L'appropriation de l'espace, un enjeu politique. Pour une histoire du peuplement

Extract

Parallèlement à l'édification et à la consolidation d'un État, processus qui peut largement s'étaler dans le temps, s'effectue l'appropriation d'un espace, marquée par l'apparition à des moments divers, dans des parties du territoire jusque-là faiblement peuplées, de nouveaux villages. Ceux-ci reçoivent un statut qui les intègre, à un niveau déterminé, dans la hiérarchie politique globale.

Ce processus d'occupation de l'espace se développe, lui aussi, dans la longue durée. Dans le cas présent, celui des Anyi du Ndenye, au sud-est de la Côte-d'Ivoire, on est en mesure d'en suivre les étapes pendant les deux siècles qui séparent la première implantation, historiquement connue, de groupes d'émigrants (2e quart du xvme siècle) et la conquête coloniale (fin du xixe siècle).

Summary

A reading of the history of populating, that is to say, of the process of the creation of new human settlements and their variations, is a privileged means for bringing out the unequal forces of political units or hereditary groups in competition. In the case studied here of the Anyi-ndenye space on the south east of the Ivory Coast these variations are of two orders. In effect, if the appropriation of space by means of the creation of new villages develops unequally over time (phases of expansion are succeeded by periods of stagnation and, indeed, regression), it is also the case that over the course of the same period certain parts of the territory in question were rapidly populated while in others the number of villages did not progress. To these contrasts ecological factors are, by the way, not unrelated.

It is as if a strategy of the occupation of space was set into motion by political units or hereditary groups with unequal success. This strategy skilfully used, and sometimes turned around, the possibilities offered by the System of kinship. The “winners” in this competition were those who had the resources of this political strategy, in other words put, those who accumulate men in sufficient number to maintain their expansion.