Space, Place and Identity

Florian Köhler is currently a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. He is also trained as a practitioner in peace-building and conflict-resolution and worked for the German Development Service (DED) in Haiti and for the Civil Peace Service (ZFD) in Niger, Benin and Burkina Faso.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsNotes on Language and TranscriptionsIntroductionPart I: Taariihi: Mobility and Group Formation in Historical PerspectiveChapter 1. The Wodaabe in Niger: Structure as Historical ProcessChapter 2. A History of Migrations: Placemaking Processes in Diachronic PerspectivePart II: Duuniyaaru: Spaces of Social InteractionChapter 3. Inter-ethnic Relations: The Balance of Integration and ConflictChapter 4. A Meta-ethnic Social Space: The Continuum of Identity and DifferencePart III: Ladde: Transformations in the Pastoral RealmChapter 5. From Nomadic Pastoralism to Sedentarization and Economic DiversificationChapter 6. Consequences of the New Spatial StrategiesPart IV: Si’ire: Appropriating the CityChapter 7. New Resources in the Urban SpaceChapter 8. Social Interaction in the CityChapter 9. The Translocal Dimension of Urban MigrationPart V: Gassungol Wodaabe: The Translocal Network of the Ethnic GroupChapter 10. The Translocal Community and Social ReproductionChapter 11. Cultural Change and the Reproduction of DifferenceConclusionReferencesIndex

“Köhler integrates a meticulous analysis of recent developments related to urban migrations and rapidly advancing rural sedentarization in a general description of the relationship between various forms of mobility, social organization, and identity formation among the Wodaabe and thus provides an overall analysis of structural stability and change…[His] work can be recommended to all those who are interested in pastoral nomadism and the societies of the West African Sahel region. It is also an inspiring contribution to recent debates in social science mobility research.” • Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute“…a substantial addition to the body of literature that examines ongoing transformations in the lifestyles of contemporary nomadic Fulɓe societies. Its central thesis, which stresses the translocal networking ability of nomadic peoples, sheds valuable light on the adaptive strategies required to cope with increasing global resource scarcity.” • Nomadic Peoples“A highly welcome contribution to research on mobility in West Africa and more particularly in the West-African Sahel region in as far as it focusses on the complexity of mobility phenomena in a pastoral nomadic group.” • Elisabeth Boesen, Université du Luxembourg“This is a wonderful and deeply detailed study of a group of Wodaabe in Niger. The author’s descriptions of a sub-group of Gojanko’en and their various strategies of mobility, dispersion, and cohesion is absorbing and clearly based on solid fieldwork.” • Wendy Wilson-Fall, Oeschle Center for Global Education