Madagascar: Shaping a People's Identity through Its History

ABSTRACT: The specificity, uniqueness, and authenticity of a people is given by their social identity. This social identity is related to his history, the good and bad events the people went through, cultural accommodation, to the internal relations established within the people or groups, to experiences and international relationships. In this article, we defined the identity of the Malagasy people in relation to their history. The Malagasy people and their history are linked today to the Republic of Madagascar, located in the Indian Ocean in southeastern Africa. The Malagasy people are made up of twenty different ethnic groups settled in Madagascar over two major migrations over the last two thousand years. These groups of Malays from Kalimantan, Bantu, and Swahili tribes from East Africa, Muslims and Arab traders from the Arabian Peninsula, and Gujarati people from the west coast of India were forced to live and share a history together. Although some of the groups that came along have retained elements of their original identity, throughout history, all these groups have managed to create a common identity, called the Malagasy identity. KEY WORDS: social identity, Malagasy history, Malagasy identity, Malagasy kingdoms, Imperial Merina, French colonialism, Malagasizatio