Indonesia achieved remarkable growth during the first 25 years of its series of Five Year Development Plans, which started in 1968. However, growth has not been well distributed across the regions, in part this is as a result of the Indonesian government development policy of a growth centre approach which has benefited �Western Indonesia� (Kawasan Barat Indonesia, KBI) more than �Eastern Indonesia� (Kawasan Timur Indonesia, KTI). Prosperity needs to be spread across Indonesian regions and needs to be more equitably shared. The thesis argues that government needs to search for other ways to overcome the imbalance by accelerating KTI development, to reduce this region�s resentment, which may increase the risk of disintegration. The central aim of this research is to describe and critically evaluate the potential usefulness of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) as a means to address the regional imbalance in economic development. It aims to make a contribution by: 1. Describing in detail the ways government decision-makers see the situation, in other words giving the viewpoints of the state; 2. Providing detailed transcriptions of the interpretations and opinions expressed by powerful decision makers in the public and private sectors; 3. Demonstrating how the public, private and non-government sectors operate; 4. Making the realistic point that the links across these sectors leads to both positive and negative outcomes; including 5. Illustrating through examples how corruption spreads from the public to the other sectors. This study examines the contributing factors to regional imbalance in Indonesia between KBI and KTI by means of a case study of policy and management challenges in KTI. It examines the current strategy used for accelerating the economic development of KTI and considers whether a new strategy of Public Private Partnerships would have relevance and can be developed and implemented to accelerate the development. Current strategies especially formulated for accelerating KTI economic development include: (i) The Policy and Strategy of the Eastern Indonesia Development Council (ii) The Program of the Ministry for Acceleration of Eastern Indonesian Development; and (iii) The Integrated Economic Development Zone program However, one of the weaknesses of these policies is the lack of cooperation across government and the private sector. This study has found that the government strategies and policies have neither matched local needs nor the implementation of economic development. The study, based on both interviews and secondary data, demonstrates that the causes of the economic imbalance are systemic and multiple. They span not only government policies contributing to the imbalance directly and indirectly but also other factors, such as: (i) Systemic corruption across the public, private and non-government sectors; (ii) Lack of willingness to address the issues, lack of capital, lack of capable human resource and lack of infrastructure, lack of domestic and international market access, lack of communication and coordination and lack of cooperation. To overcome these problems, the Indonesian government together with business and the watchful eye of diverse civil society organizations need to change policies, systems, and visions for developing this region. Public Private Partnerships through a mutual partnership program could be one way of accelerating the development in KTI. On the one hand there are some direct and positive consequences of this new vision, for example, the private sector sharing their knowledge, skills, funds, management and enhanced utilisation of market mechanisms to support the government in the development process. On the other hand there are many limitations to the approach such as government often accepts greater risk than is warranted, dangers of corruption and cronyism which may attend more intensive in long-term relationship and contracted services resulted in corruption and secret business influence in government. According to Transparency International, Indonesia remains one of the most corrupt nations internationally. Unless strategies are put in place to address systemic and endemic corruption and Public Private Partnerships are well managed, then the model for Public Private Partnership will only serve to exacerbate the problem. Systemic corruption also effects trust amongst stakeholders, which needs to be hand-in-hand with strategies to address �demoralisation� for developing prosperity. Government is becoming more responsive to the private sector�s needs by providing a conducive environment for investment, entrepreneurship and innovation. Public Private Partnerships could be a means to balance power between public, non-government and private sectors if there is more capacity building to enhance the competency and responsibility of the players. No development solution can come about by working with only the public or the private or the community sectors or just non-government organizations. This study makes a strong case that the �solutions need to be found in Partnerships�. However, in exploring the complexity of the social capital of trust-based networks between people (but which also unfortunately exclude others) which are important for partnerships and, correspondingly, with partnerships being important for social capital, the researcher finds that there is no neat or simplistic partnership that can produce miraculous results. Some partnerships can be corrupt, some can lead to better life chances for local citizens, but the merits of each case need to be considered contextually. Widespread change is only likely when there is systemic change across governance arenas (public, private and non-government) and with consideration of social, cultural, political, economic and environmental factors. Instead of blaming development problems on insufficient participation or the lack of capacity of the ordinary people, the problems lie equally with the state, big business and non-government organizations. More effective managerial skills and efficient processes are needed in the governance of all these organizations while the role played by civil society is essential in making this governance accountable. Better partnerships can provide models that could inspire others to follow. Overall this study describes the complex problems created by poor policy making from above. The �gaze� (in the sense used by Foucault) is shifted from the �non-participating and incapable� citizens to the �ineffective and inefficient� powerful. Why are ordinary people so often studied to find answers to societal or systemic problems? The thesis argues that this is because they are easier to ask, more tolerant of the researcher, more resigned to answering a number of questions, or perhaps think it is easier to answer questioners in order to �get rid of them�. Instead this thesis probes the viewpoints of the powerful. Researcher who is interested in understanding how the state operates in Eastern Indonesia could �trawl through this material� in order to develop a greater understanding of the dynamics of power. To conclude, the researcher is first and foremost a practical person, who wishes to find solutions by creating the conditions for better partnership arrangements. Instead, she found that the decision makers are part of the problem. For transformation in governance to occur, stronger civil society cooperation through �communities of practice� is needed. This would be in the interests of all sectors of society if a regionally more balanced sustainable future is to be achieved.

