Ethnic Markers without Ethnic Conflict : Why do Interdependent Masikoro, Mikea, and Vezo of Madagascar Signal their Ethnic Differences?

People often signal their membership in groups through their clothes, hairstyle, posture, and dialect. Most existing evolutionary models argue that markers label group members so individuals can preferentially interact with those in their group. Here we ask why people mark ethnic differences when interethnic interaction is routine, necessary, and peaceful. We asked research participants from three ethnic groups in southwestern Madagascar to sort photos of unfamiliar people by ethnicity, and by with whom they would prefer or not prefer to cooperate, in a wage labor vignette. Results indicate that southwestern Malagasy reliably send and detect ethnic signals; they signal less in the marketplace, a primary site of interethnic coordination and cooperation; and they do not prefer co-ethnics as cooperation partners in novel circumstances. Results from a cultural knowledge survey and calculations of cultural FST suggest that these ethnic groups have relatively little cultural differentiation. We concur with Moya and Boyd (Human Nature 26:1-27, 2015) that ethnicity is unlikely to be a singular social phenomenon. The current functions of ethnic divisions and marking may be different from those at the moment of ethnogenesis. Group identities may persist without group conflict or differentiation.

RéSUMé: Les gens montrent souvent leur appartenance à un groupe à travers leurs modes vestimentaires, leur style de coiffure, leur posture et surtout leur dialecte. La plupart des modèles évolutifs existants soutiennent que les marqueurs caractérisent les membres du groupe afin que les individus puissent interagir de manière préférentielle avec les membres de leur groupe. Nous nous demandons ici, pourquoi les gens marquent les différences ethniques lorsque l'interaction interethnique est routinière, nécessaire et pacifique. Nous avons alors demandé à des participants issus de trois groupes ethniques du Sud-Ouest de Madagascar de trier des photos de personnes inconnues en fonction de leur appartenance ethnique, et en fonction des personnes avec lesquelles ils préféreraient ou non coopérer, dans une vignette hypothétique. Les résultats recueilli indiquent clairement que les Malgaches du Sud-Ouest émettent et détectent de manière fiable les indicateurs ethniques; ils émettent moins de signaux indicatifs sur la place du marché, dans un site primaire de coordination et de coopération interethnique; et ils ne préfèrent pas les co-ethnies comme partenaires de coopération dans des circonstances nouvelles. Basé sur les résultats obtenus d'une enquête réalisée sur les connaissances culturelles et les calculs du FST culturel suggèrent que ces groupes ethniques présentent une différenciation culturelle relativement faible. Nous partageons l'opinion de Moya et Boyd (Human Nature 26:1­27, 2015) pour dire qu'il est peu probable que l'ethnicité soit un phénomène social singulier. Les fonctions actuelles des divisions et du marquage ethniques peuvent être différentes de celles du moment de l'ethnogenèse. Les identités de groupe peuvent persister sans qu'il y ait conflit ou différenciation de groupe.

Ecological and cosmological coexistence thinking in a hypervariable environment: causal models of economic success and failure among farmers, foragers, and fishermen of southwestern Madagascar.

A fact of life for farmers, hunter-gatherers, and fishermen in the rural parts of the world are that crops fail, wild resources become scarce, and winds discourage fishing. In this article we approach subsistence risk from the perspective of "coexistence thinking," the simultaneous application of natural and supernatural causal models to explain subsistence success and failure. In southwestern Madagascar, the ecological world is characterized by extreme variability and unpredictability, and the cosmological world is characterized by anxiety about supernatural dangers. Ecological and cosmological causes seem to point to different risk minimizing strategies: to avoid losses from drought, flood, or heavy winds, one should diversify activities and be flexible; but to avoid losses caused by disrespected spirits one should narrow one's range of behaviors to follow the code of taboos and offerings. We address this paradox by investigating whether southwestern Malagasy understand natural and supernatural causes as occupying separate, contradictory explanatory systems (target dependence), whether they make no categorical distinction between natural and supernatural forces and combine them within a single explanatory system (synthetic thinking), or whether they have separate natural and supernatural categories of causes that are integrated into one explanatory system so that supernatural forces drive natural forces (integrative thinking). Results from three field studies suggest that (a) informants explain why crops, prey, and market activities succeed or fail with reference to natural causal forces like rainfall and pests, (b) they explain why individual persons experience success or failure primarily with supernatural factors like God and ancestors, and (c) they understand supernatural forces as driving natural forces, so that ecology and cosmology represent distinct sets of causes within a single explanatory framework. We expect that future cross-cultural analyses may find that this form of "integrative thinking" is common in unpredictable environments and is a cognitive strategy that accompanies economic diversification.