Conflicts Between Farmers and Herders in West Africa: Bibliometric and Thematic Analysis of the Literature

Conflicts between farmers and herders are an issue of growing concern in several West African countries, including Benin.A bibliometric and thematic analysis of the literature was conducted to assess the contribution of scientific research to this topic.A search for scientific articles addressing the subject in English and French was conducted using the Scopus database.The study examined 299 documents retrieved from Scopus, ultimately selecting 212 articles that focused on the causes, manifestations, consequences, dynamics, and management strategies regarding conflicts between farmers and herders.The database of selected articles was then imported into VOSviewer for bibliometric analysis.The results show that these 212 articles were published between 1994 and 2026 across 148 different journals.A growing interest in the subject among researchers in the West African sub-region was observed starting in 2019.The case studies reviewed established that researchers from Nigeria (86 articles) and Ghana (25 articles) were the most productive and influential, accounting for 27.22% and 7.11% of citations, respectively.Benin's output was relatively low, with 10 articles and 3.72% of citations.Bibliometric analysis identified the journals African Security and GeoJournal as having a significant impact on the scientific community regarding this topic in recent years.This analysis made it possible to explore the scope of the literature on the subject and to identify aspects of these conflicts that have received limited attention, such as their complexities (seven occurrences), the measures envisaged by leaders for their prevention or management (five occurrences), and the perceptions held by the involved parties regarding the various measures implemented by leaders (three occurrences).