“Boussan for life”: An extra-legal reform carried out by indigenous landowners in Wè country (Bangolo Department, Côte d’Ivoire)

Résumé 0

Land disputes have been politicised in the department of Bangolo (Côte d’Ivoire) for the past thirty years. Young people with only limited access to land are in a conflict with migrant workers from the North (Ivorians and Burkinabè), who have played a major role in the development of cash crops. After years of more or less forced transfers of land to non-indigenous people during the final years of the civil war (2009-2012), indigenous landowners are attempting to transform social and land ownership relations into a contract known as “boussan for life”. The process of formalising and implementing this process falls within an extra-legal framework that has been handed over to notables and young members of the indigenous population following the land reform of 13 October 2019.