The Political Economy of Death

Communication and change in Malagasy colonial history

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2465598
AutoresGillian Feeley‐harnik (Johns Hopkins University, autor de correspondencia)
Año1984
Volumen11
Número1
Páginas1-19
Fecha de publicación1984-02-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAmerican Ethnologist (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0094-0496 • E-ISSN: 1548-1425
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1525/ae.1984.11.1.02a00010
OpenAlexW2142319833
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas30
Referencias citadas29

The competition for labor associated with the incorporation of the Sakalava of northwestern Madagascar into polities of steadily increasing scale has involved the ongoing reorganization of social relations through the symbolism of death. During the precolonial period Malagasy spoke a common language of ancestors and relics by which to negotiate relations of labor and loyalty. French colonists sought to destroy Malagasy institutions and substitute their own language of law. As they failed to do so, they reverted to what they had learned of customary practices, thereby placing all parties outside the law as originally imposed. The contemporary association between a moribund economy and a lively preoccupation with the dead takes a distinctively Malagasy form among the Sakalava, but its general features may be widespread. [political economic change, religion, death, language, law

Aesthetics · Colonialism · Competition (biology · Economics · Economy · Loyalty · Negotiation · Period (music · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Ecology · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law