“the Vezo are not a kind of people”: identity, difference, and “ethnicity” among a fishing people of western Madagascar

Abstract

This article presents a model of identity and difference alternative to ethnicity. It describes how the Vezo of western Madagascar construe their identity by transcending descent or descent‐based features of the person. To be a Vezo is to have learned Vezo‐ness, and to perform it; identity is an activity rather than a state of being. Difference is construed by an analogous process of identification: others are different because they have acquired and perform another identity. To the Vezo, neither identity nor difference is inherent in people; both are performative. [identity, difference, ethnicity, Madagascar, Vezo]

Perceived Benefits of Fisheries Management Restrictions in Madagascar

“…The Vezo people interviewed in the southwest region strongly associate with the maritime activities to the extent that the definition of their ethnicity is the action of doing maritime activities rather than a definition based on genetics or place of origin (Astuti 1995). Vezo are described as being defiant to concepts of kinship ties and have historically avoided efforts to be attached to kin origins, which they see as potentially oppressive to their autonomy and lifestyle.…”

Social-ecological memory as a source of general and specified resilience

“…Fieldwork took place in three coastal and three noncoastal clans. Our methodology included interviews and participatory observation, and the description and quotes we have presented correspond with findings thematically analyzed in the data set as a whole The Tandroy The Vezo Heurtebize 1986, Astuti 1995, Middleton 1997, Fee 2000(Lofland and Lofland 1984. A more complete description and analysis of the data is found in von Heland (2011) and von Heland and Folke (2014).…”

“…The Tandroy fear the ocean, and if they are to understand it, a Vezo woman who worked as a lobster middle-hand in Faux-Cap, the main landing site, said that "they need to be taught by the Vezo" (Appendix 1, informant B). In a study of the Vezo fishing communities, Astuti (1995) argues that like the master of a trade, you are not born "a Vezo," but "become Vezo" through the experiences and skills that are gained struggling with the sea. In Astuti's study, people of different ancestries and origins had come to the coast and gradually become Vezo by picking up and mastering the skills of a fisherman.…”

I. Introduction

“…Rather, group identities can be molded and gradually acquired by inhabiting a particular environment, by practicing certain activities, or by adopting distinctive ways of doing and being (e.g., Linnekin & Poyer, 1990 for a review of this performative view of social identities). As we shall see, this is precisely how Astuti (1995aAstuti ( , 1995b has described the way in which the people studied in this monograph define and experience their group identity.…”

“…Astuti (1995aAstuti ( , 1995b reports that her Vezo informants claim that "the Vezo are not a kind of people". The term translated as kind can be applied to any entity: for example, sandals are a kind of shoes, mackerel are a kind of fish, rice is a kind of food, and so on.…”