https://doi.org/10.21697/wsp.2026.1.06
This article explores the fundamental tension between individual affirmation and the persistence of community norms in contemporary Burkina Faso. Faced with the pressures of globalization and postcolonial legacies, Burkinabe societies are the scene of an ongoing negotiation between aspirations for personal autonomy and structuring collective duties. Drawing on a theoretical framework that combines sociology, social philosophy, and the social doctrine of the Church, we analyze this dialectic beyond a simple opposition between tradition and modernity. The methodology is based on a qualitative documentary analysis of a corpus of academic, religious, and media sources. The analysis unfolds in three stages: an examination of the pillars of community duty (traditional structures, collective and popular wisdom, religions, the Sankarist political heritage), a study of the drivers of individual aspiration (education, urbanization, entrepreneurship), and the identification of areas of tension (generational, religious, and economic conflicts). The main conclusion is that this tension crystallizes around the competition between two "moral economies": one communitarian and redistributive; the other individualistic and accumulative. Rather than a victory of individualism, we observe a reconfiguration of forms of solidarity, where individuals seeking autonomy and meaning find innovative ways to articulate the self and the collective within new frameworks, often religious ones.
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