Mob justice and ‘The civilized commodity’

ABSTRACT

Our theory of ‘the civilized commodity' examines ‘mob violence' affecting high-value commodities, including the vanilla boom of Madagascar. We illustrate producers' labor under fraught conditions of violence and contradictory claims of ‘street justice.' Specifically we ask, what counts as justice and to whom? We highlights broader arguments around ‘moral hyper-proximity' of producer-consumer relations, and the strategies of state and market actors to circulate ‘civilized' visions for systemic and future governance over commodity landscapes. State and market calls for ‘law and order,' however, obscure the structural inequities faced by smallholders in their ‘everyday’ production of commodities under periodic crisis.

KEYWORDS:

• Commodities
• moral economy
• Africa/Madagascar
• political ecology
• state violence
• street justice

Acknowledgements

We want to give thanks to our partners in Madagascar, Joseph Benitsiafantoka of the Central University of the SAVA region (CURSA) and the communities of Mananara Nord, Madagascar and throughout the region of Sambava, for their participation and assistance with this research. We deeply want to thank Jacqueline Morse and Jun Borras for their editorial guidance, Luka Follis for his critical direction pertaining to Elias’ The Civilizing Process and extremely helpful comments from our anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The ‘we’ here includes the first and fourth author, only. The northeast coastal towns of Sambava, Antalaha, Vohemar and Andapa (SAVA) are center of vanilla-production in Madagascar.

2 It is the country’s primary export crop with proceeds of up to $800 million. For more on the material effects on local consumption patterns of the vanilla price spike see Zhu (2018).

3 Anon July 2017.

4 For example, in some areas of Madagascar, there is a tradition of mob violence for certain serious infractions, such as stealing bones from ancestral tombs.

5 This notion of justice commonly aligns with discussions of literature largely based on western traditions of moral individualism (cf. Rawls 2005).

6 These behaviours included the capacity of foresight, rationalization, self-restraint, and the internalization of negative emotions such as anxiety and disgust. The state reified these behaviours over time through social sanctions and other disciplining tools (Foucault 1991; Weber 2013).

7 Alongside Elias, our use of civilizing here is not meant to be teleological or progression towards a superior model of behaviour or values, rather to show a critique to such thinking in a period of sped up and deregulated trade.

8 This work was conducted over the 2016–17 vanilla campaign within the region of SAVA and in the UK and USA. The survey was administered by CURSA, a regional University based in Antalaha, Madagascar.

9 Others such as Eric Wolf, Benjamin Moore and scholars in the French school of Agricultural Sciences more generally used the concept of moral economy in calling out of ‘markets’ as spaces of political contestation and struggle.

10 In Mexico, the plant is pollinated by melipona bees and hummingbirds.

11 In addition to market deregulation and cyclone events, vanilla price spikes are also connected with the increase in illegal rosewood trafficking in the region (Zhu 2018).

12 The French, the Chinese, Indo-Pakistanis and those of varied Arab descent arrived for the vanilla trade starting toward the end of the nineteenth century. Many Chinese have since intermarried with the Betsimisaraka and Tsimihety and occupy an outsized role in vanilla and other valuable commodities in the region (Zhu 2018).

13 ‘n’ refers to the total number of the 288 respondents who choose this answer.

14 Anon July 2017.

15 Anon July 2017.

16 Anon Aug 2017.

17 Anon Aug 2017.

18 Anon July 2017.

19 Anon September 2018.

20 It may be worth noting the role of the people identified with vanilla industry and market more generally. While smallholder vanilla farmers do not articulate resistance against market forces per se, the entrenched history of vanilla trade as imbricated in shady state practices becomes relevant. Many vanilla industry representatives remark that they must secure the loyalty of farmers in a supply-driven market, while also not falling out of favor with Malagasy government entities (who are empowered to revoke export licenses) or international consumers, who may be upset by associations of violence with vanilla products.

21 Beyond vanilla theft, the media was also now investigating rumors that ‘new vanilla buyers’ were laundering money from illegally trafficked rosewood (The Guardian 2018).

22 Interview with SAVA/Development Coordination Unit (DCU) 11/20/2018.

23 Interview HoS/AK 02/12/2018 and DCU 11/20/2018.

24 Interview Head of Security in Ambodivohitra Kobahina (HoS/AK) 02/12/2018.

25 Interview HoS/AK 02/12/2018.

26 Interview DCU 11/20/2018. This included a large workshop on ‘sensitization on the popular verdict’ held in Sambava, financed by the UNDP, and organized by the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Public Security, the Secretary of State of National Gendaremerie, and the Ministry of Public Security and the Interior and Decentralization.

27 Anon August 2018.

28 The increased use of certification schemes in specialty commodity chains have developed standards by which normative behaviors, such as strict working conditions, child labour, quality control, environmental and organic standards have been applied to peasant farmers by a northern consumer base (Besky 2013).

Additional information

Funding

Research was funded by an N8 – Agrifood Challenges Award and a Lancaster University Faculty of Science and Technology Impact Award (Neimark). National Science Foundation Cultural Anthropology Sr. Research grant number 1729513, Indiana University College of Arts & Sciences (Osterhoudt). A research project based at University of Göttingen called ‘Diversity Turn in Land Use Science’, funded by ‘Volkswagen Foundation’ (Blum).

Notes on contributors

Benjamin Neimark

Benjamin Neimark is a Senior Lecturer at the Lancaster University, UK, and an Associate Researcher at ESPOL. He is a human geographer and political ecologist who focuses on the green economy, resource extraction, high-value commodity chains, smallholders, agrarian change and development. Although he has a geographic focus on Sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar, he also conducts research on the US military as a climate actor. He is an Associate Director at the Pentland Centre, a Fellow at the Institute of Social Futures (ISF), Lancaster University and Secretariat for the International Political Ecology Network (POLLEN). Ben earned a PhD from Rutgers University and a Master’s from Cornell University.

Sarah Osterhoudt

Sarah Osterhoudt is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University. Her research integrates environmental anthropology, economic anthropology, and agrarian studies, and she is the author of the book Vanilla Landscapes: Meaning, Memory and the Cultivation of Place in Madagascar. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Watson Foundation, and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. She received her PhD from Yale University in Anthropology and Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Lloyd Blum

Lloyd Blum holds a BSc in Ecology and Conservation from University of Sussex, an MSc in Sustainable Development from University of London and a Post Graduate Diploma in Managing International Development Projects from the Center of Rural Development at Humboldt University Berlin. As part of his PhD, he currently researches the global trade of vanilla from Madagascar, investigating farmers’ willingness to implement private voluntary sustainability standards. Lloyd has a professional background in sustainable agriculture and rural development. For the past seven years, he has worked in Madagascar and in Ethiopia for GIZ, the World Bank, and the Ethiopian Agricultural Ministry.

Timothy Healy

Timothy Healy is a natural resources management and economics expert with multiple years of experience in Europe and around the world. Prior to the creation of Aquaterre consultancy in 1996 in Madagascar, he worked for years in Europe followed by Namibia with the Desert Research Foundation. Since 1996, he has worked in Madagascar, and often travels to several African countries, as well as Asia and the Caribbean. His academic and work interests have incorporated a host of environments from terrestrial to marine habitats for a multitude of development initiatives and studies. Significant aspects of his work involve strategic and integrated development of projects with local communities.