Conceptualising eco-violence: moving beyond the multiple labelling of water and agricultural resource conflicts in the Sahel

Ezenwa E. Olumba, Bernard U. Nwosu, Francis N. Okpaleke and Rowland Chukwuma Okoli

Third World Quarterly, 2022, vol. 43, issue 9, 2075-2090

Abstract: The conflict over water and agricultural resources within the Sahel of Africa has led to the destruction of lives, property and nature for decades. The extant practice is to label these conflicts with multiple names and conceptualise them as single-issue events. This article illustrates this practice further and highlights some issues associated with such approaches. Existing terms for these conflicts in Africa’s Sahel region are primarily linked to people’s occupations and ethnic identities, distracting efforts to gain a deeper understanding. This view obscures the broad dimensions of these struggles among those competing for water and agricultural resources. Thus, this paper remedies the conceptual gaps by recommending ‘eco-violence’ as an umbrella term for these conflicts and foregrounding the emerging trends of eco-violence within the Sahel region. By referring to these conflicts as eco-violence, we can foster a more inclusive perspective that incorporates social and environmental injustices and political failures as factors related to these conflicts.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01436597.2022.2083601 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:43:y:2022:i:9:p:2075-2090

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ctwq20

DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2022.2083601

Access Statistics for this article

Third World Quarterly is currently edited by Shahid Qadir

More articles in Third World Quarterly from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().