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This article critically examines engagements of village leaders in an NGO-facilitated participatory conservation program in eastern Indonesia. It explores how the program’s implementation strengthened leadership legitimacy of a dominant customary social group. Customary leaders ensured distribution according to particular norms, and in organizing village governance upheld specific interests and claims over natural resources. Villagers outside of the customary group remained marginalized in village governance, despite being important stakeholders. Findings reveal complex relationships between leaders and villagers that were strongly framed by orders of power and cultural history, which influenced how and to what extent peripheral groups participated. The case study concludes that village leaders can form effective avenues to deliver on conservation outcomes. However, in their preoccupation with maintaining leadership legitimacy, they may inadequately address dynamic intra-community tensions that could jeopardize long-term outcomes. Co-management partners can play significant roles in adapting management and prompting more inclusive governance processes.

Expanding on previously published research into folk classification of birds in the eastern part of the Indonesian island of Sumba, this article reports new information on bird categories and classification recorded by the author in 2015. New folk taxa are described and identified and scientific identifications for previously reported taxa are added or revised. Information on local bird classification from the Kambera region is compared with data recorded in the 1970s in the district of Rindi, and these are shown to reveal only minor differences. Employing Berlin’s well-known analytical scheme, the main features of the taxonomy are summarized and totals are enumerated for monotypic and polytypic folk-generics and both named and unnamed (covert) folk-intermediates. Additional information is provided concerning symbolic uses of bird categories, including bird names used as place names and local beliefs about nightjars (Camprimulgus spp.) which correspond to ideas encountered on the ethnozoologically better-known neighboring island of Flores.

Resolving contestations over resource management rights around coastal villages remains a focal challenge for co-management initiatives in remote coastal zones. Contemporary socio-political settings increasingly see local people having to negotiate between local long-standing (horizontal) relationships and new emerging (vertical) relationships which involve collaborations with outside actors who try to assume neutral mediating positions. Using two conflicts, this article examines the rise and fall of a participatory coastal resource management program in eastern Indonesia involving a fishing community engaged in a co-management arrangement with a conservation non-government organisation (NGO). An actor-oriented approach is applied to analyse how these conflicts shape, drive and direct collaborations across the community–NGO interface. We discuss how these impact the implementation of the conservation ethics and sustainable natural resource management practices, and show how particular mediating capacities of an NGO may overcome, and even build forth on, conflict in some contexts but fall short in others. We argue that local resource user groups and conservation teams operate according to strong local relationships that are entrenched in cultural–historical hierarchies of power. We moreover note that these local relationships significantly influence the extent of neutrality of external groups in their mediating, coordinating and technical advisory roles. The effectiveness of co-management partnerships hinges on the ability to balance actors’ mediating capacity with their local dependence for operation.

An anthropological literature dealing with conflict such as has afflicted Indonesia in recent years is beginning to emerge. The present article is one of a series dealing with different incidents and forms of conflict and violence in a region of eastern Indonesia. It furthers a discussion on contested claims for precedence. Such claims in Indonesia are often made by means of legends of origin. Descent groups claiming outside origin may, nevertheless, demand political power from those claiming to be autochthonous. The latter may or not concede these functions to others, but they commonly assert a mystical authority based on local origin. In Witihama, eastern Adonara, two branches of Lama Tokan clan dispute their relative status. One, which has long provided political leadership, claims to have originated in the Moluccas. The other, which attempts to preserve its mystical authority, deems itself to have originated at the top of the Boleng volcano, but its autochthonous origin is disputed by others. This particular dispute has parallels elsewhere. Unlike other incidents in the past, it seems both peaceable and permanent. Une littérature anthropologique sur le conflit, tels ceux qui ont endeuillé l'Indonésie ces dernières années, commence à se constituer. Cet article fait partie d'une série d'articles sur divers incidents et sur les formes de conflit et de violence dans une région de l'Indonésie orientale. Il poursuit un débat sur les revendications contestées d'antériorité. En Indonésie, ces revendications sont souvent fondées sur des légendes d'origines. Des groupes de descendance se réclamant d'origines étrangères peuvent cependant exiger le pouvoir politique de ceux se réclamant d'origines authochtones. Ces derniers peuvent ou non concéder ces fonctions, mais généralement affirment leur autorité mystique, fondée sur leurs origines locales. A Witihama (ile d'Adonara orientale), deux branches du clan Lama Tokan sont en désaccord sur leur statut relatif. L'une, qui a longtemps fourni les chefs politiques, prétend être originaire des Moloques. L'autre, qui tente de préserver son autorité mystique, se considère originaire du sommet du volcan Boleng, mais ces origines autochtones sont contestées par d'autres. Cette dissension particulière, qui trouve des parallèles ailleurs, semble à la fois pacifique et permanente, contrairement à d'autres incidents passés.

