Tracking the cost of living, for whom and at what price? A political economy of price indicators in Madagascar
Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: This article studies the production and meaning of price indicators in Madagascar, a post-colonial context characterized by a weak state, the prominence of international aid, and repeated food crises. We observe a profusion of indicators, data, and analyses related to prices. Such profusion illustrates not only different meanings of the cost of living but also fragmented economies and a fragmented mode of government in which nongovernmental organizations and international organizations play a leading role. Whatever their efforts, these initiatives struggle to capture the specific features of the cost of living in a context where the subsistence economy remains hardly convertible into numbers. Our analysis confirms the close links between statistical production and modes of government. The Malagasy Consumer Price Index coexists with many disparate initiatives aimed to cope with inequalities and emergencies, reflecting a country in the throes of repeated political, economic, and social crises.
Source: International Sociology
Institutions: Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Soutenabilité et Résilence, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Instituts Français de Recherche à L'Étranger, Center for Social Studies on African, American and Asian Worlds, Université Paris Diderot, French Institute of Pondicherry, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres, Université Paris Dauphine-PSL
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4387576978