Explaining essentialism and slavery in highland Madagascar

Abstract Denis Regnier has written an ethnography that combines a cognitive approach and ethnography among villagers in southern Betsileo in Madagascar. The major aim of his study was to investigate the treatment and conditions for slave descendants by the majority of the people within villages and hamlets in southern Betsileo. These slave descendants are perceived and classified as ‘unclean’ people by the free descent ‘clean’ peoples. He provides extensive ethnographic and historical details on the socioeconomic, social, political, and religious aspects regarding the prohibitions of marriages between clean and unclean peoples. Regnier uses cognitive field experiments to assess whether the unclean peoples are essentialized by the clean people.