This thesis is an ethnography of the indigenous religion, education system and social organization of the community living in the central mountains of Sikka Regency on the island of Flores in Indonesia. The question that has motivated my research is ‘how are the ideas and practices of this community’s indigenous cosmology taught and learned so to persist with continuity through generations?’ In answer I explore the ways in which cosmological ideas and practices are taught to be valued as truth as they are embodied during the practical activity of ritual. This study advances a performative theory of ritual education through a combination of Gregory Bateson’s theory of the ecology of mind and Roy Rappaport’s theory of ritual and sanctification / I begin with a critical examination of the representations of the community in question that have been made by scholars and neighboring populations. I argue that these representations wrongly imply a static and bounded community. Instead, I contend that the community is constituted by dynamic village and clan relationships anchored on sentimental and structural forms of individual belonging to particular villages and clans. This belonging is principally developed through individuals’ adherence to the indigenous cosmology, locally called Adat. I continue by discussing the educational methods by which this cosmology is perpetuated. Ritual language lessons concerning education insist that from an early age community members participate fully in daily religious life (particularly in the practice of ritual) under the guidance of close family. I then describe the learning environments found in childhood, marriage and mortuary rites. Following Bateson, I argue that during ritual contexts participants ‘deutero-learn’ embodied skills that are patterned by previous experiences, and generate the future conditions, of these same ritual contexts. / In addition to traditional educational settings, the Adat cosmology is now taught in Indonesian primary and high schools in ‘local content curriculum’ classes. I compare Adat education based on participation in ritual with that of modern schools, and I argue that in the classroom the indigenous cosmology is abstracted from its performative underpinnings. Adat is embodied differently in ritual and school contexts, and the tensions caused by these differences lead to transformations in Adat knowledge. I end this thesis by contextualizing my findings with national discourses of indigeneity and intercultural education.

In 1852, a five-minute long earthquake hit the Banda Arc region that was felt over most of Indonesia. It caused uplift of new islands and sent a tsunami across the Banda Sea that reached a height of 8 meters at Banda Neira and was also registered at Ambon, Saparua and other islands. Records of the 1852 earthquake at multiple locations provide the constraints needed to reconstruct the disastrous event through earthquake intensity analysis and numerical modeling of the tsunami. Using tsunami heights and arrival times as the major constraints, best fit numerical models of the tsunami were constructed using Clawpack. These models indicate that the earthquake was most likely a mega-thrust event along the Tanimbar Trough with a Mw of around 8.4. At least 10-15 meters of elastic strain energy has accumulated along the Tanimbar Through since the 1852 event, and the population in the region has increased exponentially. When another event occurs ≥ that in 1852, there will be many more people and treasure in harms way.

Campaign GPS measurements during 2001-2003 in the transition between subduction and collision of the Banda arc reveal how strain is partitioned away from the trench and distributed to other parts of the arc-trench system. Genrich, et. al. (1996) conducted a GPS campaign (1992-1994) throughout the Eastern Sunda and Banda arcs that demonstrated partial accretion of the arc to the Australian plate. We reoccupied many of the sites from this earlier study and 7 additional stations, 3 of which are new benchmarks. Our study shortened many baselines and extended the observation epoch to ten years for many key stations. The resulting GPS velocity field for the active Banda arc-continent collision reveals: 1) several mostly rigid crustal blocks exist in the transition from subduction to collision, 2) relative to an Asian reference frame, most of these blocks move in the same direction as the Australian lower plate, but at different rates, 3) block boundaries may exist between the islands of Lombok and Komodo, Flores and Sumba, Savu and West Timor, and between Timor and Darwin, 4) the Timor Trough may account for at least 20 mm/yr of motion between Timor and Darwin, 5) a major transverse fault off the coast of West Timor separates the Savu/Flores/Sumba block from the Timor/Wetar Block and may account for variations in movement in Rote, 6) the Flores thrust moves the eastern Sunda arc north relative to Asia by decreasing amounts to the west, 7) the back-arc Wetar Thrust system takes up the majority of plate convergence between Australia and Asia, and 8) fault boundaries are not found between many blocks, such as various islands of the Sunda arc and forearc with different amounts of motion.

