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Paper short abstract

This paper approaches kere—recurrent drought and famine in southern Madagascar—not as episodic crisis but as a chronic condition shaped by environmental variability, historical marginalisation, and political neglect, and outlines an ethnographic agenda for studying life in a drying world.

Paper long abstract

In southern Madagascar, prolonged drought and recurrent famine—locally referred to as kere—have long shaped livelihoods, social relations, and relations between humans and their environments. While policy and humanitarian discourses often frame kere as an episodic crisis or climate shock, it is more accurately understood as a chronic condition produced through the intersection of environmental variability, historical marginalisation, and political neglect.

Drawing on long-term ethnographic research on the island of Madagascar, as well as a critical engagement with anthropological, historical, and interdisciplinary literatures on famine, vulnerability, climate change, and development, this paper offers a programmatic exploration of drought as a socio-material process in southern Madagascar. It proposes an ethnographic approach to drought that foregrounds lived temporalities of waiting and endurance; moral debates around responsibility, aid, and deservingness; and the entanglement of human and more-than-human lives in drying landscapes.

Rather than treating drought as a naturalised environmental stressor, the paper argues for analysing kere as a matter of concern that reveals deeper social, ecological, and political fractures rooted in colonial histories and contemporary governance failures. By outlining key analytical questions and methodological orientations, the paper contributes to broader anthropological debates on drought, climate change, and life in a drying world, while laying the groundwork for future ethnographic research in southern Madagascar.