Barnard Anthropologist Lesley A. Sharp Explores Madagascar Youth in New Book

Lesley Sharp’s recently published book, The Sacrificed Generation, is a study of the political and historical consciousness of Malagasy school youth at a time when their nation was experiencing a host of radical political, economic and social transformations: the socialist regime had come to an end and the policies advocated by the island’s new president rejected isolationist tactics, stressing instead open-market trade and new partnerships with capitalist nations. The book is based on ethnographic field research conducted by Sharp, an associate anthropology professor at Barnard, in Madagascar in 1993-95.

According to the book’s publisher, The University of California Press, The Sacrificed Generation is a "deeply nuanced ethnography (that) challenges many cross-cultural investigations of youth…(Sharp) insists…on the political agency of Malagasy youth who, as they decipher their current predicament, offer potent, historicized critiques of colonial violence, nationalist resistance, foreign mass media, and schoolyard survival. "

Sharp says of Malagasy youth: "What struck me most throughout this study was their persistent and deep devotion to their nation. They repeatedly described their willingness to sacrifice themselves for younger generations of children, whom they envisioned potentially as having greater opportunities then they themselves would ever have."

Madagascar, an island in the Indian Ocean in Southern Africa, became a French colony in 1896, but regained its independence in 1960. During 1992-93, free presidential and National Assembly elections were held, ending 17 years of single-party rule.
Sharp, a Barnard faculty member since 1994, is also a researcher in the field of medical anthropology, cross-cultural psychiatry, and medical ethics. The psycho-social dimensions of organ donation and transplantation is one area of her research.

She is the author of The Possessed and the Dispossessed: Spirits, Identity, and Power in a Madagascar Migrant Town, (1993).

Contact: Petra Tuomi, Public Affairs, 212-854-7907
Cyndie Pogue, Public Affairs, 212-854-2037