Pacing mobility through staying and waiting to navigate landscapes of risk: the case of Fulani mobility in West Africa

This article contributes to debates on transhumant pastoralism by extending discussions that view mobility and immobility as part of the same process. Through a trajectory ethnography among Fulani pastoralists in West Africa, the study follows moments of movement, waiting and staying during seasonal migration. Drawing on mobilities scholarship, particularly the notion of pace and the concept of riskscapes, the article shows how pastoralists adjust the pace of their mobility through practices of waiting and staying. These strategies enable pastoralists to navigate landscapes shaped by erratic rainfall, forage scarcity, insecurity and border controls. It argues that staying is not simply an absence of movement, but an integral part of mobility that unfolds at different paces. The findings identify short-term pauses in marketplaces, inter-seasonal stays in shops and long-term dwelling in huts as key practices through which pastoralists navigate emerging challenges and regulations that restrict access to resources. Across these cases, people, herds and information move in different ways yet remain interconnected within kinship ties, mobile technologies and pastoral networks. By reframing staying and waiting as integral to pastoral mobility, the article challenges binary views of mobility and immobility and shows how pastoralists manage and respond to restrictive regulations surrounding movement.