Vol. 4 · No. 1 · 2000
Management Of Conflicts Over Pastures And Fields Among The Baggara Arabs Of The Sudan BeltUlrich Braukämper
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Theories of conflicts have intensively been debated since Durkheim and the Manchester School of British Social Anthropology. Basic materials in this discussion are particularly rich in cases where people of different economic orientations co-exist, for example mobile livestock-keepers and sedentary peasants. In the relations of these two categories of people disputes over pastures and cultivated fields are the most common sources of conflict. Quite often they involve the courts of their states or even culminate in violent clashes. It can be assumed, however, that in most cases regulations of the local customary law are able to solve the respective problems. This was confirmed by personal observations of the relations between semi-nomads and farmers in the eastern Sudanic zone.