People of the Sea

Description

The Vezo, a fishing people of western Madagascar, are known as 'the people who struggle with the sea'. Dr Astuti explores their identity, showing that it is established through what people do rather than being determined by descent. Vezo identity is a 'way of doing' rather than a 'state of being', performative rather than ethnic. However, her innovative analysis of Vezo kinship also uncovers an opposite form of identity based on descent, which she argues is the identity of the dead. By looking at key mortuary rituals that engage the relationship between the living and the dead, Dr Astuti develops a dual model of the Vezo person: the one defined contextually in the present, the other determined by the past.

First Sentence

This is the study of two different forms of identity, one which is achieved through activities performed in the present, the other which is given as an essence inherited from the past; one which is of a recognizable Austronesian character, for it is transformative, non--primordialist and non-essentialist, the other which bears instead a clear African imprint, for it is rooted in, and determined by, the unchangeable order of descent.

Excerpt

This is the study of two different forms of identity, one which is achieved through activities performed in the present, the other which is given as an essence inherited from the past; one which is of a recognizable Austronesian character, for it is transformative, non--primordialist and non-essentialist, the other which bears instead a clear African imprint, for it is rooted in, and determined by, the unchangeable order of descent.

Subjects

Other Editions

• People of the Sea: Identity and Descent among the Vezo of Madagascar (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology)PaperbackCambridge University Press2006-03-16
• People of the seaCambridge University Press1995-01-01
• People of the SeaCambridge University Press2009-01-01
• People of the SeaCambridge University Press2011-01-01