It has long been recognised that the experience of forced migration can lead to profound social transformations among the persons who have been displaced. Among the multiplicity of factors engendering such change, attention must be given to the impact of international aid and development programmes designed to benefit refugee or returnee communities. The wider the cultural difference between the traditional lifestyle of the beneficiaries and the approach adopted by the aid agencies, the greater the impact of such programmes is likely to be. This paper constitutes a case study of one such situation by focusing upon the experience of persons forcibly displaced as a result of the armed conflict which took place in northern Mali between 1990 and 1995. Many of the refugees involved belonged to an ancient nomadic culture and, until their exodus, had had only sporadic contact with the services aid agencies and modern governmental institutions are able to provide. The findings of the article are principally based upon interviews conducted with some 200 returnees at selected sites in the Timbuktu and Kidal regions of northern Mali in the summer of 1998. These were originally undertaken for the purpose of evaluating the UNHCR repatriation programme (see Sperl, 1998). The article concludes with a number of recommendations concerning the design and implementation of refugee and returnee assistance programmes in a developmental context.
