This research relies on data from 3 rounds of interviews and focus group discussions in Borgou Department in Northern Benin: November-December 2021, March-June 2022 and October 2022.
Sampling
The analysis is based on 44 interviews and 4 focus group discussions in the 8 communes and 3 arrondissement of the Borgou Department (11 areas in total). In total, 4 interviews per village were conducted and with 2 participants per village in the FGDs (travelling to a central place).
Participants were selected through purposive sampling. First, there was a representative sample of farmers, herders, traditional rulers, and ‘villagers’. This involved 11 farmers’ association leaders, 11 herders’ association leaders, 11 kings and traditional rulers, and 11 ordinary persons.
Second, 2 types of villages were selected: villages where there were relatively many land conflicts (vis-à-vis other villages in the department) and villages with relatively few land conflicts.[39] All villages were along the official transhumance corridor that passes through the Borgou Department.
First round
The first round was conducted in November 2021 in 11 villages along the transhumance corridor[40] in the Borgou Department. Apart from being situated along the transhumance corridor, the villages were selected on the basis of the known existence of recurring farmer-herder clashes (4 villages); no or fewer reported farmer-herder clashes (4 villages), and an unknown status at the time of data collection (3 villages).
The interview questions inquired into how farmer-herder conflicts were perceived in the communities, what the existing coping mechanism was, what the role of key stakeholders in those mechanisms was, how effective they were, and how the land reform is going to influence those local mechanisms.
Data from those KII interviews were used to design the Focus Group Discussions – 2 with herders and 2 with farmers – that were conducted at the end of November 2021 in 2 villages.[41]
Second round
The second round of data collection was conducted between March and June 2022, based on the initial draft analysis of the data from the first round. It first probed into the findings through an additional literature research, 1 interview in each village (11 in total), as well as 7 semi-directed expert interviews. Interviewees in this round came from various backgrounds, including the development and non-profit sectors, government agencies, and researchers, and included 2 police officers.
Third round
In October 2022, 2 interviews were carried out in order to fill in the details about the precise role of the chiefs.
Analysis process
In the analysis process, qualitative data collected in the first round was ‘coded’ based on a codebook developed by the researchers to facilitate both a content and thematic analysis of the interview transcripts. While this approach was useful to obtain a general set of tentative answers to the research questions, relevant nuances were less accurately incorporated in that initial part of the analysis process.
That is why the researchers relied on a discourse analysis to better restore the context- or respondent-specific nuances that helped nuance and refine the data interpretation and analysis.