Violent clashes between Fulani and Dogon have recently escalated in the Seeno plains in central Mali. After failing to defeat a “jihadist” insurgency dominated by Fulani, the Malian army has sponsored and trained a Dogon militia, which has systematically attacked Fulani villages, and again caused counterattacks. In addition, internal conflicts within Fulani and Dogon society have emerged. This demonstrates the complexities of the current crisis in Mali and how simplistic narratives about its causes are unhelpful. It also shows how views of the enemy as “terrorists” or “jihadists” are dangerous and able to further fuel violent conflicts.

At 4 am on the 23rd March 2019, an armed group of Dogon traditional hunters1 attacked and killed 175 Fulani villagers in Ogossagou village in the Seeno plains in central Mali. About half of the casualties in this horrid attack were children. It immediately made international news headlines and was reported as another example of African “ethnic violence”. But, since Dogon primarily identify as farmers and Fulani2 as pastoralists,3 the violence also was presented as resulting from classic tensions between farmers and herders. Media reports often add that these old conflicts are exacerbated by climate change and population growth leading to increased natural resource scarcity.4

Ogossagou village in fact consists of two separated sub-villages – one Fulani (Ogossagou Peul) and one Dogon (Ogossagou Dogon). From the 19th century Fulani military power dominated the plains and chased the Dogon in the area back to the nearby escarpment where most of the Dogon population lived. Those who did not want to abandon their farms had to accept to become integrated into Fulani society as Rimaybe – “slaves” or “servants” of the Rimbe (Fulani of higher status). After the French colonial power took control over the area early in the 20th century and especially after Mali’s independence in 1960, Dogon gradually moved down again from the nearby escarpment to farm on the plains below (Petit, 1998). Dogon had moved up to the escarpment to escape Othman don Fodio Islamic conquests by the sword.

On 14th February 2020, Ogossagou was tragically again attacked by Dogon militia. This time 31 Fulani villagers were killed. These two assaults are, however, not unique, although the former stands out with its high number of casualties. According to data from ACLED (Armed Conflict Locations and Event Data), 60% of deaths caused by violence in Mali in 2019 were found in this dry savanna belt below the Dogon Escarpment and Plateau (called the Seeno, see Figure 1) (cited by International Crisis Group, 2020).5

In this article, we aim to explain the background of this violence between Dogon and Fulani in central Mali. Our point of departure is that violence needs to be seen in its wider political-economic and historical context with a focus on access and control over land and natural resources. In such a study of the materiality of natural resources governance and politics, the dialectic of actors and land represent the main object of study. This type of materialist political ecology moves, however, beyond studying conflicts as simple causal chains with resource scarcity having negative consequences for livelihoods and again leading to migration and conflicts (Peluso and Watts, 2001). While climate change and population growth may play a role, in addition to religion in the case of jihadist violence, we argue that the current conflicts in the Sahel can only be fully understood by including a political ecology framing with a focus on the material politics of land governance in a historical and political economic context (Benjaminsen and Svarstad, 2021).

As a pioneer in studies of the political ecology of farmer-herder conflicts, Bassett (1988) saw these conflicts as “responses in context”, while Turner (2004) also used political ecology in his critique of the scarcity narrative that widely informs perceptions of farmer-herder conflicts in the Sahel, and stressed that these conflicts should be understood as more than just resource conflicts. In a similar vein, Benjaminsen and Ba (2009) studied a long-standing farmer-herder conflict in the inland delta of the Niger river in Mali, with a focus on the power relations associated with the rent seeking and marginalization that fueled such conflicts. Furthermore, Benjaminsen et al. (2012) combined a study of another farmer-herder conflict in the inland Niger delta with a quantitative analysis of 820 land use conflicts in central Mali during 1992–2009 correlated with rainfall trends over the same period. The analysis gave little substance to claims that climate variability is an important driver of these conflicts. Instead, the study argued that the main causes of conflicts were agricultural encroachment impeding livestock mobility, a political vacuum during the transition from military rule to democracy in the early 1990s that provided space for opportunistic behavior among rural actors, and rent seeking among government officials. Also, a number of other case studies from African drylands have found that the scarcity lens leads to a narrow reading of farmer-herder clashes – e. g. Hagberg (2005), Moritz (2006), Witsenburg and Adano (2007), Kevane and Gray (2008), Benjaminsen, Maganga, and Abdallah (2009), and Akov (2017).

Crisis everywhere

The way forward in handling Fulani Crisis is this.

Since Fulani are nomads in Nigeria, and they gloat in their lack of fixed residence. (Killing fixed residence farmers and fleeing into the forest)


Next time when they murder Nigerian farmers.

Southern Farmers should aggregate funds and send to the Dogons. Arming them with resources to visit the Fulani fixed residence for reprisals.

With this, the Fulanis will learn the equitable nature of violence.

Infact we must set up a GoFundMe for the Dogons tribe to raise $1,000,000 for arms purchase.