Introduction: Recoloring the Red Island

Madagascar is often represented in words and images as a unique place. A typical lead-in locates on the African island–the fourth-largest island worldwide, the size of California and Oregon or France and Belgium, lying 250 miles off the Mozambique coast–an astonishing 5 percent of the world’s plant and animal species, making it "one of the most naturally diverse places on earth." Then follows a depiction of its threatened status, pointing out the negative impact that humans have had on its landscapes. This impact is often color coded. Before humans started inhabiting the island around two thousand years ago, it was supposedly a "green" paradise, a biological Eden, which has now become a "red" island as a result of soft red laterite soil eroding from deforested hillsides. If this continues, perhaps Madagascar will next be coded the "black and blue" island, as was suggested in a recent National Geographic article.

Uniqueness is like a badge that needs constant shining. Even members of the Malagasy diaspora have turned to wearing the badge, displaying mottoes on their communications like Sambatra aho fa Malagasy (I am lucky to be Malagasy) and proclaiming proudly their differences from Americans, Canadians, the French, Africans, and the rest of the world. Fetishizing uniqueness may in fact be useful in conservation fund-raising or identity-building among people whose home is far away. But it has significant drawbacks too. It glosses over the importance of commonalities, other times, political nuances, and alternative points of view. It also settles on the quick and easy and catchy answer of victims and victimizers. Focusing on Madagascar’s biophysical features, its unique nature, lures well-intentioned environmentalists and conservationists into portraying the island as a victim in need of protection from Malagasy victimizers. From this perspective, the Malagasy seem only to burn and kill, kill and burn, on their oblivious road to destruction. Alternatively, some well-meaning Malagasy living abroad counter that the real victims are their distant-but-not-forgotten homelanders, who face crushing poverty and falling standards of living. From this view the Malagasy, excluding fellow elites, seem only to suffer and cry on their oblivious road to destruction.

Undeniably there are victims on Madagascar, like anywhere else. But the articles collected here do not insist on making that point. They do not start with the assumption of passive victims and then work toward a solution from outside or faraway active agents. Rather, these essays challenge this assumption by drawing out the historical interactions and interconnections among various Malagasy populations, foreigners, and environments (for the prehistoric situation, see Dewar 1997). Although these articles range from the extreme north to the extreme south, nearly one thousand miles, and are concerned with different issues, they are united by a general theme: the diversity of regional interactions on a large island. A multitude of maritime routes has connected Madagascar to other Indian Ocean islands, to Africa, and to the rest of the world. Being an island of diverse landscapes has also led to a diversity of experiences and a nuanced history. The essays in this collection offer a sampling of this diversity.

Four articles are the revised texts of papers first delivered at the 1998 American Society for Ethnohistory meeting held at the University of Minnesota, and they deal mainly with the northern half of the island (Gillian Feeley-Harnik, Pier M. Larson, Lesley A. Sharp, and Andrew Walsh). Another five articles look at the southern half, especially the southwest region, a part of the island somewhat familiar to the guest editor and in need of greater exposure (Jeanne Dina; Jeffrey C. Kaufmann; Mansaré Marikandia; Karen Middleton; and James W. Yount, Tsiazonera, and Bram T. Tucker). These nine case studies are arranged alphabetically, by author, not by region or theme. These are followed by four short commentaries by expert observers of Madagascar (Maurice Bloch, Manassé Esoavelomandroso, Michael Lambek, and Karl Eggert). Whereas the longer articles describe the specifics of each case, the...