Being Ethical among Vezo People: Fisheries, Livelihoods, and Conservation in Madagascar
Being Ethical among Vezo People analyzes environmental change in reef ecosystems of southwest Madagascar and the impacts of global fishery markets on Vezo people’s well-being. The ethnography describes fishers’ changing perceptions of the physical environment in the context of livelihood and ritual practices and discusses their shared understandings of how Vezo persons should live.



Under new marine protected area regulations, each village is responsible for managing its octopus fishery with a temporal closure. Frank Muttenzer argues that locals’ willingness to improve well-being does not commit them to a conservationist ethos. To cope with resource depletion Vezo people migrate to distant resource-rich marine frontiers, target fast growing species, and perform rituals that purport to affect their luck in fishing and marine foraging. But they doubt conservationists’ opinion that coral reef ecosystems can be managed for sustainable yield.



The richly documented, elegantly theorized, and fresh ethnographic outlook on the Vezo addresses current issues in marine ecology and conservation, small-scale fisheries, and the semiotics of rural livelihoods and human well-being, particularly its expression in ritual. It will be of strong interest to environmental scientists, Madagascar specialists, and anthropology generalists alike; particularly those who are interested in what the modes of engagement with the environment of foraging peoples can teach us about the human condition at large, and the nature-culture debates in particular.
1136377806
Being Ethical among Vezo People: Fisheries, Livelihoods, and Conservation in Madagascar
Being Ethical among Vezo People analyzes environmental change in reef ecosystems of southwest Madagascar and the impacts of global fishery markets on Vezo people’s well-being. The ethnography describes fishers’ changing perceptions of the physical environment in the context of livelihood and ritual practices and discusses their shared understandings of how Vezo persons should live.



Under new marine protected area regulations, each village is responsible for managing its octopus fishery with a temporal closure. Frank Muttenzer argues that locals’ willingness to improve well-being does not commit them to a conservationist ethos. To cope with resource depletion Vezo people migrate to distant resource-rich marine frontiers, target fast growing species, and perform rituals that purport to affect their luck in fishing and marine foraging. But they doubt conservationists’ opinion that coral reef ecosystems can be managed for sustainable yield.



The richly documented, elegantly theorized, and fresh ethnographic outlook on the Vezo addresses current issues in marine ecology and conservation, small-scale fisheries, and the semiotics of rural livelihoods and human well-being, particularly its expression in ritual. It will be of strong interest to environmental scientists, Madagascar specialists, and anthropology generalists alike; particularly those who are interested in what the modes of engagement with the environment of foraging peoples can teach us about the human condition at large, and the nature-culture debates in particular.
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Being Ethical among Vezo People: Fisheries, Livelihoods, and Conservation in Madagascar

Being Ethical among Vezo People: Fisheries, Livelihoods, and Conservation in Madagascar

by Frank Muttenzer
Being Ethical among Vezo People: Fisheries, Livelihoods, and Conservation in Madagascar

Being Ethical among Vezo People: Fisheries, Livelihoods, and Conservation in Madagascar

by Frank Muttenzer

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Overview

Being Ethical among Vezo People analyzes environmental change in reef ecosystems of southwest Madagascar and the impacts of global fishery markets on Vezo people’s well-being. The ethnography describes fishers’ changing perceptions of the physical environment in the context of livelihood and ritual practices and discusses their shared understandings of how Vezo persons should live.



Under new marine protected area regulations, each village is responsible for managing its octopus fishery with a temporal closure. Frank Muttenzer argues that locals’ willingness to improve well-being does not commit them to a conservationist ethos. To cope with resource depletion Vezo people migrate to distant resource-rich marine frontiers, target fast growing species, and perform rituals that purport to affect their luck in fishing and marine foraging. But they doubt conservationists’ opinion that coral reef ecosystems can be managed for sustainable yield.



The richly documented, elegantly theorized, and fresh ethnographic outlook on the Vezo addresses current issues in marine ecology and conservation, small-scale fisheries, and the semiotics of rural livelihoods and human well-being, particularly its expression in ritual. It will be of strong interest to environmental scientists, Madagascar specialists, and anthropology generalists alike; particularly those who are interested in what the modes of engagement with the environment of foraging peoples can teach us about the human condition at large, and the nature-culture debates in particular.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781498593298
Publisher: Lexington Books
Publication date: 05/28/2020
Series: Anthropology of Well-Being: Individual, Community, Society
Pages: 254
Product dimensions: 6.24(w) x 9.07(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

Frank Muttenzer is lecturer of social anthropology at the University of Lucerne.

Table of Contents

Illustrations

Preface

Introduction: Ecological Psychology and the Anthropology of Well-Being



Part I – Fishing Livelihoods

Chapter 1 – Luck with Marriage: Being Ethical among Ritually Constituted Persons

Chapter 2 – The Group Ethos: Human Affordances of the Sea Cucumber Fishery

Chapter 3 – Knowing How to Fish: Scarcity, Markets and Wishful Thinking

Chapter 4 – The Unenclosed Commons: What Goes Without Saying among Octopus Gleaners



Part II- Moral Luck

Chapter 5 – The Blue Growth Narrative: Assigning Blame for Resource Depletion

Chapter 6 – Geopolitics of the Marine Frontier: Taboo and Sacrifice in the Barren Isles

Chapter 7 – Fishing Magic and Shared Doubt: Seasonal Migrants’ Ritual Cycle

Chapter 8 – The Reliability of Oracles: A Pledge to Confirm What the Spirits Say



Conclusion: Well-Being, Ecology, and Moral Disagreement

Bibliography

Index

About the Author
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