A pastoral women's economy in crisis : the Fulbe in central Mali

This paper compares the economy of agropastoral Fulbe women in central Mali before and after the 1973 and 1985 droughts. The position of pastoralist women depends mainly on access to livestock, and more precisely on access to milk. Rules governing access to milk vary considerably between different pastoral societies and depend on the way social relations are defined and manipulated. For each social category, access to natural resources, labour and social relations are defined differently according to Islamic, 'ndimu' (nobleness) and 'yaage' (respect, shame) rules. The author focuses on women from the following social groups: Weheebe (elite), Jallube (herdsmen) and Riimaybe (ex-slaves). She shows that the droughts had varying effects on these women, depending on their access to and use of natural and social resources, as defined within the normative frameworks of society. The fieldwork on which the paper is based was undertaken in the period 1990-1992 in Dalla, the capital of one of the Fulbe chiefdoms, and in Serma, a village of Jallube and Riimaybe. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in French and Spanish