Fihavanana and the foundation of envy in Madagascar

Scholarly accounts of Madagascar display a robust imbalance between a widespread and openly articulated normative code of relatedness that pronounces, on the one hand, solidarity, trust or mutual kindness as core elements of Malagasy culture, and, on the other, conflictual issues and an often unspoken ‘darker’ social undercurrent of envy and resentment. For several decades, norms and values that promote solidarity and compassion towards others have been discussed and explained through the Malagasy concept of fihavanana (Dahl Reference Dahl1999; Dez Reference Dez1981; Kneitz Reference Kneitz2014b; Njara Reference Njara1992; Sandron Reference Sandron2008; Wallner Reference Wallner, Prager, Prager and Sprenger2016), a term that roughly translates as friendship, kinship or mutual goodwill. Fihavanana is rooted in a broader conception whereby individual agency is generally suspect, and thus it promotes the collective projects of a solidary moral group. Fihavanana derives from havana, roughly translatable as kin. Paul Ottino defines havana as a moral term that describes a ‘relational quality of reciprocal trust that is characteristic of relations between kin or co-residents in the same locality’ (Ottino Reference Ottino1998: 280; my translation from French). Basically, ha vana is a highly inclusive social as well as moral category that might incorporate consanguine and affine relationships, but is often used to address anybody with whom one is related through blood, work or friendship, including the ancestors. Maurice Bloch ascribes the highest moral value to havana, equating it to a general sense of deep trust, and states that its evocation in any public speech expresses the duty of mutual love, conflict avoidance and cooperation (Bloch Reference Bloch1971: 59).Footnote ³

Fihavanana tries to broaden the issue of mutual trust from a restricted micro-level encompassing all Malagasy under the fihavanana gasy. As such, it was critically discussed by my young, educated informants.Footnote ⁴ Most argued that fihavanana is a concept of the past or that it is associated with images of a rural, traditional life. At the same time, most young Mahajangais feel constrained by the concept as it implies obligations of sharing and reciprocity that they cannot or do not want to fulfil. Rather than being ascribed by others as havana, they want to choose themselves who should be havana and who should not be. By distancing themselves from others, envy is often brought into play to justify their dissociation.

Their perspectives are congruent with those noted in other anthropological studies that focus on conflict in Malagasy societies. David Graeber (Reference Graeber2007), however, has been the only anthropologist on Madagascar so far to devote attention to envy. His ethnography on politics and history draws the reader into the world of Betafo, a village in the central highlands where magic and the legacy of slavery are strongly intertwined. The inhabitants of Betafo seem to be constantly circulating and manipulating impressions of secret powers, but they do so without violating the norms of non-confrontation and without giving rise to rumours that might endanger their standing in the community. For Graeber (ibid.: 212), envy is the ‘archetypical Malagasy vice’. Despite an ethos of equality, mutual love and sharing – an ethos that predominates in social science perspectives on Madagascar – Graeber notes that he:

Subtle rivalries, mutual manipulations and covert aggression led Graeber to classify envy as ‘destructive empathy’ (Graeber Reference Graeber2007: 85): an envier imagines himself to be in the place of someone who is more successful, but instead of being neutral he develops a grudge against the other person and tries to harm him or her out of feelings of hostility. This resentment leads to practices that are intended to harm the envied person, such as witchcraft, love magic and/or the sexual seduction of his or her partner.

Other ethnographic accounts confirm that envy is a widespread social phenomenon in Madagascar, yet it is often relegated to the footnotes or sidelines of the main argument. Maurice Bloch, for instance, mentioned envy only briefly when he described that some Merina villagers did not repair their house or that they wore ragged clothes out of fear of others’ envy (Bloch Reference Bloch1971: 114). In her book on spirit possession in the coastal town of Ambanja, Leslie Sharp described the evasive behaviour of some informants who were terrified by the neighbours' envy (Sharp Reference Sharp1996: 199), while in a subsequent ethnography on youth, she reported a student being killed out of envy by forceful magic (Sharp Reference Sharp2002: 259). In her work on memory and colonialism, Jennifer Cole briefly stated that her rural informants claimed that envy is a particular ‘Betsimisaraka emotion’ (Cole Reference Cole2001: 220), the Betsimisaraka being one of the ethnic groups living on the east coast. Cole argues that envy has its roots in structures of social inequality and urban–rural divisions that were created through French colonial rule. Despite the apparent prominence of envy among her informants, Cole failed to collect more detailed data since her informant ‘just laughed uncomfortably and changed the subject’ (ibid.: 220).

