Abstract
The text shows how, more than fifty years after Madagascar's independence, some rural communities (communes rurales), particularly in the east of the island, are responding to a still relatively new global situation. At the theoretical level, the author works with some concepts from the anthropology of postcolonialism (postcolonial change, postcolonial situation) and the anthropology of globalization.
As the text suggests, all of these theoretical approaches intersect in possibly explaining local responses to globalization and its various intersections with rural and urban communities not only in Madagascar, but presumably wherever these communities are in some way coming to terms with the legacy of colonial rule. The author shows how today's Madagascar, after decades of a policy of malaggashization and isolationism, seems to be entering a new phase in its modern history of increasingly interconnected local, regional, national and global environments.