The Ethnicity and Identity of the Malagasy People: Reflections on the Afro-Indonesian Origins

Every people group is distinguished through specific traits that reflect both its identity and ethnicity. While identity refers to the process of ‘becoming’ a people throughout history, and it represents its current dominant image, ethnicity refers to the roots of a people, the particular elements within it that make some say, ‘us’ or ‘them’ (People and Bailey 2009, 383). These features of ethnicity and identity are given by several elements that contribute to the formation of a people: anthropological aspects, linguistic elements, the history of a people and contextual framework. The anthropological aspects refer to a people and the origin of different ethnic groups located in the same geographical area. The linguistic elements point to the origins of the populations set together, characterized by specific vocabulary. The historical framework shows the process by which populations found in the same geographical area, due to specific circumstances, managed to preserve their ethnicity, but also to form a new common identity. The contextual framework refers to the social, cultural, and religious aspects specific to certain groups or mixed in the process of forming a new identity. In this article we aim for two things. First, we would like to make several observations on the ethnicity of the Malagasy people, located in the geographical territory of Madagascar, in the Indian Ocean, in the light of the above-mentioned elements, and then to look at the identity of the Malagasy people today, following the process of homogenization of the different populations and cultures that form it. Although we could not comprehensively cover all these elements that reflect ethnicity and identity, we sketched a picture of the Malagasy people including some of the four elements mentioned above: the genesis of the Malagasy people, the linguistic elements, and a brief historical, cultural, and religious framework reflected in the social life of the Malagasy people.