Although it is difficult to extract a pattern from these remarks, most instances of envy involved magic, gossip and witchcraft – hostilities performed by those who envy – and, in some cases, practices designed to avoid the envy of others through concealment or evasive behaviour. However, probably the most interesting point is that envy is indeed a widespread social phenomenon in Madagascar and that it is not restricted by ethnic or religious affiliation or by rural or urban setting. Envy, as observed by Cole and Graeber, becomes most active in contexts of social transformation in which old hierarchies are questioned and new forms of inequality are likely to appear.

For this article, two basic principles are particularly important. First, envy is related to social comparison. People in Mahajanga constantly assess one another by looking at and gossiping about what others do (or do not) possess, how they live, dress, speak and move through the city. In their evaluation, they compare themselves with others and estimate what possibilities they have for their own future – or what possibilities have been denied to them due to their scare resources or lack of competence. Strictly speaking, the fear of others’ envy is a downward comparison, which, according to Festinger (Reference Festinger1954), strengthens self-esteem and feelings of superiority. Although most Mahajangais are worried about envy and its consequences, they perceive potential acts of violation as unsocial and unjust. On the other hand, rich people who are suspected of envying someone below them on the social ladder are belittled and their status, education and manners devalued.

Second, it is essential to note that social evaluation works best with people who are socially close. In his paradigmatic account of witchcraft among the Azande, Evans-Pritchard pointed out that envy usually arises in close social relations between those who consider themselves equals (Evans-Pritchard Reference Evans-Pritchard1976 [1937]: 45), an idea that was developed further in Peter Geschiere's (Reference Geschiere2003) description of witchcraft as the ‘dark side of kinship’. Social proximity in Mahajanga does not necessarily include only the intimate domain of the family; it also embraces those who are of the same age, gender or locality/neighbourhood, or who share a workplace or attend the same educational institution. They are often called havana and addressed as ‘brothers’ or ‘sisters’. In the classic sense, nearness can be spatial, as in a neighbourhood, or social, among friends – or it can refer to a situation where there might be competition, such as university or work. The fear of envy relates to those people who belong to one's own emotional environment and have a significance through kin, friendship or as fellow students or colleagues. Envy works as a marker of an ambivalent relatedness and mistrust. Although such people are socially close, even within the definitions of havana, they are suspected of having hidden intentions. On the other hand, they are necessary as part of a wide social network, and so one is forced to trust them at least to some extent. This ambivalence might even encompass members of the household (tokatrano): that is, those who are considered to be the most trustworthy, at least in relation to other household members.Footnote ⁵

Youth, aspiration and the boundary work of middle classes in Mahajanga

With its lively and sociable community, its calm and predictable slow rhythm, an animated seaside promenade, vivid nightlife, attractive beaches and warm climate, Mahajanga has become one of the major tourist destinations in Madagascar over the last decades. Visitors and strangers have a long history in the Indian Ocean port city, which has a population of approximately 300,000 people. Mahajanga has been a prime immigrant town, attracting people from throughout the Indian Ocean as well as Malagasy from inland areas. The urban milieu has been able to integrate cultural particularities and has developed, maintained and continuously expanded a remarkable diversity that has been described as intrinsically cosmopolitan (Andriamitantsoa Reference Andriamitantsoa2009; Ballarin Reference Ballarin2006; Lambek Reference Lambek2003).

Despite their rather harmonious coexistence, for which Mahajanga is known throughout Madagascar, most Mahajangais have faced new forms of economic hardship since the internationally condemned coup in 2009. The resulting political and economic instabilities during the transition period, commonly known as la crise, resulted in rising costs for staple foods, a lack of employment and an increase in formerly low levels of criminality, all of which added to already existing difficulties. Since the end of 2013, the democratically elected government has failed to instil optimism; rather, it has created an impression that the situation will get ‘worse and worse’ (miharatsy miharatsy foana). The present pessimism is well justified, considering what some researchers have termed the ‘Malagasy paradox’ (Razafindrakoto et al. Reference Razafindrakoto, Roubaud and Wachsberger2015). According to this view, Madagascar has suffered from a severe cycle of continuous economic downturn that has been fed by a particular pattern: whenever the country witnesses indications of economic growth, political crises inevitably follow, resulting in further economic problems.

