'…take matters into their own hands'. 3 When asked why they do not just call the police (gendarmes), another grower, Henri, grumbled: 'we do not trust the gendarmes…they are the ones who sell guns to the dahalo [local bandits]'. We then asked what they do if they caught a 1 The 'we' here includes the first and fourth author, only. The northeast coastal towns of Sambava, Antalaha, Vohemar and Andapa (SAVA) are center of vanilla-production in Madagascar. 2 It is the country's primary export crop with proceeds of up to $800 million. For more on the material effects on local consumption patterns of the vanilla price spike see Zhu 2018. 3 Anonymous interviews (July 16 2017).

High-value agricultural commodities face substantial economic, environmental and social sustainability challenges. As a result, commodity industries are adopting sustainable supply-and value-chain models to make production more efficient, traceable and risk-averse. These top-down models often focus on giving higher prices to smallholder producers. While an important component of sustainability, this focus on farm-gate prices has shown mixed results in part because they are less effective in highlighting the asymmetrical power relationships and the socioeconomic and ecological complexity in high-value commodity production. Here, we use a novel method to measure and visualise changes in smallholder power in Madagascar's northeast 'vanilla triangle'-home to about 80% of the world's high quality vanilla. Our results reveal the paradox that during the recent price surge an overall increase in smallholders' multi-dimensional power to access economic benefits was accompanied by a decrease in many other equally important measures of sustainability. This illustrates how effective models for understanding global sustainable commodity chains should incorporate smallholders' perspectives that often emphasise complexity and uncertainty, and which aims to increase power and access for producers across both high and low price points.

Community conservation initiatives have long struggled to forge productive relationships with the people living in and around protected areas. Currently, there is enthusiasm among conservation researchers and practitioners regarding local cultural taboos, which often appear to conserve species and landscapes of ecological importance. However, in incorporating local taboos into conservation programmes, there is the risk that these culturally sophisticated institutions are used in a highly reductionist manner. Drawing from ethnographic work in Madagascar, this article highlights how the simplification of cultural taboos can exasperate already fraught relationships between communities and conservation organizations, and undermine the very environmental outcomes that groups seek to promote. This reductionist approach can also lead to the harmful appropriation of local meanings and resources. Overall, while working with local taboos may potentially offer an alternative to neoliberal models of conservation, scholars and practitioners should recognize the dynamic and interconnected processes connected with taboos, instead of regarding them as static and interchangeable products.

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Vanilla prices in Madagascar have reached historic highs. For the country's vanilla-producing smallholders, the influx of new wealth has resulted in profound affective changes-in large part owing to vanilla theft, which has become widespread. Anxiety and anger are rampant in vanilla-producing communities, and these feelings are increasingly channeled into deadly mob violence against accused thieves. Rather than random acts, these extrajudicial killings are structured by localized cultural, material, and affective forms, as people enact and embody commodity violence in intimate, often contradictory ways. Commodity violence emerges as an additional form of unwanted emotional and physical labor for smallholders. With the vanilla market, as with commodity markets more generally, it is those with the least to gain who are disproportionately exposed to violence and harm. [commodity booms, affect, structure of feeling, vigilante violence, smallholders, vanilla, Madagascar] Niakatra be ny vidin'ny lavaný ao Madagasikara tato hoato. Nisy fiantraikany goavana amin'ireo mpamokatra lavaný madinika ao antoerana anefa izany fiakarana harena vaovao izany-indrindra nohon'ny halatra lavaný izay nirongatra be ihany tato hoato. Manjaka loatra ny tahotra sy ny hatezerana eny anivon'ny fiaraha-monin'ny mpamokatra lavaný, hany ka lasa mampihatra fitsaràm-bahoaka amin'ireo voapanga sy voatonontonona ho mpangalatra ny olona. Tsy tongatonga hoazy anefa izany fitsaràm-bahoaka izany, fa zavatra volavolain'ny olona avy amin'ny kolotsaina sy ny dinam-pokonolona eo antoerana, ampiharina amin'ireo manao herisetra aterakin'ny fiakaran'ny vidim-bokatra, izay matetika mifanohitra amin'ny fomba tokony ho izy ihany. Lasa manampy trotraka ny fahasahiranan'ny mpamokatra madinika ny fisian'ny herisetra aterakin'ny fiakaran'ny vidim-bokatra, na ara-pihetseham-pó izany, na ara-batana. Ireo mpamokatra madinika no tena iharan'ny voina sy fahavoazana, na eo amin'ny sehatry ny tsenan'ny lavaný izany, na eo amin'ny sehatry ny tsenam-bokatra ankapobeny. [firoboroboam-bokatra, fiantraika, fifandroritan-kevitra, fitsaràm-bahoaka, mpamokatra madinika, lavaný, Madagasikara] Le cours de la vanille à Madagascar a atteint de nouveaux records. Pour les petits producteurs de vanille du pays, cette nouvelle richesse est venue avec de profonds changements affectifs en grande partie dus à l'explosion des vols de vanille. L'anxiété et la colère qui sévissent dans les communautés productrices de vanille se manifestent de plus en plus par le lynchage des individus mis en cause. Loin d'être aléatoires, ces exécutions extrajudiciaires sont l'expression de formes culturelles, matérielles et affectives localisées qui se manifestent par l'adoption et l'incarnation de la brutalité marchande de manières intimes et souvent contradictoires. Pour les petits producteurs, cette brutalité marchande apparaît comme une tâche émotionnelle et physique indésirable qui s'ajoute dans le cadre de leur travail. Sur le marché de la vanille, comme c'est le cas en général sur les marchés des produi...

