“A People Without History”? Reclaiming the Sihanaka Past through Collaborative Historiography

Time period:

1 January 2026 – 31 December 2028

Project leader:

Anders Norge Lauridsen

Funder:

Swedish Research Council

Type of award:

Grant for positions or stipends

Total funding:

4,050,000 SEK

“It is time to write down our history and preserve our culture before it is lost.” With these words, Sihanaka elders in Anororo invited me to help reclaim a past long denied them. The Sihanaka, today numbering around 600,000 and renowned as rice farmers in the Alaotra wetlands, are among Madagascar’s oldest ethnic groups. Yet their history has been silenced: overshadowed by the Merina kingdom, erased in colonial accounts that branded them "a people without history", and marginalised in modern heritage politics.This project answers their call by co-producing a collaborative historiography that weaves together oral traditions, archival fragments, and ethnographic research. Three interlinked aims guide the study: (1) to provide the first systematic historical analysis of Sihanaka sovereignty, slavery, and migration; (2) to decolonise Sihanaka historiography by exposing colonial silences and documenting multiplicity, disagreement and silence as part of the historical record; (3) to advance comparative debates on oral and written history through an analysis of collaborative writing.Outputs include a scholarly monograph (Sihanaka Sovereignty, Slavery and Migration), a bilingual Malagasy–English booklet co-authored with Sihanaka collaborators, and a peer-reviewed article on methodology. By addressing neglected histories and developing innovative collaborative methods, the project contributes both to global scholarship on the Indian Ocean world and to cultural renewal in Madagascar.