"Rich as a Running Stream:" The Flow of Value in Ngadhaland, Indonesia
Date
2021
Authors
Pollock, Ian
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
This is an ethnographic study of economic and social life in a mountainous region of Flores, Indonesia, inhabited by people known in anthropological literature as the Ngadha. The basic structures of affiliation in Ngadha social life are not static, but are dynamic processes. They change in form, grow and subdivide, and are filled with opportunities for advancement and risks of demotion, and ultimately disintegration. People pursue these opportunities, and counter these risks, through the skillful management of circulations or flows. These include circulations of material objects, which cross and recross the boundary between goods and commodities; circulations of people, who flow in and out of various affiliations at different moments; and circulations of energies, linked to dispositions of labor and food. These circulations connect humans, animals, and spiritual beings joining the living to the dead. With their variable currents and innumerable eddies, these flows form the substance of Ngadha forms of affiliation.
As described by Fox et al (1980) the metaphor of the "flow of life" describes circulations of goods and essences that are seen as necessary for the reproduction of human life in eastern Indonesian societies. These cannot be stockpiled and still remain vital, but undergo continual processes of depletion and replenishment. I argue that this concept of flow can help illuminate aspects of Ngadha life beyond strategies of marriage exchange. Circulations--repeated, ongoing, expanding, and endless--can be seen at every point of life, from loans between friends, to the construction of houses, to the most spectacular feasts and rituals. These movements are essential to the repeated reconstitution of social groups, which decay if they are not continually renewed. They also bring attention to a central tension between sets of values that are coeval in the Ngadha community: sedentarism, continuity, and accumulation on the one hand, and mobility, agency, and apparent dispersal on the other. Ngadha society is best seen as an assemblage of moving parts, where ritual and communal acts of renewal do not so much re-establish set structures but produce coherence out of constant flow, sowing a little to harvest a lot. This process is epitomized most dramatically in distributions of food called meghe--literally, "food" or "to eat," especially food that fortifies a person before traveling or dying, or food used to host guests (Arndt 1961: 323)--which produce social outcomes even when much of the food is given to pigs.
Description
Keywords
Citation
Collections
Source
Type
Thesis (PhD)
Book Title
Entity type
Access Statement
License Rights
Restricted until
Downloads
File
Description
Thesis Material