal adaptability and validity of the post-independence. Currently, the task is to elaborate a legislation based on typical African law. The present paper tries first to give an overview on the remains of originally colonial laws in order to discuss perspectives of legal re-adaptation.