Riziculture and the founding of monarchy in Imerina
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8976574 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gerald M Berg (Sweet Briar College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1981 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 289-308 |
| Publication date | 1981-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of African History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8537 • E-ISSN: 1469-5138 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s002185370001954x |
| OpenAlex | W1968219552 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 13 |
| References cited | 17 |
Many observers of Merina history have suggested that the organization of labour required to build and maintain irrigation works for paddy rice growing formed the basis of Merina monarchy. Though little direct evidence is available, inferences from land-use models and consideration of oral traditions and written accounts help to explain why irrigated riziculture became popular and how it spread through the central highlands to Imerina. Rice had been cultivated on the east coast of Madagascar for centuries and reached Imerina through the southern plateau but the hydraulic technology of Merina paddy rice growing arose from local needs from the late seventeenth to mid-eighteenth centuries. As swidden farmers exhausted the forests, paddy rice cultivation and water management systems attending it became increasingly important. Though irrigated riziculture enhanced the value of co-operative labour among hitherto isolated groups within Imerina, it cannot be seen as the direct cause of the monarchy's authority. It is suggested instead that the sacredness of land and the accumulation of rights in newly irrigated land by those who controlled water hastened the evolution of a rigid social hierarchy which exalted a few and subjugated the rest
Ancient history · Biology · Ethnology · Geography · Hierarchy · Irrigation · Monarchy · Plateau (mathematics · Political science · Politics · Value (mathematics · African history and culture studies · Agriculture and Rural Development Research · Ecology · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law
Africa and the Indian Ocean World from Early Times to Circa 1900
Institutional and Environmental Constraints to Agricultural Intensification
Deforestation and Its Effects in Highland Madagascar
Radama's Smile
Leimavo Revisited
Deforestation, Erosion, and Fire
Sacred Acquisition
The Sacred Musket. Tactics, Technology, and Power in Eighteenth-Century Madagascar
Affective Politics and the Qualities of Things
Situating Madagascar
La fabrique des mondes insulaires
Ritual, history and cognition
Où vivre sans boire revisited
Early kingdoms in Madagascar, 1500-1700
Indonesian sociological studies
Pioneer settlement in the Asiatic tropics
Agricultural Involution
The Role of Firearms and the Development of Military Techniques in Merina Warfare, c. 1785-1828
The Cambridge History of Africa
The Myth of Racial Strife and Merina Kinglists
The African Past Speaks
Collection des Ouvrages Anciens concernant Madagascar
The Disconnection between Power and Rank as a Process
Madagascar. Essai de Geographie Physique
La Traite des esclaves vers les Mascareignes au XVIII e siecle
The process of state formation in Madagascar
Rice, a Malagasy Tradition
| Unique citing works | 13 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,32 |
| Citation span | 1985 - 2025 (41) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 13 |