Une justice foncièrement autre ?

Abstract

This article aims at questioning the power dynamics in the region of Upper Guinea, in Guinea, starting from an analysis of the increasing resort to the national justice system in land disputes. Besides the growth of artisanal and industrial gold mining, the pressure on the land and the inhabitants of this region has worsened with the multiplication of property deeds. Based on a twenty-month ethnographic work, this article first analyzes an interpersonal land conflict, and finishes with an emblematic case of land grabbing in the area, concerning the town of Kintinian. This article proposes an analysis at multiple scales to question the notions of dispossession and legal property in the context of land grabbing.

Keywords

• land grabbing
• power and justice
• relationship between people and the state
• gold mining
• Guinea