Endangered Species: Health, Illness, and Death Among Madagascar's People of the Forest (Carolina Academic Press...

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 273 pages
• Published by: Carolina Academic Press August 1, 2002
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0890892385
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0890892381
• Book Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Weighs: 1 pounds

Product Review
"hopepeople working in development will read this book andact against the lack of concern for thepopulation." -- The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Volume 10, Number 1, March 2004

"This is a superb book. . . . it is amazing how much knowledge one reaps from so succinct a study." -- International Journal of African Historical Studies, v. 36, n. 1

It is one of the clearest and most detailed pictures that I have read about the multiple pressures on 'coastal' Malagasy . . . It is gorgeously and horrifyingly written. --Alison Jolly, author of Lords and Lemurs and Lucy's Legacy

Product Description
Endangered Species: Health, Illness and Death among Madagascar's People of the Forest is an ethnographic study of a group of people living in a forested region in Madagascar. These people have been targeted for recent conservation and development initiatives intended to protect species biodiversity. Although international aid dollars are tied to national conservation policy, very little has been written on how these policies are affecting the people who live in Madagascar.

Based on anthropological research in a village located on the periphery of a U.S.-funded national park, and further supported with archival and library research, this study shows how concepts of culture have been misused by policy makers to promote park objectives, while misunderstandings arising from the use of ethnic stereotypes have contributed to serious health and economic problems for people living in the forest region. Many policy-makers fail to appreciate the actual ways that people live and farm in the forest, and how they negotiate their quest for health. Janice Harper suggests that lineage and social class rather than ethnic heritage are more relevant to the ways that people access and interact with the land, forest, and strategic resources. How this interaction shapes health and healthcare is one of the most poignant and compelling of many contributions to anthropological knowledge made by this study.

Endangered Species: Health, Illness, and Death among Madagascar's People of the Forest is part of the Medical Anthropology Series edited by Pamela Stewart and Andrew Strathern. It would be appropriate for use in courses on anthropology, African studies, or environmental studies.

Reader Reviews
With a rich and captivating narrative style, Endangered Species skillfully establishes how the noble intentions of conservation and preservation could lead to such catastrophic results. Harper has produced a powerful and troubling book that complicates our understanding of the generally unexamined dire consequences for traditional peoples that can be the resulting byproducts of biodiversity conservation programs. Endangered Species fits well in the finest activist ethnographic tradition alongside such works as Nancy Scheper-Hughes' Death Without Weeping, and Paul Farmer's The Uses of Haiti. Janice Harper's rich analysis enlarges our understanding of the impacts of international conservation programs, as well as our understanding of links between the environment, health and culture.