Does Decentralisation Serve Everyone? The Struggle for Power in a Malian Village

Abstract

The case study of a political conflict with several faces and stages in a small village in southern Mali shows how decentralisation works in a community that has emerged as a heterogeneous entity. Decentralisation may have intensified the struggle for power among the autochthonous population by providing room for manoeuvre in order to strengthen or restore local positions of power. As a result of the conflict, the village population has become polarised. The real victims, however, are the migrants who settled on the village territory and who are now finding themselves chased off their borrowed fields for choosing the ‘wrong side’ in conflict.