This paper addresses conceptualizations of West African spaces through an analysis of changes in pastoral land tenure systems. West African livestock production has undergone significant changes in the past fifty years. There has been a simultaneous southward migratory drift of Sahelian cattle, a shift to combined farming-herding practices, and increased constraints placed on pastoral herd mobility. The Sudanian and Sudano-Guinean savannas are characteristic examples of these transformations. In these savannas, land that was once devoted to pasture herding is increasingly being devoted to crop production. The result of this encroachment is increased competition for land resources between agriculture and livestock raising. This competition is representative of the wider shift from a “Sahelian” pastoral land tenure system of mobility based on reciprocity to an alternative system that is based on the appropriation of resources. This paper analyzes these dynamics using Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the “production of space”. Using Denis Retaillé’s interpretation of Lefebvre’s “production of space”, I argue that this change in land tenure is brought about through a change in the dominant relations producing space : from a “mobile space” to a territorialization of space. Moreover, understanding linked changes between pastoral land tenure systems and production of space is important for pastoral mobility, the key way that herders maintain their resilience. Territorialization can be a solution for herders to secure resource access in spaces under agricultural pressure (usually Sudanian and Guinean savannas) while efforts to protect common rights must be maintained in areas with lower pressure on resources (Saharian and Sahelian zones).