The IRAM (Institut de recherches et d’applications des méthodes de développement) was founded in 1956 in order to implement development projects in the former colonies. Madagascar, independent since 1958, was one of the first sites of IRAM-directed projects. This seminar will discuss IRAM’s vision and ideas, which were drawn from cooperatives active in interwar France, and xamine how these were transposed onto the former colony as the latter opened up to global shipping and trade on a wider scale.
