Cattle Economies and Social Reconfigurations in the Urban Space

Based on extensive fieldwork in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, anthropologist Barbara Löhde explores how urban residents organize their livelihoods through cattle keeping. Extending the study of mobile pastoralists in African savannah lands into urban and peri-urban spaces, she shows how livestock husbandry in West African cities fuels new forms of entrepreneurship, income generation, and food security. Through meticulous long-term observation and in-depth interviews with Fulani pastoralists, Mossi civil servants, and urban entrepreneurs, Löhde reveals how market dynamics reshape labor, gender roles, and social relations, while climate change and rapid urbanization transform pastoral knowledge and practice. Her study highlights the adaptability and diversity of West African livestock systems and the ways sociocultural norms intersect with economic change. Bridging themes of urbanization, ethnicity, entrepreneurship, and gender, this book offers fresh insights into how cattle economies in the Sahel are being reconfigured in the 21st century—and why they matter for food sovereignty and food security.