This work gives an actor-oriented interpretation of current dynamics of social change in the Sahel, in a context of international migrations (soninke and haalpulaar countries). Because of the ruin of precolonial social formations, these societies have reoriented their economies on migration and, in the 60-70s, migration to France. Migration remittances became at the heart of the regulation of domestic economy. Social dynamics are now focalized on it. Because of their amount, the control of monetary transfers has become at stake. It has been achieved by notables, through the village communities of migrants. At the village level, income from migration is now the key-point of household economic strategies, to accumulate capital as well as to escape from desaccumulation. This gives agriculture a new position in domestic economy, and thus even in Fuuta Toro, where State investments for irrigation created local production capacities. But this is a pragmatic answer to the extraversion of local economy, and not a mechanical product of it. Implemeting collective equipements in the village and dealing with familial economic dependancy, the development projects funded by migrants are also collective answers to it. In migration as well as in villages, local associations appear to be new patterns of collective action on public affairs. They are also arenas for political competition and on the meaning of the word "development".
International migrations, agrarian change and associations dynamics among Sooninnke and Haalpulaaren (1975-1990). Essay in anthropology of social change and development