Geographies of borrowed time -- Overland on foot, aloft: an anatomy of the social structure -- Land and languor: on what makes good work -- Toward a new nature: rank and value in conservation bureaucracy -- Contracting space: making deals in a global hot spot -- How the dead matter: the production of heritage -- Cooked rice wages: internal contradiction and subjective experience -- Epilogue: workers of the vanishing world
Summary
Protecting the unique plants and animals that live on Madagascar while fueling economic growth has been a priority for the Malagasy state, international donors, and conservation NGOs since the late 1980s. Forest and Labor in Madagascar shows how poor rural workers who must make a living from the forest balance their needs with the desire of the state to earn foreign revenue from ecotourism and forest-based enterprises. Genese Marie Sodikoff examines how the appreciation and protection of Madagascar's biodiversity depend on manual labor. She exposes the moral dilemmas workers face as both co