However, despite this general pessimism and new forms of competition for the scarce job opportunities and for money, the city of Mahajanga has remained a place of (some) opportunities. Historically, the town's economy has depended on the port and, since colonial times, industrial fishing. At the same time, agricultural production locally and in the nearby region of Mahajanga is strong. In addition, the government provides those job opportunities that most youth strive to obtain: Mahajanga is the administrative capital of the region of Boeny and therefore hosts the administration of both the commune and the state, in addition to the police, gendarmerie, military, university and state-owned hospitals. Due to the jobs that these institutions provide, the city has a stable middle class and a relatively low number of unemployed as well as a low rate of criminality compared with national statistics. Despite the overall pessimism concerning the future of Madagascar, there is generally hope for individual achievement, in particular among young educated people, who envision and anticipate possible opportunities.

During my fieldwork in Mahajanga, I commonly overheard young people talking about their desire for a ‘better life’ (fiainana tsaratsara kokoa). Many Mahajangais feel stuck, and one of the most common hopes that young people articulate is ‘to be able to get out’ (tafavoka, shortened to tafa). In order to transform the common uncertainty into certainty, most young people whom I met expressed two dreams to secure their individual future and that of their families: to leave Madagascar and migrate to Europe, and to get a position within the state civil service. The two dreams are usually joined, in that migration is framed as a stepping stone for obtaining a better position in Madagascar upon one's return. These visions, however, rarely transform into reality, and the widening gap between the desire to change one's life for the better and the existing constraints to doing so leave many young people frustrated with their overall situation. Young women may choose an alternative strategy by searching for European men, who come en masse as tourists or short-term settlers to the island, as described in relation to the east coast of Madagascar by Cole (Reference Cole2010; Reference Cole2014). Young men, on the other hand, are often left doubly frustrated by a shifting economy in which ‘their’ young women lose interest in Malagasy men while being restricted in their migratory plans. Very few of them are able to activate existing social networks abroad, so they have to fall back on more established patterns of migration such as educational migration, which is beset with bureaucratic hurdles and unequal distribution of scholarships and tends to be time-consuming and costly.

Getting a prestigious job with a state institution is similarly problematic. Governmental jobs are perceived as providing the most security and future stability compared with the private sector, which promises higher financial rewards but where jobs are usually temporary. Although state-related jobs are badly paid, they provide a fixed and steady (low) income, they are typically permanent, the salary is raised periodically according to the level of experience, and, more importantly, they provide a pension after retirement. Apart from offering a more secure setting, these positions provide more informal benefits. They offer new possibilities to build up social networks and connect with influential people, to engage in corruption and to access information and goods. However, these jobs have become extremely rare and it is said that nearly half of publicly advertised posts have already been given to the sons of other civil servants, while the rest are open only to those who pay the most. Realistically, if one wants to enter any level of the civil service, a ‘massage’ is required – a common metaphor for a bribe. Yet, I met several students who had entered the gendarmerie and therefore dropped out of their studies. Moreover, I heard of desperate cases in which young people worked for free in the administration and lived in hope of being employed officially in the future.

In Sex and Salvation (Reference Cole2010), Cole argues that education became an ineffective strategy for young Malagasy in the eastern port city of Tamatave to reach the status of adulthood. The continuous impoverishment of educational institutions, the frustrations of unemployment after graduation and the longing for global consumption result in new goals, role models and creative practices to succeed in life. The new orientation is highly gendered: while young men engage in semi-legal or legal biznesy, business, many young women enter the sex economy to find a European husband.

The situation in Mahajanga is different, at least among students and their families. The city is considered to be less competitive, with a smaller gap between rich and poor, the sex economy is less developed and conspicuous consumption less pronounced. Most of my student informants – and, more importantly, their parents – still considered higher education as a way to a better life. Students and graduates are termed ‘knowledgeable’ (manam-pahaizana; literally ‘specialists of something’), a term that indicates a middle-class background. Their aspirations to join the civil service or migrate are based on the old promises of higher education. Since the 1940s, the migratory patterns for educational training prior to entering the state service have been through metropolitan France. After the establishment of universities in Madagascar, students did not necessarily need to migrate anymore, but a diploma from abroad is valued much more highly than any local qualification, thus facilitating entry into the civil service. Since students continued to flock to universities, at a certain point the state was unable to provide enough jobs for the highly educated masses. Still, the dream of a governmental position persists for most students, and the prestige that is ascribed to being a student is relatively high compared with not being engaged in higher education. Most graduates will find employment – though rarely in jobs that fulfil their dreams – even though the job market might be tight. The longest time that I heard a graduate had taken to get a job was about one year. This does not mean that there are sufficient jobs for all those who desire them, in terms of competence, salary and hours. Underemployment is still a growing problem among youth in Mahajanga

