Contenu du sommaire : Populations et enclavement en Afrique

The south Senegal and south Chad haveevery signs of land – locked areas : space ruggedness, obstacles to traffics, deficient infrastructures of communication, distance to economic and political centres. Nevertheless, land – locking appears in different ways and to different scales in each of those areas. Their situations are far different. This paper proposes a comparison between a very land – locked region of a non land – locked country (Senegal) and a well – Integrated region in a very land – locked country(Chad). The notion of land – locking, and the links between this notion, territory and development will be tackled.

Namibian territory has been structured according to a logic of enclosing during all its colonial history. The different powers,particularly the apartheid regime, neverstopped imposing their territorial ideology based on the idea of partitioning and exclusion of the African populations, at the scaleof the country as well as in the urban centres. Sometimes laid down by force, some-times wanted by communities seeking land and territorial attachment, the ethnical enclosing has not only shaped the space, butit has also profoundly structured the identities. Since 1990 and the attainment of independence of Namibia, the territory has been restructured and the boundaries of the former enclaves officially abolished. But the enclosing is enduring, both in space through the permanency of socio-economic disparities and in the collective representations ofgroups of population for whom it is still a founding element of their identity

Installation of the Dogon people on the Bandiagara plateau permitted, during a long time, to protect them from the dangers of the surrounding plain. The enclosement favoured the development of a strong cultural identity and contributed to intensive agricultural practices. Today, agricultural expansion in the plains, near and far migrations, and the opening of original place for tourism are factors of important changes.

Geographical isolation or remoteness results from problems of distance and discontinuity. A place can be remote or enclosed if it is isolated by space around it or if it is far away from the centre to which it is connected. This notion of remoteness or isolation also depends on the territoriality of the societies concerned. Mauritanian people belong to tribes. A given tribe is present in different places, so that it links those places to one another. Spatial discontinuity between places is thus counterbalanced by social continuity. There are two kinds of places. The first concerns localities where tribes gather inland. The second type concerns cities where the State and other tribes meet. The degree of isolation of a given tribe depends also on its ability to form connections between places and to occupy different places at the same time. Seen from this angle, the notion of isolation or remoteness can contribute to improve the definition of nomadism.

In 1991, the highly centralized state of Ethiopia was transformed into a federal state with large transfers of administrative powers to the regional states. At the same time, Eritrea gained de facto its independence and Ethiopia became landlocked. Ethiopia was under the rule of the provisional government that had created 14 regional states. The number of these states was later reduced to 9 by the constitution of 1995. The constitution has also created two metropolis that are directly accountable to the federal level. These metropolis are Addis-Ababa, the capital city, and Dere-Dawa the second largest city of the country. The two cities are hence federal urban enclosures inside the regional states. By considering the case of these two urban enclosures, three level of analysis are proposed in the following paper. First, the evolution of territorial and political aims are examined by analysing their strives to open up Ethiopia especially by means of cities' development. The emergence of the regional states and their identities' recognition in the newly established federation are also studied so as to assess the real impact of the current decentralization process. At last, the new stakes linked to the federal cities in the context of the Ethiopian cities network are analysed. The evolution of this network seems to be a new way of tackling the problem of being a landlocked state for contemporary Ethiopia.

The article concerns the recent and unexpected market garden specialization of the savannas. This specialization is partially directed to the supply of Abidjan, even though the region is quite remote from the urbanized coast and by this fact considered as enclosed. The study is based on a field work realized from 1999 till 2001 with market-gardeners distributed on either sides of the border between Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso. The fine analysis of the practices of the actors invites to renew the notion of enclosing, too often likened in the case of the West Africa's savannas to their simple estrangement of the coast and its metropo lises. The article proposes a broader meaning, relative and especially combined notions of enclosing and opening-up accord ing to the scales of observation, the actors and the frame of analysis. Choices and behaviours of the actors prove that the enclosing is certainly a complex concept because changing, according to innovative and evolutionary endogenous practices both by internal transformations of the rural societies and in answer to external determinants in witch these societies take part, as the increasing internationalization of the economies.

Confronting the notion of isolation with the social and spatial realities of a Saharan oasis allows to question the objects to which relates this notion while exposing its relative character. The feeling of isolation which the populations in an oasis of the North Niger have, seems directly connected with the link between their intentions of mobility and their capacities to be mobile. The situation of isolation in which some migrants are in the heart of Sahara shows that the discontinuities which limit human mobility, by amplifying distances to cover, can be material, symbolic or imaginary

The purpose of this text is to bring to light the recent transformations to the local trading markets in Abidjan. The passage shows us the situation is deteriorating and that the new markets, currently under construction and controlled by BOT management, are becoming commercial strongholds. In a context of political and economical crisis, this article analyses the implications of the current situation in the markets.

Small-sized towns are an interesting case study for the notion of spatial enclosing. They are inserted in urban networks, in dif- ferent ways and they have a key function in polarising both urban and rural territories. At the local scale, they often present ele- ments of proximity which favour social integration. The analysis of two small towns in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal is a good way to underline the role of both private and public actors in the evolution of enclosing situations, in a broad context of administrative and managing redefinition, in the post-apartheid area. What can be the place of this urban scale in the newly created territories ?

The aim of this article is to illustrate the links between daily travel and spatial segregation in sub-Saharan Africa cities. In a context of rapid demographic growth, unplanned urban sprawl and increasing poverty of the public sector and the population, in Dar Es Salaam and Dakar, like in other large African cities, trips between distant districts are problematic. The case studies highlight differential access to the urban space between the “confirmed pedestrians” and the users of motorised means of transport, and between the residents from the well-off planned and accessible districts and those from the poor unplanned and inaccessible ones. Deficiencies in the supply of basic facilities and in the accessibility to the neighbourhoods reinforce the negative impact of low incomes on daily travel, and encourage the confinement of populations in their neighbourhood with the risk of increasing urban poverty and segregation.

At the outskirt of Senegal, the «three borders» area (Senegal, Mali, Mauritania) is isolated from the other parts of the country by weak communications. Effects are felt on trade, on dynamism of villages and small cities and also on migration, that is more consequent at the departure than at arrival. Without determined policy in this area, the distance from Dakar and fromWest Senegal remains synonymous with insulation and enclosing in a negative perception. However, international emigration lets possibility for villagers to locally reinvest in telecommunications, basic social services, and contribute to reduce enclosing of the space of the «three borders»