In eastern Flores, on the Tanjung Bunga peninsula (among Western Lamaholot speakers), several times a year, ritual narratives (opak) are performed on a square dancing area, where all the clans of the same ceremonial land meet. Three types of narrative are sung, according to three kinds of rituals. The article explains the context, content and performance details of these stories, performed all night long. Why do the various clans continue to sing all these narrative? What values do these long poems have for people who sing them? Until now, studies on this subject have been remarkably few, and not even a partial transcription or translation of these narratives is available. This article offers a preliminary insight into these sung narratives, to show how vital they still are in eastern Flores.

International audience; The Sama-Bajau, or Bajo diaspora, extends from the southern Philippines and Sabah (Malaysian Borneo) to the eastern part of Indonesia. The Indonesian Bajo, now scattered along the coasts of Sulawesi (Celebes) and East Kalimantan, the Eastern Lesser Sunda Islands and Maluku, were once mostly nomadic fishermen of the sea or ocean freight carriers. Today, the Bajo are almost all fishermen and settled. Their former and present ways of life made them favour intangible forms of culture: it is impossible to transport bulky artefacts when moving frequently by boat, or when living in stilt houses, very close to the sea or on a reef. It is therefore an intangible legacy that is the essence of the Bajo’s culture. Sandro healers have a vast range of expertise that allows them to protect and heal people when they suffer from natural or supernatural diseases. On the other hand, music and especially oral literature are very rich. In addition to song and the pantun poetry contests, the most prestigious genre is the iko-iko, long epic songs that the Bajo consider to be historical rather than fictional narratives. The Bajo’s intangible heritage is fragile, since it is based on oral transmission. In this article, I give a description of this heritage, dividing it into two areas: the knowledge that allows them to “protect and heal” on the one hand, and to “distract and relax”, on the other.

This article presents a diachronic perspective on the exchange of cloths (kain timur) and the transformations in their importance over time with social and political changes in the Bird's Head region of the province of West Papua. Providing insight into the transformations in kain timur exchange sheds light on the history of the region, long characterised by influences from other islands in Eastern Indonesia while simultaneously displaying distinctly Papuan cultural and linguistic features. The exchange of kain timur has evolved amid colonial and post-colonial influences such as missionisation, government administration, education, migration, and the exploitation of resources. The most prominent current meaning of the exchange of kain timur is the safeguarding of the moral community in regard to marriage practices and married life. As material objects kain timur are considered authentic cultural products that mark local identity. In contrast to other Melanesian art forms kain timur has to date attracted little attention from art collectors, anthropologists, and tourists.

International audience; Eastern Indonesia possesses more linguistic diversity than any other region in Southeast Asia, with both Austronesian (AN) languages that are of East Asian origin, as well as non-Austronesian (NAN) languages of likely Melanesian origin. Here, we investigated the genetic history of human populations from seven eastern Indonesian islands, including AN and NAN speakers, as well as the relationship between languages and genes, by means of nonrecombining Y-chromosomal (NRY) and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis. We found that the eastern Indonesian gene pool consists of East Asian as well as Melanesian components, as might be expected based on linguistic evidence, but also harbors putative indigenous eastern Indonesian signatures that perhaps reflect the initial occupation of the Wallacea by aboriginal hunter-gatherers already in Palaeolithic times. Furthermore, both NRY and mtDNA data showed a complete lack of correlation between linguistic and genetic relationships, most likely reflecting genetic admixture and/or language shift. In addition, we noted a small fraction of the NRY and mtDNA data shared between eastern Indonesians and Australian Aborigines likely reflecting an ancient link between Asia and Australia. Our data thus provide insights into the complex genetic ancestry history of eastern Indonesian islanders characterized by several admixture episodes and demonstrate a clear example of the lack of the often-assumed correlation between the genes and languages of human populations.