Children of the soil : the power of built form in urban Madagascar Children of the Soil traces the relationships between indigenous Malagasy people Comorian migrants and French colonizers across several generations in the Indian Ocean port city of Mahajanga Madagascar. Focusing on the built environment Tasha Rijke Epstein considers the complex dynamics between African groups and the spatial and formal ways that they asserted their presence and claimed space in the city before during and after colonization. Rijke Epstein focuses on the articulation of Malagasy power through indigenous architectural forms; then shifts her focus to consider how Comorian migrants shaped the citys spatial and cultural terrain marrying into existing Malagasy families constructing mosques and animating street life. Yet despite their longstanding ties to Madagascar and shared cultural lexicon Comorian migrants were targeted in a series of violent uprisings in 1976 that resulted in the deaths of at least 1 000 people and the expulsion of more than 16 000 people from Mahajanga. Children of the Soil gives readers a new way to understand the role of material environments in shaping national and urban belonging as well as to understand the wave of expulsions that happened across post colonial societies