The Mikea Economy

Topics on this page
  • The Mixed economy
  • The age / sex division of labor
  • Mobility
 Other pages


The Mixed Economy
While their reputation as forest-dwelling foragers is well-deserved, all Mikea households practice a diversified portfolio of subsistence strategies.

To learn more about Mikea subsistence activities, click on a category in the list (right) or on a photo (below).



The age / sex division of labor
Mikea practice gender segregation-- men and women eat from separate pots, work and recreate separately-- yet there is little gender difference in work roles. Males and females of all ages forage for wild tubers and melons and fish in ponds. Men and women forage for tenrecs and honey, do agricultural labor, wage labor, and market trading.

The biggest differences in sex division of labor are the following: women are primarily responsible for meal preparation and weaving, while men are charged with most duties involving livestock. Everyone plays a role in childcare, although this task falls particularly on women and girls.


Mobility
A diversified household economy requires mobility, because activities occur in different microenvironments. For example, the same household owns all three of the houses pictured below. The first is in the forest camp of Belo, where they did slash-and-burn maize cultivation (before this practice was banned in 2002) and still dig wild tubers and forage for tenrecs. The second is in the village of Namonte, close to the family tombs; here they herd cattle, fish in lakes, and forage for birds and tenrecs in the thorn forest. The third house is the village of Bevondro, on the forest-savanna edge. Here they cultivate manioc and do wage labor in neighbor's rice fields. The household strategically allocates its limited labor force among the activities at these three sites.

Belo, a forest camp
Namonte, a lakeside village
Bevondro, a savanna village


Bibliography

Fieloux, M., and J. Lombard, eds. (1987). Aombe 1: Elevage et Société. Etude des Transformations Socio-Economiques dans le Sud-Ouest Malgache: L'Exemple du Couloir d'Antseva. Paris: ORSTOM.

Hoerner, J-M (1986). Geographie Regionale du Sud-Ouest de Madagascar. Antananarivo: Association des Geographes de Madagascar.

Iida, T. (2005). The past and present of the coral reef fishing economy in Madagascar: Implications for Self-determination and resource use. Senri Ethnological Series 67:237-258.

Kelly, R. L., L. Poyer, and B. Tucker (2005). An ethnoarchaeological study of mobility, architectural investment, and food sharing among Madagascar's Mikea.  American Anthropologist 107:403-416.

Razanka, S., M. Grouzis, P. Milleville, B. Moizo, C. Aubry, eds. (2001). Sociétés Paysannes, Transitions Agraires et Dynamiques Ecologiques dans la Sud-Ouest de Madagascar. Antananarivo: CNRE-IRD.

Tucker, B. (2001) The Behavioral Ecology and Economics of Risk, Variation, and Diversification among Mikea Forager-Farmers of Madagascar. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Tucker, B. (2004).  Giving, scrounging, hiding, and selling: Minimal food transfers among Mikea forager-farmers of Madagascar. Research in Economic Anthropology 23:43-66.

Tucker, B. (2006).  A future-discounting explanation for the persistence of a mixed foraging/cultivation strategy among the Mikea of Madagascar. In D. Kennett and B. Winterhalder (eds.), Behavioral Ecology and the Transition to Agriculture (pp. 22-40). University of California Press.

Tucker, B. and A. G. Young (2005). Growing up Mikea: Children's time allocation and tuber foraging in southwestern Madagascar. In Hunter-Gatherer Childhoods, edited by B. Hewlett and M. Lamb.  Somerset, NJ: Transaction Publishers.  Pp. 147-171.

Tucker, B. (in prep). Applying behavioral ecology and experimental economics to conservation and development planning: Example of the Mikea Forest, Madagascar.


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