The Bonte-Brisebarre grant was launched in 2026 by friends and colleagues of Professor Pierre Bonte and Professor Anne-Marie Brisebarre. This grant honors their crucial contributions to the field of pastoralism studies and their work in service of education and research. The grant aims to support the fieldwork of students enrolled in Anthropology Master’s degrees who are from and/or work in the Sahel, North Africa, the Middle East and the Mediterranean. This is an annual grant — please read more about this initiative and tell your students about it: https://nomadicpeople.info/new-graduate-student-grant-opportunity-the-bonte-brisebarre-grant/
We are very happy to announce the ex-aequo winners of the first edition of the Bonte-Brisebarre Grant. Congratulations, Dominic Loomes and Bastien Pillon!
Dominic Loomes is a Master’s student of Anthropology at Iscte-Lisbon University Institute in Lisbon, Portugal.
The grant supports his current fieldwork in the Bijagós Archipelago of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. Dominic’s research project, entitled Cura as the Weapon: Land Cinema and Plant Wisdom Revival among the Bijagós People of the Urok Islands, Guinea-Bissau, explores changing livelihoods (i.e., shifting cultivation, inter-island mobile fishing and cattle production) and ecological knowledge among residents of the remote Bijagós islands through a Participatory Action Research approach including filmmaking and Photovoice.
Bastien Pillon is a Master’s student of Anthropology at Université Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, in Toulouse, France.
Bastien recently came back from the field in Morocco, where he conducted fieldwork on animal domestication among the Aït Oussa camel herders in the region of Guelmim-Oued Noun. Bastien successfully defended his first-year thesis project, entitled La patte blanche du dromadaire: Ethnographie des relations des éleveurs, entrepreneurs et dromadaires au Maroc (The White Foot of the Camel: An Ethnography of Relationships Between Herders, Entrepreneurs, and Camels in Morocco), on July 6th, 2026. He received the highest distinction (“Très bien”). The final thesis defense, corresponding to the second year of his Master’s degree, will take place next year. Félicitations, Bastien!
Read about his preliminary findings here: https://nomadicpeople.info/milk-and-money-relations-between-camel-herders-entrepreneurs-and-camels-at-guelmim-oued-noun-morocco/