Their status as students from a middle-class background is important in the context of envy because it is this slightly elevated position and the promise of a university diploma that make them possible victims of envy discourses. I once overheard a discussion between two female neighbours in Mahajanga about the future of their daughters who studied in the capital of Antananarivo at the respectable Catholic University. Both daughters, who were close to graduating, planned to continue their education in Europe and both women agreed that they needed ‘to be careful’ because of the possible envy and resentment of others. This short discussion clarified not only the dangers of status enhancement but also that youth do not aspire to life-changing goals individually. Aspirations are usually supported by the family, are part of family decisions and are motivated in part by the ambitions of parents.

The basis for engaging in migration schemes or in the professional life of a civil servant is rooted in the background of middle-class milieus. Middle-class status in Mahajanga is characterized by a professional position and consumption practices. Frequently, one or two members of the family work in lower-level regional state administration, as policemen or gendarmes, while the remaining members either attend school or are active in the informal sector. The fact that they strive for security in a vulnerable political and economic situation determines many other typical features. Very few families from middle-class milieus engage in conspicuous consumption. If investments have to be made, they tend to relate to the acquisition of land and housing and the education of their children. Very few of these families, for example, own a car, although some may own a scooter. Investments in mobile telephones or laptops, on the other hand, are increasing, but these are perceived as necessary items in a world that relies on communication as well as education, for which computers are usually used.

What does ‘middle class’ mean in Mahajanga? Although the French equivalent, classe moyenne, is rarely mentioned, there is a broad spectrum of local terms that describe different and often overlapping middle-class milieus that engage in continuous boundary work as well as being united in their perception of in-betweenness, sandwiched between the poorer inhabitants and richer social elite groups (Lentz Reference Lentz2015).Footnote ⁶ As a result of the slightly elevated status of the families described, other Mahajangais from a lower status usually call them fanjakana (literally ‘state’, a term that highlights power through governmental positions) or economically as ‘people who could afford to buy’ (olona manana fahefa-mvidy). At the same time, it is common for these middle-class families to downplay their social status; they would call themselves olonoa tsotra, ‘ordinary people’. Although people recognize socio-economic differences, inequalities and class structure in the city, they are highly reluctant to position themselves along hierarchical lines. By calling oneself ‘ordinary’, one transcends boundaries of difference and related inequalities (Savage et al. Reference Savage, Bagnall and Longhurst2001). As such, the term echoes a strong egalitarian strain in contemporary Malagasy culture, where virtues such as fihavanana, harmony and mutual respect still prevail as values even if their current implementation in everyday life is denied.

In a positive way, some of these families would consider themselves as olona mahitahita, ‘people who see’, being open-minded, aspirational, and using social networks and education. ‘To see’ is not the appropriated knowledge of education, although there is a correlation, but rather an open-mindedness and a broad horizon that provides the potentiality of being successful without necessarily being affluent. Although a certain level of resources plays an important role, ‘to see’ means to have ambitions, and moreover to have knowledge about the right strategies to fulfil them. This means knowing how to invest one's scarce resources to gain the most in the long term, through higher education or the acquisition of land. It also means being able to build social networks that might be helpful on the way to having a better life. Yet, ‘to see’ is not to be cunning or even to breach normative boundaries. It is more about the capacity to appropriate new ideas, to profit from old ones and to be able to ‘eke out a living’ (midebrouiller, from the French débrouiller), a term that is used to describe the activities of people who successfully stand their ground against everyday struggles. However, life projects are uncertain even for middle-class families. In practical terms, they contain a double uncertainty since the outcome is unpredictable and others’ envy might block them.

