Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar

by David Graeber

Betafo, a rural community in central Madagascar, is divided between the descendants of nobles and descendants of slaves. Anthropologist David Graeber arrived for fieldwork at the height of tensions attributed to a disastrous communal ordeal two years earlier. As Graeber uncovers the layers of historical, social, and cultural knowledge required to understand this event, he elaborates a new view of power, inequality, and the political role of narrative. Combining theoretical subtlety, a compelling narrative line, and vividly drawn characters, Lost People is a singular contribution to the anthropology of politics and the literature on ethnographic writing.

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction, Africa, Madagascar, History, Ethnography, Academic

488 pages, Paperback

First published January 7, 2000

About the author

David Rolfe Graeber was an American anthropologist and anarchist.

On June 15, 2007, Graeber accepted the offer of a lectureship in the anthropology department at Goldsmiths College, University of London, where he held the title of Reader in Social Anthropology.

Prior to that position, he was an associate professor of anthropology at Yale University, although Yale controversially declined to rehire him, and his term there ended in June 2007.

Graeber had a history of social and political activism, including his role in protests against the World Economic Forum in New York City (2002) and membership in the labor union Industrial Workers of the World. He was an core participant in the Occupy Movement.

He passed away in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

personally I feel this is my best book but it's understandable that few people read it

[Tinea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will try to come back and review the book. For now, just a note: This was the last book in my project to read a book from or about each African country, which took over a decade in total and lasted an extra 6 weeks more than I planned for, but finally accomplished! David Graeber writes here like your dearest storyteller friend who keeps you a little enthralled or expectant but never gets to the point and goes on and on forever, in such a way as you cannot find a pause in which to interrupt him even though you've had to go for awhile now, and because you care so much for him and he cares so much to be heard, you stick with it attentively. What a way to end this project!

[Yash · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best ethnography I've ever read, my own personal biases about the author notwithstanding.

What struck me the most is just how absent -- except for a brief adventure in narrative theory in ch.6 -- theory is in this book. It is, more than anything, a highly descriptive ethnographic account of people in Imerina as political actors, in which informants speak for, amongst and across themselves. I think that makes this pretty dense work all the more richer.

Still, reading it opened up more questions than it answered. The obvious question to me was how Graeber's more theoretical work emerges from this first ethnographic encounter -- because it clearly does. For example, you notice traces of what could become theories of magic, fetishism, social creativity, ontology and perhaps even debt scattered around the book's stories & character sketches. And yet, Graeber ends the book by critiquing the very idea of anthropology as a science, even if most of his later theoretical work seems to do exactly that -- offer as scientific an analysis of social phenomena as one can hope to produce.

I personally don't think that there's a contradiction here. In fact, I think that a close rereading of this ethnography might lead me to an answer, and maybe that's exactly what I'll do.

Clearly, this book is one to be read & read again...

[Spicy T AKA Mr. Tea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started reading Graeber and loved him! So then, a few years ago, I had this great idea to read all of his other work. This book was I think his first and it dealt exclusively with his anthropological work in Madagascar. Now, I don't know a lot about Madagascar or its history, but Graeber certainly opened some windows so I could get a better picture. Then, after reading about half of it, I put the book down for two years or so. Recently, I went back and finished it. Originally, I was trying really hard to pronounce terms, people, and places correctly in my head which slowed me down. And then I wasn't sure if I was being correct. So, seeing that the book was pretty narrowly focused on the legacies of colonialism and slavery in Madagascar and what those legacies have meant for the people and their rituals and beliefs who live there now, I became bored with it. Going back and finishing it was helpful and also interesting. I let go some of my own searching for connections in his other works, relaxed on the pronunciation, and enjoyed the second half. It was by a lot quicker and was fairly compelling. Graeber can be quite verbose--whether it's direct action or magic in Madagascar. Depending on your interests, this can be a good thing, a bad thing, or somewhere in the middle.

[versarbre · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most lively anthropologists who really makes real human beings and their blood and pulse and veins come alive.

"rather than assuming that power and exclusion are intrinsic the very nature of politics, it allows one to at least imagine a politics and a history that could still be going on without them."

[Genese Sodikoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chock full of funny, interesting stories, and written in David's usual fluid and accessible style. Very good ethnography.

[lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

про то, что история — не наука, было лишнее, конечно, но это вечная война этнографов и антропологов с классическими историками, с которой остаётся просто смириться, закрыть глаза и делать вид, что этого нет (но было обидно 😐✋🏻).

монография замечательная с точки зрения и подхода к исследованию и позиции автора (плиз, не смотрите на то, что гребер анархист, это самая ранняя его книга и она более всех остальных его работ соответствует научному стандарту без ухода в политические нюансы). после прочтения мне захотелось съездить в бетафо, а я считаю, что это уже огромный показатель успеха автора в попытке репрезентации другой культуры.

[يوسف عبداللطيف · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall verdict: strong start, shaky finish. What worked: the narrator is funny, specific, and kind of a disaster, which I loved. What didn't: the romance subplot shows up out of nowhere and leaves the same way. Recommend for fans of character-driven stories, skip for plot-first readers.