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The Imagined Community of the Antankarana: Identity, History, and Ritual in Northern Madagascar1

The Imagined Community of the Antankarana: Identity, History, and Ritual in Northern Madagascar1 THE IMAGINED COMMUNITY OF THE ANTANKARANA: IDENTITY, HISTORY, AND RITUAL IN NORTHERN MADAGASCAR1 BY MICHAEL LAMBEK AND ANDREW WALSH (University of Toronto) The Antankaraiia, occupants of the far northern portion of Madagascar, are generally described in the literature and by educated Malagasy as one of some 18 'tribes' or 'ethnies' into which the island is said to be divided. They were, in the 1970's, the second smallest 'tribe,' with a population of some 44,852 (e.g. Jenkins, 1987). In this paper we prob- lematize this kind of hegemonic depiction of social groups as discrete, bounded, reified entities. We suggest that alongside it, and rooted more deeply in northwest Madagascar, is a logic of collective identity con- stituted less by categorization than performance and less by exclusion than by inclusion, though we recognize these are themselves relative emphases rather than discrete alternatives (cf. Lambek 1995). Ascertain- ing the specific boundaries between groups in northern Madagascar is problematic; groups overlap and flow into one another so that even the French have been taken by the Antankarana into the very heart of their world (albeit in such a manner that their distinctiveness is not denied). The question then becomes how the meaningfulness http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Religion in Africa Brill

The Imagined Community of the Antankarana: Identity, History, and Ritual in Northern Madagascar1

Journal of Religion in Africa , Volume 27 (1-4): 308 – Jan 1, 1997

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1997 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0022-4200
eISSN
1570-0666
DOI
10.1163/157006697X00162
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

THE IMAGINED COMMUNITY OF THE ANTANKARANA: IDENTITY, HISTORY, AND RITUAL IN NORTHERN MADAGASCAR1 BY MICHAEL LAMBEK AND ANDREW WALSH (University of Toronto) The Antankaraiia, occupants of the far northern portion of Madagascar, are generally described in the literature and by educated Malagasy as one of some 18 'tribes' or 'ethnies' into which the island is said to be divided. They were, in the 1970's, the second smallest 'tribe,' with a population of some 44,852 (e.g. Jenkins, 1987). In this paper we prob- lematize this kind of hegemonic depiction of social groups as discrete, bounded, reified entities. We suggest that alongside it, and rooted more deeply in northwest Madagascar, is a logic of collective identity con- stituted less by categorization than performance and less by exclusion than by inclusion, though we recognize these are themselves relative emphases rather than discrete alternatives (cf. Lambek 1995). Ascertain- ing the specific boundaries between groups in northern Madagascar is problematic; groups overlap and flow into one another so that even the French have been taken by the Antankarana into the very heart of their world (albeit in such a manner that their distinctiveness is not denied). The question then becomes how the meaningfulness

Journal

Journal of Religion in AfricaBrill

Published: Jan 1, 1997

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