Graber The Homeless

In 1989, anthropologist David Graeber went to the mountainous regions of Madagascar, where after a recent catastrophe—a large-scale famine caused by the disruption of local customs—tension reigns. He conducts extensive field research in the rural community of Betafho, divided into descendants of nobles and slaves. Studying the organization of society and the historical memory of the Malagasy people, the author shows how political action is realized in the absence of formal hierarchical power institutions and how politics is built around everyday practices, such as storytelling aimed at preventing people from open confrontations. The "Homeless" demonstrate that political action can be a form of narrative, and anthropological ethnography is a tool for understanding how societies cope with a complex historical past, preventing a slide into the abyss of mass violence.