Is -diversity‖ a modern concept, like indigeneity or biodiversity, which is conceived precisely at the time that it seems to be threatened and on the verge of disappearing? In the face of perceived threats to diversity, projects and policies have been crafted to protect, promote, or conserve diversity, but in doing so they have often demonstrated a paradoxical propensity toward purity and authority in representations of diversity. Perceptions of -pure‖ natural diversity might represent native forests comprised solely of native species; -pure‖ cultural diversity might represent indigenous peoples who still speak indigenous languages and wear native dress. If purity is emblematic of diversity, what, then, is the place of hybrid landscapes and peoples? In our study, we draw on a range of examples-of agrobiodiversity conservation in Bolivia, satellite mapping initiatives in Madagascar and Ecuador, scientific authority about anthropogenic climate change, indigenous language and identity in Peru, and a comparison of the Amazon and Atlantic Forest in Brazil-to demonstrate gaps between representations of diversity, and the heterogeneous local realities they obscure. We suggest that hybridity is a form of diversity unto itself-albeit a form of diversity that is more complex, and thus harder to codify and categorize. OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2013, 5 2496

In this article, I consider how local oral history narratives provide smallholder farmers with both material and symbolic resources in adapting to climate change. I draw from the case study of an agrarian village in Madagascar that was struck by a destructive category 3 cyclone. In the weeks following the storm, oral history knowledge occupied an increasingly visible role within the community, as younger farmers interacted with elders to hear tales of past storms. Through these shared accounts, people discussed specific techniques on how to cope with environmental uncertainty. They also created a sense of shared history, which provided individuals across generations an entry point into the local historical record. Overall, the process of sharing oral history accounts can contribute to community resilience, with resiliency encompassing not only technical or ecological factors, but also the more affective realms of shared legacies, hope and belonging.

In this article, I bring together work in political ecology and environmental anthropology to examine how smallholder farmers in Madagascar articulate and embody political and economic histories through the everyday interactions with the commodities cultivated in their fields and forests. I ask: how does the work of cultivating land connect with the art of cultivating memory? In considering this question, I draw from ethnographic research in the agrarian village of Imorona, located in Northeastern Madagascar. In Imorona, smallholder farmers turn towards the materials in their agroforestry fields to reference the more painful political epics of their collective pasts -memories that otherwise remain largely silent within everyday realms of Malagasy culture. I show how the stories people tell of their shifting relationships to commodities including rosewood, vanilla and cloves bring together political and economic 'histories writ large' with more personal and intimate 'histories writ small.' Overall, I argue that the analytical approach of a 'political ecology of memory' offers the productive capacity to look both outward towards others, and inwards towards self. In the process, it elucidates the ways that people render global histories personal. Key words: Political ecology; memory; agroforestry; commodities; Madagascar; Indian Ocean. RésuméDans cet article, je rassemble le travail de l'écologie politique et l'anthropologie environnementale pour examiner la façon dont les petits exploitants agricoles à Madagascar articuler et incarner des histoires politiques et économiques à travers les interactions quotidiennes avec les produits cultivés dans les champs et les forêts. Je demande: comment le travail de cultiver la terre se connecter avec l'art de cultiver la mémoire? En examinant cette question, je me sers de mes recherches ethnographiques dans le village agraire de Imorona, situé dans le nord de Madagascar. En Imorona, les petits exploitants se tournent vers les matériaux dans leurs domaines de l'agroforesterie pour référencer les épopées politiques plus douloureux de leur passé collectif -souvenirs qui restent par ailleurs largement silencieux dans les domaines du quotidien de la culture malgache. Je montre comment les histoires que les gens racontent leurs relations changeantes à des produits, y compris le bois de rose, de vanille et de girofle réunir un histoire politique et économique «au sens large» avec des histoires plus personnelle et intime, «bref et petit». Dans l'ensemble, je soutiens que l'approche analytique d'une «écologie politique de la mémoire» offre la capacité de regarder à la fois vers l'extérieur les autres, et vers l'intérieur vers l'auto. Dans le processus, il élucide les façons que les gens rendent des histoires mondiales personnelles. Mots clés: écologie politique; Mémoire; agroforesterie; produits de base; Madagascar; océan Indien ResumenEn este artículo, utilizo la ecología política y la antropología ambiental para examinar cómo los pequeños productores en Madagascar articulado...