Graber The Homeless

In 1989, anthropologist David Graeber went to the mountainous regions of Madagascar, where, after a recent catastrophe - a large-scale famine that broke out due to the violation of local customs - tension prevails. He conducts extensive field research in... the rural community of Betafou, 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" demonstrates that political action can be a form of narrative, and anthropological ethnography is a tool for understanding how societies deal with a complex historical past, preventing a slide into the abyss of mass violence.