Emerging peri-urban voices in Africa: Bamako through the lens of land conflicts in online media

Résumé 0

Since Bamako has doubled its urbanised area in the last two decades, what interest do Malian public opinions have in the urban peripheries? At the same time, new online media platforms have been able to address sensitive topics with a growing audience thanks to connected mobile phones. This abundant material confirms the hypothesis that the peri-urban environment, although widely ignored by national policies and categories, is gaining importance. Most of these articles point to socio-economic tensions. Land issues, in particular, generate many local troubles and are related to state governance, which has become unsecured and widely criticised over the period. Narratives are on a discursive continuum with the claims and denunciations raised by these conflicts, following diversified political subjectivities. This paper deals with the statistical textual analysis implemented with the ALCESTE tool based on the proximity of words to each other. It measures the lexical classes resulting from four online platforms. Using geographical categories for assessing the last set of articles, it compares the ongoing urban sprawl with the power interplay more specific to the already constituted city and those currently inflaming the rural communities.