Les villages et les domaines coutumiers de la région de Riung, dans le centre-ouest de l'île de Florès (Indonésie orientale), constituent un ensemble hétérogène marqué par une variabilité culturelle, linguistique, et religieuse. Cette diversité prend place dans un contexte ethno-historique caractéristique du monde austronésien : un paysage traversé par des dynamiques structurantes de mobilité, de dispersion et d'agrégation de groupes humains ; autant de processus qu'accompagne une nécessaire flexibilité sociale et politique. S'éparpillant à partir d'une montagne locale ou débarquant sur la côte, les communautés de Riung s'organisent selon un mode essentiellement dualiste fondé sur un principe de préséance. L'altérité, conçue localement comme un invariant du « vivre ensemble », participe à l'émergence et à l'entretien d'une ethnicité. Cette thèse interroge la construction du paysage social Riung à travers trois axes d'analyse principaux : d'abord les élaborations culturelles et sociales liées à la conception locale de l' « origine », ensuite les processus ethno-historiques d'organisation sociale, enfin les pratiques, notamment matrimoniales, qui articulent et alimentent les espaces d'interrelations. A ces différents niveaux de la vie sociale correspondent par ailleurs des dynamiques identitaires elles-mêmes variées : la continuité d'une identité « ancestrale » de lignage ; la gestion d'une division religieuse de la population entre catholiques et musulmans ; et l'émergence d'une identité « ethnique ». / The villages and traditional domains of the Riung region, in west-central Flores (eastern Indonesia) constitute a heterogeneous assemblage marked by cultural, linguistic, and religious variability. This diversity takes place in a typical Austronesian ethno-historical context: a landscape crossed by structuring dynamics of mobility, dispersion, and aggregation of human groups. Such processes necessarily go with a social and political flexibility. Scattered from a local mountain or landed on the coast, Riung communities are organized according to an essentially dualistic way founded on a principle of precedence. The ‘otherness', locally conceived as an invariant of the ‘togetherness', contributes to the emergence and the sustaining of an ethnicity. This dissertation questions the construction of Riung social landscape through three main analytical axes: the social and cultural elaborations concerned by the local conception of ‘origin', the ethno-historical processes of social organization, and the social practices, notably alliance and marriage, which articulate and maintain spaces of interrelations. To these different levels of social life corresponds a variety of dynamics of identity: the continuity of the lineage ‘ancestral' identity; the management of the religious division between Catholics and Muslims; and the emergence of an ‘ethnic' identity.

This dissertation is based on my research into distinction processes (Calhoun, 1994; Cerulo 1997) between tourists and inhabitants of West Sumba in Eastern Indonesia. The imaginiaries (Castoriadis, 1987; Strauss, 2006; Lacan, 1977; Anderson, 1991; Salazar, 2012) of West Sumbanese people about foreigners also emerge from diving rumors (Bysow, 1928; Allport and Postman, 1947/1965). Their origins, dissemination, and sharpening processes, as well as their consequences will be analysed herein. This case study demonstrates how mental models of otherness are formed and reified, how they clash, and for what purposes they may be utilized. It will also analyze how imaginaries influence behavior and may lead to miscommunication in West Sumba.

Lamaholot is a population found on Flores and in the Solor Archipelago of Eastern Indonesia. The population is village-based and divided into patrilineal descent groups. Marriage is coupled with bridewealth and follows a pattern of asymmetric marriage alliance between descent groups. This thesis shows that a small group of Lamaholot in the administrative regency of East Flores shares certain traditions with a neighbouring population called Ata Tana ‘Ai. Ata Tana ‘Ai are a sub-group of the Sikka population in the administrative regency of Sikka. Descent group among Ata Tana ‘Ai are matrilineal and households were traditionally based in scattered gardens. Marriage is not coupled with bridewealth and instances of asymmetric marriage alliance between descent groups are here a consequence rather than a cause of marriage. The current fieldsite seems to have been part of the ceremonial system of Ata Tana ‘Ai and also to have shared a tradition of dispersed settlement in the gardens. The descent groups might initially have been matrilineal, but in the recent past there was also a habit of dividing children between the parental descent groups. Recent traditions of dividing children can be found throughout central-east Flores, but seemingly not to same extent as at the fieldsite. The payment of elephant’s tusks was a central feature in the acquisition of group members at the fieldsite and could be paid by both men and women. These payments were not necessarily tied to marriage and did not serve as bridewealth. In the last century outer social factors, such as the Catholic mission and the creation of the Dutch colonial state, have resulted in that many of the traditional practices at the fieldsite have been replaced with traditions from Lamaholot elsewhere. The residence pattern is now village-based, but gardens retain a central social and ritual position. The role of the elephant’s tusks has taken different expressions throughout this period of social change, and alongside the changing role of tusks, the traditional social and material authority of women at the fieldsite has declined, whereas that of men has increased. This thesis examines the current and the traditional practices in and around the fieldsite, and focuses on local definitions of descent group, kinship, and inheritance, looking at both biological and social perspectives.