Schooled Tuaregs' Engagement with Mobile Pastoralism in the Agadez Region (Niger): Avoidable Sedentism and Alternative Forms of Cooperation

Abstract

The recognition that pastoralism is well-suited to conditions of variability and uncertainty is growing among academics and policy-makers. With the notion that schooled individuals with pastoralist backgrounds could influence political decisions regarding support and providing services for mobile pastoralism, this paper questions the sedentist bias among schooled Tuareg in the Agadez region. In the first part, the history of schooling for nomads in Niger is discussed in the context of schooling for mobile people. Compared to experiences elsewhere, boarding schools can either encourage sedentarisation or support mobility. The same holds in the case of service centres for mobile populations, which are making their way back to regional planning. Ideas regarding the development of schooled Tuareg from caravan and gardening backgrounds in Aïr and from pastoralist communities in the west and south of Aïr are not only influenced by schooling, but relate to different development trends and depend on individual experiences, identity and affective relation to pastoralism. While on the one hand, certain schooled Tuaregs have embraced a sedentist vision of development, those who enjoy active relationships with nomadic pastoralists nonetheless recognise the value of their customary knowledge and practices, including herd mobility. Schools could participate in transmitting a favourable image of pastoralism as a productive system for sustainable futures and thereby equip future generations of diverse policymakers to engage meaningfully with mobile pastoralists.