Sex and Salvation: Imagining the Future in Madagascar

Jennifer Cole is the author of "Sex and Salvation: Imagining the Future in Madagascar." It is an argument in opposition to her earlier work "Forget Colonialism? The Art of Memory in Madagascar: Sacrifice. The previous book by Jennifer Cole detailed historical occurrences as they were woven into the oral histories, ritual talks, and written messages of the Betsimisaraka people who reside on the east coast. “Sex and Salvation: Imagining the Future in Madagascar” talks about how people, especially women build the yet to come propsects as they “dissembled” themselves from their original folks, migrate from their countryside homes and villages, and carry and inspire towards creation of a successful life in the urban city. “Sex and Salvation: Imagining the Future in Madagascar” can be regarded as an extension of Jennifer Cole’s research into how social realization and daily activities work together and which exist temporarily in Madagascar.

Jennifer Coleman is an associate professor teaching anthropology in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago social and cultural. She is an anthropologist who studies how personal or individual transformations are streamlined by cultural, economic and cultural changes; the terrain where an individual meets history. Her research work is based in Africa, especially in the island of Madagascar. As a result of her research she has been known to address generational change, migration, youth, kinship and forgetting. Jennifer is the co-editor of Love in Africa and the main author of “Forget Colonialism? Sacrifice and the Art of Memory in Madagascar”. “Sex and Salvation: Imagining the Future in Madagascar” was published in 2010 and printed in the United States.

“Sex and Salvation: Imagining the Future in Madagascar” interrogates techniques and methods which certain communities construct explanatory narratives of their experience. Some of these ways are shown over personal and other joint acts used for remembrance, planning, story-telling, pursuing livelihoods and discriminatory recall. All these acts lend it to social meaning, makes sense and is subjective. It also analyzes how people adopt cultural, social and economic resources to their present life and circumstances. It checks on the overall paths people take as they try to discover new ways and techniques in which they can support and build their families. Jennifer Coleman wrote “Sex and Salvation: Imagining the Future in Madagascar” out of research done since 2000 when citizens of Madagascar first witnessed liberalization policies to 2009 when Andry Rajoelina took power and declared himself as the president of Madagascar.

Thesis

Adults transition through many stages from childhood to adulthood. The social sector has a higher influence on personal change. Personal change consists of both generational and personal change, both of which are shaped by historical and cultural transformations.

Jennifer starts the nook by creating an imagined future instead of the language issues and rupture which describes the generational transformation which was taking place in Madagascar. Cole mentions Tamatave, a port in the city where individuals are faced with uncertain future which is brought about by uncontrolled western practices, economic instability and high poverty rates (Cole, 2010, p.1-3). Cole states two different but related paths which women should choose from in order to remain stable even though Madagascar is moving to be a liberalized economy. One of the paths Cole outlines include women involving themselves with sexual business as a way of earning a living while the second option involves being active participants in the upcoming Pentecostal churches. Jennifer writes about this issues so as to give intellectual viewpoints to her subjects and issues as related to their visions. She writes about what the young people currently do and how they plan and imagine to attain their goals and desires (p.5).

Observers from outside Madagascar together with the Tamatavians seemed to regard women as always after money from the European men and them continuously with active involvement in Pentecostal practices. From Cole (2010, p.3), Cole borrows Charlie’s term disembedding to address to historical changes which were multidirectional ad took place among young people who lived in the Tamatave as an urban setting. Dissembedding is further described as the process which individuals would separate from old habits so as to creatively create new ones-a move or severance that is not permanent. Jennifer argues out that youth people in Malagasy have different and many relationships from the past which always directed their future. Through this argument, Cole (2016) documents transforming in terms of cultural practices, but also continues to highlight that historical precedents’ for both sexual and religious activities do exist in the current youth population. (pp.11, 26).

Young people are the popular age group that spreads the visible customer visible content to the non-Westerners locations as evidence of globalization (pp. 7-10). Young people are referred to as consuming group by Cole (2016) since they are the only group known to bend the pressures of globalization. According to scholarly work on the topic involves the popular story of global capitalism spreading to the rest of the world. The media seems to have shifted out of the overreliance on the concepts of youth and globalization. It thereby cements the viewpoint on rupture. Cole (2016, pp.10-13) displays another argument which emphasizes growing tension between generations. This phenomenal has assumed crisis proportions which are different from those used in the past.

Stage theories share a couple of assumptions. They include perception that stages are ordered, that everyone goes through the theories, all stages are coherent. We have cultural conceptions of schooling showing why individuals should embrace schooling. Political leaders on most occasions collaborated with diviners. This collaboration continued when Merina kingdom joined LMS missionaries in the 19th century and used their political skills expand their political platform (pp.35). Majority of folks who were Pentecostals were poor migrants to Madagascar. Their traditional life incorporated poverty and urbanization (pp. 183-184).

