Constructing Antankaraña, history, ritual and identity in northern Madagascar

grantor: University of TorontoThis dissertation is an historically informed study of a polity in contemporary northern Madagascar. By focusing on the intertwined interests of the polity's rulers (those influential figures of the past and present who have claimed and been recognized as having authority in the region), its constituents (those supporters who have legitimated these claim through forms of service that periodically reassert the primacy and sanctity of rulers), and those who recognize it (those powerful outsiders who are confronted with these claims) it proposes that this is a political system legitimated from within and without where subjection results less from the power of a few to impose it than from the willingness of many to accept it. This is especially apparent at an event--called ' Tsangantsainy'--at which polity constituents construct and erect a mast that is said to embody the 'sacredness of rulers'. Through the ' Tsangantsainy' they willingly re-establish their ruler's rule and in so doing symbolically guarantee the continuity of the political order he represents. Given that they are observed to do so by the many powerful outsiders (state officials, representatives of foreign governments, representatives of development and conservation organizations, etc.) who are invariably invited to attend, their participation also contributes to the symbolic capital which their ruler wields in his efforts at negotiating local interests.Ph.D