"Hot money" and daring consumption in a northern Malagasy sapphire‐mining town

Abstract

In Ambondromifehy, a sapphire‐mining town in northern Madagascar, young men earn and spend a great deal of what some call "hot money." Rather than invest their earnings with long‐term intentions considered responsible and proper by some around them, they consume "daringly" by spending money to fulfill immediate desires. I argue that such "daring consumption" might be understood as the active response of young men who refuse the passive roles allotted them by both the sapphire trade and traditional systems of social organization. [Madagascar, consumption, money, risk, sapphire mining, masculinity]