Facing Familiar Strangers and Potential Friends: Rumours of Betrayal, Ambiguous Friendships and the Dangers of Poison in Urban Madagascar

Patrick Desplat

Journal of Southern African Studies, 2022, vol. 48, issue 4, 667-684

Abstract: In this article, I explore the different ways in which educated young people in urban Mahajanga experience and anticipate social relationships. Taking rumours of betrayal as my starting point, I shed light on the ambivalent nature of friendship and commensality. While both phenomena echo Malagasy values encompassing solidarity and sharing, they also contain the threat of switching into dangerous territory: when trust becomes mistrust, a close friend can well become an enemy and a commensal situation might ultimately be poisoned. This article focuses on a relatively affluent group of young people and examines how narratives of betrayal both reflect and contribute to general frustrations and worries about personal failure. Individual life courses revolve essentially around a social project of anticipation which includes not only hope and aspiration but also fear of potential failure and of arousing envy among others. I argue that these generalised anxieties do not stifle social interaction; instead they foster an attitude of suspicion that serves as a useful tool of temporary detachment, giving space to gather knowledge about someone or something before determining the appropriate response.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03057070.2022.2091350 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cjssxx:v:48:y:2022:i:4:p:667-684

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cjss20

DOI: 10.1080/03057070.2022.2091350

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Southern African Studies is currently edited by Ralph Smith

More articles in Journal of Southern African Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().