Socio-histoire des bissa de cote d’ivoire: parcours migratoire, gouvernance socio-foncière et identité à Garango (Bouafle)

In spite of their colonial migration, and their naturalization in use of the decree n° 95-850, of September 26, 1995, naturalization of the people, born in former Haute Volta and installed in Ivory Coast before the independence, the Bissa still appear as Burkinabe in Ivory Coast and as Ivorians in Burkina Faso. Based on qualitative and quantitative data, produced in Garango, a village created by the Bissa near the city of Bouaflé (Central-West Ivory Coast), at the confluence of the socio-political and economic interests of the colonizer, then of the Gouro (their indigenous guardians) and other peoples of Ivory Coast, this study questions (i) the real identity of the Bissa people, (ii) its level of social, economic and political integration, and (iii) its relations with the Ivorian and non-Ivorian peoples. Settled in Garango (Ivory Coast) in the mid-1930s, the Bissa became Ivorians. They have their villages and socio-political organizations modeled on their villages of origin in Upper Ivory Coast (Burkina Faso). They are integrated into the political and economic game, at the local (Bouaflé) and national levels. Accused of perpetuating a Burkinabe immigration and being at the base of "theft" of nationality by peoples arriving in their villages of Bouaflé, Bissa can hijack prejudices and stereotypes by opening socially, politically and economically to all of Ivory Coast, by equidistance of political parties and total attachment to the Ivorian nation.