Living there and existing here: The absence and presence of migrants from madagascar's highlands

Rakotonarivo, Andonirina

2011

2011

journalArticle

10.4000/eps.4481

07557809

For several decades, rural areas in Madagascar have been experiencing a continuous increase in emigration. In agricultural zones facing strong land constraints and without alternative source of income, migration is a mean to cope with growing economic difficulties. A high level of emigration of young people and adults is observed in Sandrandahy, an isolated and very poor village of the Highlands. However, the local social organization, way of production and wealth distribution are steered by rules and practices that are not favorable to a long-standing absence out of the village. The fihavanana, the basic social precept, which is source of different duties for everyone towards family and community members, discourages migration for it hinders the performance of these duties and causes traditional social relations disruption. Different strategies are thus used by migrants, to make their absence acceptable and maintain their local rights. The aim of the paper, using « Migrations à Sandrandahy » survey and qualitative interviews, is to describe migrants' relationship with their origin community, or how they continue to take part in local social life and meet their duties despite remoteness. By making non-migrants participating to the migration project, and sharing migration earnings with them, migrants can face the material and social constraints linked to absence. They can live out of the village and continue to "exist" in their origin community.

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