Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar

Product Description<br/><br/><br/>Betafo, a rural community in central Madagascar, is divided between the descendants of nobles and descendants of slaves. Anthropologist David Graeber arrived for fieldwork at the height of tensions attributed to a disastrous communal ordeal two years earlier. As Graeber uncovers the layers of historical, social, and cultural knowledge required to understand this event, he elaborates a new view of power, inequality, and the political role of narrative. Combining theoretical subtlety, a compelling narrative line, and vividly drawn characters, Lost People is a singular contribution to the anthropology of politics and the literature on ethnographic writing.<br/><br/><br/>Review<br/><br/><br/>"[O]ffers fascinating comparative material with other places where the wound of past injustices continues to fester and destroy.... [A] brilliant weaving together of history and the anthropology of participant observation.... The style is limpid, funny, and a delight." —Maurice Bloch (<br/>Maurice Bloch)<br/><br/><br/>"The political intrigue makes for a compelling narrative. Committed to showing the power of stories, Graeber is very capable of telling a story of his own.... a brilliant study in the classic anthropological tradition...." —Michael Lambek (Michael Lambek)<br/><br/><br/>This compelling ethnography matches Bakhtinian dialogism with Dostoevskian detail. The book is 'full of characters: both in the sense of eccentrics and oddballs, and... of protagonists of stories... about the edges between politics and history,' where assumptions are negotiated and 'new things can emerge.' Madagascar's blend of African and Pacific cultures and histories is highly unusual, and innovative tactics are needed to capture and convey its singularities. Dark Dostoevskian portrayals prove apposite to understanding people who do 'not see anything particularly shameful about fear' in both religious and political realms. Highly articulated social stratification meant that aristocrats and slaves cohabited precolonial places and periods. With French conquest and subsequent abolition, these categories shifted rather than disappeared as elites managed their newfound sharecroppers. Graeber (Goldsmiths, Univ. of London) is a masterful narrator, allowing contradictions in people's accounts to be what they are—different takes on given circumstances—as he brokers more speculative hypotheses and historical understandings about the nature of society. A humanistic sense of flow results, as Graeber talks with and about people while shedding light on the paradoxically 'perverse, extreme scientism' of postmodernist quests for 'real knowledge.' Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.A. F. Roberts, University of California, Los Angeles, Choice, September 2008 (A. F. Roberts, University of California, Los Angeles<br/>Choice)<br/><br/><br/>"This compelling ethnography matches Bakhtinian dialogism with Dostoevskian detail.... Graeber... is a masterful narrator, allowing contradictions in people's accounts to be what they are—different takes on given circumstances—as he brokers more speculative hypotheses and historical understandings about the nature of society. A humanistic sense of flow results, as Graeber talks with and about people while shedding light on the paradoxically 'perverse, extreme scientism' of postmodernist quests for 'real knowledge.'... Recommended." —A. F. Roberts, University of California, Los Angeles, Choice, September 2008 (A. F. Roberts, University of California, Los Angeles<br/>Choice 2008-01-00)<br/><br/><br/>"This rich book... provides us with an innovative account of the political nature of the apparently unpolitical." —Eva Keller, University of Zürich, AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW, Volume 52, Number 1, April 2009 (Eva Keller, University of Zürich<br/>AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW 2009-01-00)<br/><br/><br/>"What makes Lost People an extraordinary book is its freedom of thought. It is important not because of its position in the next round of anthropological debates but because of the graceful eclecticism of the autho