The work of memory in Madagascar

This article examines the practices through which the Betsimisaraka of Mada gascar attempt to recode, assimilate, and contain the influences of the out side world. The Betsimisaraka endured colonization by the Merina and the Fr ench for 130 years. They rarely refer to this colonial past except on certa in occasions when it is powerfully evoked. They prefer instead to commemora te ancestors. A processual view of remembering and forgetting productively complicates anthropological understandings of the colonization of conscious ness and the consciousness of colonization, revealing how local cultural au tonomy can be partially maintained through the work of memory.