Exchange, Kinship and the Flow of Value in Indonesia Rich as a Running Stream

Using the metaphor of ‘flow’ to analyze the social and economic lives of the Ngadha of Flores, based in Indonesia, this book argues that basic structures of kinship and social organization are created and maintained through the continual circulation of people, labor, and resources. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, the book examines how houses, villages, and other social groups are remade through continuous movements of people, animals, heirlooms, food, and labor at multiple scales. The chapters then demonstrate how Ngadha people manage resource flows to alter or maintain their social positions and expand their affiliations. This book will be of direct use to scholars and postgraduate students studying social anthropology, indigenous communities across Southeast Asian, and cultural studies. Practitioners of economic and community development in traditional contexts may also benefit from the volume.