Of Shrimps and Spirit Possession:Toward a Political Ecology of Resource Management in Northern Madagascar

In: American anthropologist: AA, Band 101, Heft 1, S. 58-67

Abstract

I present a case of ntual innovation and spirit possession in northern Madagascar that builds on Rappaport's interests in the systemic nature of human‐environmental interactions, the relationship between the various levels of political scale, and the interaction between meaning and material relations. I go beyond his formulations in questioning concepts of homeostasis and dynamic equilibrium, and instead propose to understand perturbations as inherent in a system and a source of systemic transformation. In this analysis, I place ecological relations and ritual within an explicitly political framework and examine the processes of social and material change. In drawing on the concept of cognized models, I also illustrate how historical memory and ritual enactments provide ideological frameworks for negotiating control over the use and management of the environment, [ecosystem, political ecology. Madagascar, spirit possession, ritual]