Land and Water Rights in the Inner Niger Delta: Between Negotiation and Conflict

Based on ethnographic analysis, in this chapter our aim is to document overlapping sets of rules, practices and authorities concerning the management of land and water. With an emphasis on the legal dimension of social relations, we enquire about topics such as the exercise of legitimate authority, the negotiation of rights and duties and the resolution of disputes. Special attention is paid to socio-political changes connecting the territory of the Inner Delta to more extensive projects of state formation (yet still unfinished), from the 19th-century precolonial empire of Macina to the more recent state of unrest and insecurity provoked by armed groups throughout the region over the last decade.