An Environmental History Of Literary Resilience: "Environmental Refugees" In The Senegal River Valley

This article explores the relations between an environmental history of the Senegal River Valley (Mali, Senegal, Mauritania), Pulaar literature (oral and written) and the processes of migration. To what extent can literature contribute to furthering both the international debates surrounding "refugees" and literary criticism? The article's hypothesis is that migrations have produced a pendulum effect, promoting an engagement with a literary resilience in which the Pulaar language is invested with a vital, ecological stake. It asks how this geographical imagination can establish a system of alternative laws, becoming a lever of resistance and adaptation in the face of the trauma of dispossession and exile Why are decisive historical moments of regional and international migratory movement coupled with a difficulty in living off the land (and a sentiment of dispossession) concomitant with greater literary output and activism?