Secrecy and disclosure in narratives of envy

One of the first stories that I heard from students was one of betrayal and hidden intentions. There were widespread examples of peer learning groups in which some participants pretended not to know the solution to a problem but would ‘spy’ on others in order to benefit during the upcoming exams; or of students who persuade others in the back row of the classroom to play cards, pretending not to care about the lesson, but who secretly study for exams during the long night hours. These narratives are not explicitly about envy, but reflect the social dynamics of secrecy and the disclosure of knowledge. They centre on the unsocial behaviour and hidden intentions of others who students consider to be merely pretending to be close friends and social. As they explain further, those who pretend take advantages for themselves and harm others in situations of competition – in this case usually exams, the culmination of their rivalry. The expectation of betrayal is prominent and can be found in any social field. These narratives are the blueprint for – and are essential to – similar experiences that focus on envy. The dominant theme is that, at a certain point in a relationship, trust flips over into mistrust. Trusted persons are by definition havana, friends and fictive or real kin, while a stranger will never be trusted at all. But how do envy and the underlying tension emerge between socially close people?

Paul, aged twenty-two, a student of natural sciences, once confirmed to me the prominent narrative that it is a close friend who will envy you most and who might do you harm. His illustration of the evolution of envy was very clear – and unwittingly hinted that everybody not only fears the other's envy but envies others too.

As is common in Malagasy discourse, Paul's narrative contains implicit comments that need to be elaborated and contextualized. Paul illustrates how social closeness, reciprocity and mutual love can easily – maybe even inevitably – turn into suspicion when a former relationship based on trust and equal status changes into one of mistrust and inequality. The basis of friendship is that friends should share not only knowledge but also any achievements. Yet, Paul implicitly referred to an accomplishment that his friend did not communicate to him. The turning point came when his friend started to display his success in a manner that was interpreted as inappropriate, here in a boasting manner. Paul did not know how the other man could have achieved success without letting it be known and sharing that success. The gap in knowledge results in inappropriate curiosity, as shown by the common phrase ‘counting the money in people's pockets’ (manisa vola an-paosin'olona). This kind of curiosity is often seen as a sign of envy. At this point, Paul explained that people become more careful and try to distance themselves from their friends. However, this is not so easy to do in close relationships since the envious party might see it as proof that the envied person is unwilling to share. They would then envy them more, and since the growing resentment would be unspoken, the tension would not be resolved. Again, this is a vicious circle.

The question of appropriate and inappropriate display is another theme that runs through most narratives of envy. These stories are often gendered, with both goods and violence playing a bigger role in men's narratives. Casimir once explained:

Boys have to compete for women, and those who are well off have the chance to impress and attract others. The flip side of possessions is the possibility of ‘showing off’ (werawera), in which admiration turns into hostility and violence. Men are likely to be in more danger of attracting others’ envy as they have to ‘show off’ at a certain point, for example to seduce women or to get a better position. At the same time, not talking too much and being modest (tsotra) rather than boasting are aspects of masculinity in Madagascar. Young women similarly compete with other girls, and their narratives contain similar topics of betrayal; however, they are less concerned with technological goods, physical violence and destruction. If girls talk about envy, they talk about how their family was or is envied, and about hidden intentions in their everyday life, for example in study groups. If young women compete with other girls they do it through clothes and hairstyles, while the most prestigious achievement would be a relationship with a young and good-looking European man.

Young people in Mahajanga usually try to find a middle way that balances social proximity and distance. The goal is not to attract attention through ostentatious display or bragging. As explained by Henri, a law and political science student: ‘You try to do what others do in social life. But at the same time, you try to keep as much distance as possible to avoid others’ feelings of envy. You need to build secrecy around your life.’

Secrecy and disclosure have long been subject to anthropological scrutiny (see Jones Reference Jones2014; Manderson et al. Reference Manderson, Davis, Colwell and Ahlin2015) and they are essential elements in envy narratives. They are projected onto the supposed envier and manifest themselves in the way in which hidden intentions are blamed and in the fact that the envied person feels the need to shield him- or herself from the curiosity of others and the threat they pose to individual endeavours. Secrecy and the concealment of information are instrumental and exclusionary but similarly sustain important and intimate relationships, usually among the family or the household. They are a protective device to avoid social pressure and regulation (Simmel Reference Simmel1906) and to provide the power to control social interactions (Wolf Reference Wolf1990), in this case by controlling the moment when the secret or knowledge is revealed to those who were previously excluded. Secrets can be maintained, firstly, through communicative practices of silence and revelation (Bellman Reference Bellman1984), and secondly by material practices (Archambault Reference Archambault2013).

