Since the 1990s, the Ankarana region of northern Madagascar has developed a reputation among globe-trotting gemstone traders and tourists as a source of some of the world's most precious natural wonders. Although some might see Ankarana's sapphire and ecotourist trades as being at odds with each other, many local people understand these trades to be fundamentally connected, most obviously in how both serve foreign demand for what Madagascar has to offer the world. Walsh explores the tensions and speculations that have come with the parallel emergence of these two trades with sensitivity and a critical eye, allowing for insights into globalization, inequality, and the appeal of the "natural."

For more information, and to read a hyperlinked version of the first chapter online, visit https://madeinmadagascar.wordpress.com.

Andrew Walsh is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Western University in London, Ontario. He has published in numerous journals, including American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, and Anthropology Today.

Andrew Walsh's profile page

As the first line [of the preface] suggests, this is primarily a 'teaching' book, which is to say, Walsh grounds abstract ideas in ethnographic anecdotes and explains connections with crystal clarity. The book is engaging, accessible, and short, and it manages to clarify in a mere 112 pages of text several key anthropological concepts, including cultural relativism, globalization, social construction, place-making, nature versus culture, the sacred and the profane, 'the gift,' and commodity fetishism.

Genese Marie Sodikoff, <i>Environment and Society</i>

This is a terrific book. It is aimed at students and is written in an accessible and engaging style, but I think it should appeal to the wider scholarly community because it has a lot to offer in empirical and conceptual terms. The apparent simplicity of the book makes it an immensely powerful and lively statement on the ways that global dynamics shape and reshape human communities and the environments they inhabit.

<i>Anthropos</i>

Walsh has crafted a very useful and timely book. I can see it working well in introductory courses in cultural anthropology, not to mention higher-level courses on globalization. The book gives a nice impression of the current state of fieldwork and ethnography and of the current state of global/capitalist/neoliberal connections and flows. It is a success as ethnography, as a description of world cultural and economic forces, and as a teaching tool.

<em>Anthropology Review Database</em>