Based on rich and wide-ranging data, the thesis describes the sensitive issue of the contemporary emancipation trajectories of agro-pastoralist Fulbe in Central Mali. It explores how people are currently dealing with hierarchies they inherited from past master-slave relations and focuses on the relational dynamics between members of a network of migrants. The importance of mobility to identity is explored by analyzing the tensions that exist among migrants to reproduce or change hierarchical relations in post-slavery societies.