Analysis

Cole uses an interesting approach while writing this book. This book emphasizes on the future of young people, , “not only on what young people do in the present, but on how they imagine — and seek to attain — a desired future” (pg. 5). She aims at observing the actions and decisions young people make that will later impact and affect their future life. She also looks forward to the kind of life young people envision for themselves. This gives an elaborate picture since the readers can be able to relate with the experiences given in the book. This is a positive thing about the book since readers tend to learn from the book.

The greatest strength in “Sex and Salvation: Imagining the Future in Madagascar” is in its emphasis to continue historical prevents and facts. It brings a challenge to both emic and etic perspectives of tourism and prostitution, in their current status or as a whole current phenomena. According to Cole, “I am arguing that recent economic reforms, and the influx of Western practices and images they enable, do not impose particular ways of being on young urban Malagasy, nor do Malagasy youth deliberately co-opt what they see of the West to create a new world. Rather, I see a series of small, incremental, and highly uneven changes that become transformative over time” (p. 12). In this excerpt, she tries to write on the chronicles of change without using European classifications of colonial, precolonial and modern, but instead use incremental changes which happen as a result of continual creative processes of exchange.

Chapters one and two hold theories on social and historical change. The two chapters describe economic and social context of Tamatave. Tamatave was the major site where Cole did her research. Jennifer also writes on spiritual and material matters when explaining how young people make decisions and why individuals end up choosing different futures instead of basing their choices on social and economic elements. Cole also outlines the transition from the old to the new Tamatave and the resistance from the elderly and religious Malagasy folks. Cole describes a speech held at an evangelical church which clearly advocates no pre-marital sex and being faithful to one’s partner to reduce HIV/AIDS prevalence. The older generation felt as if the younger generation was ignoring the customs and the culture and losing touch of what they were told by their elders.

Even though I do not agree with Cole, I came to identify some of the disadvantages associated with westernization. Malagasy women looked for European men to help them financially or traded marriage to be stable financially. There is an interesting correlation I notice between colonization and marriage in chapter 2. Cole begins by explaining colonial legacies and hoe Malagasy ladies wanted a higher status by marrying Frenchmen. Currently, Malagasy women married European men for the financial status. This according to Cole, made the elders feel as if they were losing their culture after colonization in Africa. The elders wanted to hold on to their customs and traditions. However, capitalism and westernization did even more damage since it enticed the young generation since it created more opportunities and transformed their lives. However, it I good to know that the opposite was true. The young generation that took up westernized ideas were the first to hit Madagascar with capitalism reforms. Cole still emphasizes that she did not see any harm on western ideas on Malagasy youth. She relates her argument to the present economic changes and the adoption of western practices.

In chapters three and four, Cole dwells in talking about poverty, economic stability and globalization. She goes further to discuss how young people go through difficult situations. She notices that some of them overcome the difficult situations while some of them loose it through the turbulent changes. Another strength I was able to identify with the book was the narratives from the informants’ which Cole uses as the foundation of chapters five and six. The informants give a clear picture on the struggles young people went through and the options and context they chose to implement their future. Cole ensures to address the success and failure through the informants narratives allowing the readers to relate to the struggles.

I think the part on Pentecostalism should have been elaborated or developed further. Chapter seven,” Other Futures: Women, Suffering, and Pentecostalism,” looks like it is curtailed especially once compared to the discussion Finding Vazaha? Navigating the Sexual Economy.”  Pentecostalism is phenomenon with many viewpoints that expresses aspirations of the Malagasy women in intricate ways. A reader would have been more advantaged if a more complete, elaborate picture on the scope of religious aspects that Malagasy women believed in, and have a better comprehension of why and how Pentecostalism had digressed and maintained continuity with older and more established religions. The book clearly displays prostitution and Pentecostalism giving out options on how to achieve wealth under hard economic times. Cole indicates that subjects on sex and religion are oftenly came up during her research, especially one concerning older folks wondering on the immoral status of the young people and ho the young people were unappreciative of their cultures.

Cole’s book, “Sex and Salvation: Imagining the Future in Madagascar” makes several significant contributions in today’s African nature, Pentecostalism and sexual tourism. It will be usefult to students, researchers and scholars studying anthropology, gender studies, religious studies and other general studies that may have concepts mentioned in the book. Cole illustrates throughout the book and mostly in the eighth chapter, that boh young and old people end up choosing new paths in their lives. Studies done on acculturation show that individuals move through cultural boundaries but do not explain exactly how they forego skills, orientations and characters to adopt new cultural status and practices (pp.184). Cole thoroughly elaborates how and why young women choose to be Pentecostals. The explanation complicates the theory that individuals choose religion out of theology or relationship with foreigners just because of economic advantages they bring in. Cole goes further to discuss the emotional appeal of both sides. She also highlights the therapeutics’ of religion and faith and underlines social competition as significant elements in women’s pursuit of a better and prosperous future.

References

Cole, J., 2010. Sex and salvation: Imagining the future in Madagascar. University of Chicago Press.