Young Mahajangais put a lot of effort into managing information and sharing it selectively with others. In particular, young men generally resort to silence when confronted with the curiosity of others. Henri continued:

Henri called on a discourse of envy that trapped his family and neighbours. He knew that silence and concealment, even denial, would increase the curiosity of his neighbours and therefore their resentment. Still, he perceived the accusations of arrogance as a lesser evil when compared with his family revealing itself. ‘To cut off’ or ‘block’ (mandradra homana; literally ‘to forbid [someone] to access food’) is a common expression in Malagasy that describes practices of obstructing others’ endeavours by gossiping or even through violence. When I asked him about this dynamic of making others more curious through practices of secrecy, he answered:

The desire to shield oneself from the curiosity of others could also be expressed physically. After an unsuccessful lawsuit against her neighbours, Karin, aged twenty-two and a female student, told me about her future dreams and hopes. I knew that she was planning to migrate to France and expected her to express her hope of obtaining a visa or that her related financial problems would be solved. Yet, to my surprise, she answered that she wished she had the money to construct a wall around her family's compound. She meant a solid wall built of stone, not the broken wooden fence that enabled outsiders to gaze in and even to enter the compound easily. Karin's desire to shut out the gaze of neighbours and passers-by is reflected in the common Malagasy expression tokatrano tsy ahahaka, ‘the house is not to be exposed’. Nothing should escape from the intimate life of families and nothing from outside should enter. The house is literally a place of retreat and security, and the members of the household are the people who are most trusted.Footnote ⁷ Shielding oneself from the gaze of others (using a wall) – or more generally from their curiosity – is one of the many forms of boundary work that has its roots in the desire to be middle class as well as in the discourse of envy. Anxieties are similarly rooted in middle-class subjectivities as well as in envy narratives.

The most important element of secrecy is control of the environment of concealment and disclosure. Secrets entail the possibility of being shared and are resources for interaction. Yet, it is not the content of the secret that is important here. Everybody in Mahajanga suspects that others try to gain prestige and status through goods, migration or professional occupations, and therefore secret individual projects are not secret at all, although they are not easily expressed. Rather more important is whether, how and when the secret is going to be disclosed. The failure of individual or family projects should not be revealed, because their failure is considered shameful. Successes, on the other hand, should be disclosed at the moment chosen by the individuals concerned. Failure and success are therefore at issue in envy-related social practices and in discourses on concealment and display.

Fear of failure and the sweetness of success

The fact that students have an elevated status does not make their anxieties any less real, yet they have to be contextualized. All Mahajangais define envy as a deep negative emotional experience that arises in situations where others desire someone's possessions, be they objects, advantages or superior status. The desire, or its perception, leads to resentment, hostility and finally violence. The ‘other’ is the main aggressor, and his envy is feared. At the same time, these perceptions are rarely based on violent experiences but mostly express suspicion about the hidden intentions of the other. I argue that the fear of others’ envy is not related to the fear of violence nor to the loss of possessions, but to a fear of failure and the resulting public humiliation.

Although ‘fear of others’ envy’ is a common expression, it would be more accurate to speak of anxieties or worries. While fear is related to existential and precarious situations of war, torture or natural catastrophes, the anxieties that are related to envy are mainly expectations of an unpredictable situation that might involve violence but does not necessarily do so. What are these students afraid of, that makes them express their need for social distance? If narratives of aspiration are tinged with others’ envy, they focus on the fear that their projects will fail. In other cases, they relate to an aggressive individual who will strip people of their goods, or stories about the fate of a family that will lose the little it has achieved because of a neighbour's envy.

One of the most common complaints of other people is that they ‘block’ any individual endeavours. Practices of ‘cutting off’ or ‘blocking’ (mandradra homana) are considered to be secret and untraceable and obstruct an individual's path to success. Being ‘blocked’ by other people happens through gossip and slander rather than through open violence. This corresponds to the general attitude that envy is not necessarily a threat to the social order, but to an individual's social mobility.

The only time I heard reports of death was when Luc recalled that his elder brother had died in 2009 when he was thirty-seven years old. He had a knee problem and limped but was very successful as a director of finance in a company based in Analalava. He died from poison because he was envied. He was out drinking and when he went to the toilet, his friends put something in his drink.

