In this book I have explored the identity of the Vezo, a group which defines itself as ‘people who struggle with the sea and live on the coast’ (olo mitolo rano, olo mipetsaky andriaky). In order to study Vezo-ness, I have not looked at who the Vezo are, but rather I have immersed myself and the reader in the ways of doing that render people Vezo. I have described men, women and children becoming Vezo by sailing skilfully, by selling fish for a profit, or by carrying the canoe paddle in a certain way on their shoulder; I have described people losing their Vezo-ness (and thus becoming Masikoro) by making a blunder while they change the position of the canoe masts, by choking on a crab's heart, or by feeling sick on a sailing expedition.

I have shown how Vezo-ness is experienced contextually as an activity, rather than inherently as a state of being: people ‘are’ Vezo when they perform Vezo-ness. Vezo-ness is an identity that binds people to the present, the only temporal dimension in which a person can ‘be’ Vezo by acting Vezo. The past, by contrast, does not determine what a person ‘is’ at any point in time. The past does not turn into ‘history’ – a chain of events that explain how the present has come to be what it is – for it is constantly shed as people move from one context to another, from one moment to the next.