The breath and the cage. Re-imagining the Sahel through mapping

This short chapter presents a cartographic synthesis of the main aspects investigated in the second part of this volume. It highlights unusual ways of tackling the representation of the Sahel, following an approach that can be described as metaphorical. The intention is to emphasise, on one hand, the on-the-move and fluid dimension of the Sahel's large, expansive spaces and, on the other hand, how infrastructures, ways of organising the territory and of making it productive, constrain the need for movement within rigid and coercive cages.