Again, this narrative reveals the social closeness of those who finally betrayed Luc's brother and carried out an attack using poison. Poison and its ingestion are deeply entrenched in the social life of Madagascar through ‘medicine’ (fanafody) that can be used in both a positive and a negative way. Maurice Bloch has argued that the consumption of food cooked from one hearth implies unity and that ‘concepts of kinship and commensality act together and are often believed to imply one another’ (Bloch Reference Bloch1999: 139). Sharing food, family and trust are therefore mutually constitutive, while non-family are generally the other that has to be mistrusted, and one of the imagined dangers is poisoning. Young people in Mahajanga are constantly afraid that someone might secretly mix food or drink with love magic (aody fitia), the consequence of which is that one loses one's free will. On other occasions, I heard that young students who worked with foreign NGOs in the city's countryside refused invitations to eat in villages because they were anxious about poisoning. Throughout the nineteenth century, ordeals by poison (tangena) were common in the Merina empire; they were ordered by the elites against witches, but also against slaves, servants and insubordinate rivals or villages (Campbell Reference Campbell1991; Ellis Reference Ellis2002).

Although several scholars refer to the metaphysical evil personified in the figure of the witch, young people in Mahajanga rarely mentioned witchcraft as the root of aggression. Acts of poisoning and defamation are both attributed to people, not witches.Footnote ⁸ Gossip that turns from normal chatter to harmful slander is considered to be the main weapon – and a powerful one – against any scheme that might lead to a better life.

If there is a possibility of achieving a status in the future that is superior to that of people who were formerly close, this can attract potential harm from others. However, one's anxieties – coupled with imagination – do not necessarily relate to the acts of aggression one might face, but rather to the possibilities of a project failing. Of course, a breach through violence and the fear that someone else could take one's possessions are terrifying. But more terrifying is the loss of status, the resulting humiliation and the fear that others might look down on you and laugh at you if you were to fail and lose your status.Footnote ⁹

Alongside the possibility of betrayal, the stigma of shame through status loss is frightening. Together, these are considered the worst humiliations that one can endure. The prospect of possible poverty and the attached stigma is what terrifies most young educated urbanites. And yet, these young Mahajangais do not consider envy to be a problem that will pass. It is so deeply rooted in the social fabric that one has to avoid it, circumvent it, and sometimes even appreciate it. Like any fear, it must be overcome. For some young people, envy has been a sign of appreciation of their efforts. Yolande, aged twenty-one, a young law student, illustrated this point:

The important point here is that envy is part of everyday life. Although it might be perceived as having destructive components, people in Mahajanga know that it is unavoidable, a challenge everybody has to face and to cope with. But it is even more, as Yolande argues: it is something that makes one's life ‘complete’ in the sense that it is satisfying. Although in general envy is regarded as a morally negative emotion, being envied means being on the right track. It is something productive that keeps people alive. Envy discourses can push young people forward, not necessarily by entering the rather new paths of social mobility through the growing sex economy, as described by Cole, but rather by treading the old paths of higher education and the dream of the civil service or migration.

The fear of envy, therefore, does not lead to a gloomy zero-sum game, nor does it necessarily amplify social inequality. Envy does not shape social behaviour or act as a social regulator. Young people in Mahajanga may deny or conceal many activities, but their fear of others’ envy does not stop them from gaining status and prestige. It is not that fear discourages innovation, effort and achievement. It does not stifle creativity and aspiration. People are well aware that any success they achieve, any goods they acquire and any position they occupy will sooner or later be part of local gossip and envy, and thus it is inevitable that one has to shield oneself from this. More important is the way in which individuals and their families display success, be it in a provocative manner of conspicuous consumption, or in a socially accepted and modest way.

