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Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I develop an ethnographically grounded analysis of the “Sahel crisis” through the lens of decolonization, as to argue that narratives of decolonization simultaneously articulate legitimate claims for national sovereignty, while hiding class struggles and socio-economic inequalities.

Paper long abstract:

Over the last years, we have seen growing discrepancies between three main discourses on the Sahel crisis: first, global narratives about the crisis dominating in the so-called “international community”; second, national public debates and social media conversations in Sahelian countries; and, third, lived experiences of “crisis” amongst ordinary citizens. Such discrepancies have become particularly articulated with the series of coups d’état in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. The spreading of terrorist movements and the high number of Internally Displaced Persons, coupled with the ongoing geopolitical transformations, have challenged many people’s livelihoods in the Sahel. A powerful narrative in national public debates and social media conversations is that related to decolonization. Yet the urge to end relationships with France, in particular, has come to produce two different forms of narratives: a leftist popular struggle putting the anti-imperialist and class struggle to the fore, on the one hand, and a rather rightwing, populist “pan-African” agenda, on the other. In this paper, I develop an ethnographically grounded analysis of the “Sahel crisis” through the lens of decolonization. Methodologically, the paper draws on long-term fieldwork in Burkina Faso and Mali in the midst of popular protests, and on regular reading of media outlets in the two countries. The key argument is that narratives of decolonization simultaneously articulate legitimate claims for sovereignty, and national independence, while hiding class struggles and socio-economic inequalities. Unpacking the Sahel crisis through decolonization narratives is a way to explore facets of the “crisis” that do not emerge in global narratives.