Bordering, de-bordering, and re-bordering: Fulani mobility in West Africa’s changing climates

Abstract

This article examines how borders in the context of Fulani transhumance in West Africa are not fixed lines of demarcation, but dynamic spatiotemporal processes shaped by the shifting ecological rhythms of the dry and rainy seasons. Drawing on trajectory ethnography, we trace how Fulani pastoralists encounter, negotiate, and navigate border controls during seasonal movements–patterns which are becoming increasingly variable under climate change. Combining the concepts of borderscapes and riskscapes, the study shows how everyday practices–such as issuing vaccination papers, regulating bush-path access, and managing encampments–shift in response to erratic rainfall, fluctuating pasture availability, and land-use conflict. Our findings reveal that mobility is most restricted during the early dry and wet seasons, when Fulani movement is framed as a threat to crops or security, but becomes more normalised in the late dry season, when it is reinterpreted as beneficial for local livelihoods. However, pastoralists with greater access to documents, technologies, and social networks are more able to adapt to ecological cycles and navigate controls, leading to differentiated experiences of mobility. We conclude that bordering is deeply embedded in these shifting ecological dynamics that determine how, when, and where mobility is enforced or contested.