Envy as a marker of ambivalent (mis)trust

Without undermining the problematic nature of envy for most individuals in Mahajanga, I take a critical view of some of the narratives and practices of young men and women. In his comment on the extensively quoted article on envy by Foster, the anthropologist Jan Christian Brøgger noted that:

Taking this remark into account, one could ask whether accusations of envy, hidden intentions and the related practices of concealment, silence, denial or secrecy are expressions of different phenomena that are related to a local code of conduct or reflect a different vision of an individual's future. For example, the avoidance of bragging to deflect others’ envy could also be seen as avoidance of shaming others who are less fortunate, something that would be considered moderate (tsotra), a virtue that is highly valued in Mahajanga. The wish of a young student to build a concrete wall around her house could likewise be understood as a general aspiration of middle-class families who admire the secure compounds of richer families in the more highly valued quarters of the city. Indeed, envy discourses are informed by and inform many different aspects of social life. It becomes difficult to draw a line where envy starts and where it ends, and therefore it is problematic to posit envy as a universal aspect of social life. If envy discourses primarily emphasize anxieties of failure and humiliation, aspirations and middle classness, while mirroring the transformation of trust into mistrust and suspicion, then envy might not be useful as an analytical concept but as a frame that brings together dissimilar aspects of everyday life. If we do not take envy for granted but focus on the anxieties of close relations, hidden intentions and practices that promote concealment, we clearly reach beyond the common constructive–destructive division that dominates anthropological perspectives on envy. If mistrust and suspicion are the central terms, then envy is merely a moral category that signifies unsocial behaviour.

In contrast to recent studies that link mistrust to the breakdown of law and order (Gade et al. Reference Gade, Willerslev and Meinert2015), historical circumstances such as the slave trade (Nunn and Wantchekon Reference Nunn and Wantchekon2011) or ethnic diversity (Robinson Reference Robinson2013), the urban context of Mahajanga represents a rather moderate environment that may even be slightly better off than other cities when it comes to security, well-being and employment. Mistrust in the coastal city is related to the knowledge gaps of everyday situations. It becomes a powerful discourse within the context of migratory or any other life projects. The uncertainty of knowing whether people will act according to their own interests or meet the obligations that are implied in socially close relations generates mistrust and suspicion. Ideally, people should help one another, but the realities of the job market, rising prices and the tight migration market force them to be secretive and competitive. Again, envy is the prime reflection of this: a person who feels that they are the target of envy might not know exactly who the envier is or what they are envious of, although they will inevitably speculate on this. Uncertain about others’ intentions, social actors feel forced to change their behaviour towards others by acting more covertly or by being modest in order to downplay their status. The social distance produced, however, will arouse suspicion in those who are accused of envy. If someone conducts their business in secret and displays their achievements only in the moment of their success, others will be suspicious about how they achieved that success – and are likely to turn to explanations that frame the other person's success with reference to perceived immoral and unjust practices such as corruption or nepotism. These unspoken accusations will arise and increase suspicion in the person who already suspected envy, thereby closing the vicious circle of mutual mistrust.

The power of this mistrust is rooted in the many unsaid moments of everyday life that leave tensions unresolved. Talk is mostly indirect. The use of language is an art one has to learn; it is a sign of adolescence to know how to talk but also how to be able to read between the lines of what others say. To speak out loud and directly is considered inappropriate behaviour. Instead, practices of politeness, face-saving and showing respect to others are commonly expected from adults and adolescents. Many aspects of public life are about having or not having good manners, about respect and disrespect, as well as about being categorized by others as modest (tsotra) or proud (mihavona). The expected norm would be to link one's individual destiny (anjara) to the destinies of one's fellow human beings – family, friends, neighbours and strangers. Conflicts, on the other hand, mostly involve accusations of being disrespectful, and techniques of conflict avoidance are highly valued (for Madagascar in general, see Dahl Reference Dahl1999; Keenan Reference Keenan, Bauman and Sherzer1974).Footnote ¹¹

If people maintain social distance because of their fear of envy, as long as they do not voice their accusations, then norms of social cohesion hold steady. However, the gap between a dominant normative and moral discourse and an underlying current of social tension as expressed in envy discourses is not ‘unbridgeable’. At the same time, young men and women in Mahajanga cannot rely exclusively on their intimate family or members of the household as trustful companions. To achieve a better life, a wider social network is necessary – and this involves people who are feared because they can betray and harm those who are successful. Communicative-emotional bonding is of utmost importance beyond its utilitarian aspect. Thus, envy might be overexposed in everyday life, and yet it is not everywhere; rather, it appears in certain contexts. Initial mistrust might indeed be ‘half-trust’ (Gade et al. Reference Gade, Willerslev and Meinert2015), while envy and ‘mutual love’ might be more intertwined than it initially appears in narratives of young educated urbanites.