Taboo as Cultural Practice Among Malagasy Speakers

ethnographic matenral collected among Malagasy speakers in Mayotte, this article attempts to approach the subject of taboo from a practice perspective. It views the observance of taboo as a kind of performative act with moral consequences, and argues for the significance of taboo in the constitution of personhood and society and hence of the relationships between them. It argues firther that embodiment forms a primary means of legitimating various claims and disclaimers and that the observance of taboos forms a means of naturalizing cultural rules. The most important developments as regards social theory concern not so much a turn towards language as an altered view of the intersection between saying (or signifying) and