| Island in the Stream: An Ethnographic History of Mayotte Contributor(s): Lambek, Michael (Author), Jackson, Michael D. (Foreword by) |
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ISBN: 1487522991 ISBN-13: 9781487522995 Publisher: University of Toronto Press OUR PRICE: $44.60 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: October 2018 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social - History | Modern - 20th Century |
| Dewey: 305.800 |
| LCCN: 2018459616 |
| Series: Anthropological Horizons |
| Physical Information: 1" H x 6" W x 8.9" (1.10 lbs) 376 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 20th Century |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Island in the Stream introduces an original genre of ethnographic history as it follows a community on Mayotte, an East African island in the Mozambique Channel, through eleven periods of fieldwork between 1975 and 2015. Over this 40-year span Mayotte shifted from a declining and neglected colonial backwater to a full département of the French state. In a highly unusual postcolonial trajectory, citizens of Mayotte demanded this incorporation within France rather than joining the independent republic of the Comoros. The Malagasy-speaking Muslim villagers Michael Lambek encountered in 1975 practiced subsistence cultivation and lived without roads, schools, electricity, or running water; today they are educated citizens of the EU who travel regularly to metropolitan France and beyond. Offering a series of ethnographic slices of life across time, Island in the Stream highlights community members' ethical engagement in their own history as they looked to the future, acknowledged the past, and engaged and transformed local forms of sociality, exchange, and ritual performance. This is a unique account of the changing horizons and historical consciousness of an African community and an intimate portrait of the inhabitants and their concerns, as well as a glimpse into the changing perspective of the ethnographer. |
Contributor Bio(s): Lambek, Michael: - Michael Lambek is a Canada Research Chair and professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto Scarborough. Jackson, Michael D.: - Michael D. Jackson is a New Zealand poet and anthropologist who has taught in anthropology departments at Massey University, the Australian National University, Indiana University Bloomington, and the University of Copenhagen. He is a religion professor at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, MA, USA. |