How a travelling society totalizes itself : Hybrid polities and values in Maluku, Eastern Indonesia

This article applies Dumont’s view of ideology to an Eastern Indonesian society with intense trade connections to other ethnic groups and the larger political economy. In spite of their commercial importance, these connections are framed as long-distance kinship. My question is whether this encompassment of economic by social values is part of a totalizing ideological order. I discuss the values of personhood and exchange to show that long-distance commerce is the source of social differentiation expressed in them. Ultimately, however, the test of Dumont’s methodology is not whether it helps explain the resilience of local social orders, but whether it can deal with historical complexity and change. I argue that Dumont’s answer – hybrid ideology – is a good description for the encompassment of both kin-based totalities and political-economic stratificationPeer reviewe

Pottery production and trade in the Banda zone, Indonesia: the Kei tradition in its spatial and historical context

This paper provides the first comprehensive description of pottery production in the Kei islands of eastern Indonesia, based on field data collected mainly in 1981 and on Museum collections in the UK and The Netherlands. The account is situated in what we know of the dynamics of trading systems that existed in the Moluccan islands between 1500 and 2000. Kei pottery is widely thought to be the successor of a tradition established in the Banda islands that was extinguished with the 1621 Dutch massacre of Bandanese, but re-established at several sites in the Kei islands by Bandanese migrants after this date. These claims are critically examined using ethnographic and archaeological data, and an attempt made to compare the production and trading patterns of pottery in the ‘Banda zone’ before and after 1621

The biocultural history of Manihot esculenta in the Moluccan islands of eastern Indonesia: assessing evidence for the movement and selection of cassava germplasm

This paper examines the circulation of cassava germplasm (Manihot esculenta) as a problem in biocultural history. It reviews how the plant was introduced into the Moluccan islands as part of the 'Columbian exchange' and how it has subsequently moved around through the distribution of stem cuttings. Using a combination of lexical, ethnographic, botanical and genetic data, including material from ecologically-contrasting field sites, it evaluates the evidence for tracking germplasm movement at the local and regional level, considers the extent to which this contributes to local agrobiological diversity, and reflects upon some methodological problems of integrating sociocultural and scientific evidence. © Society of Ethnobiology 2012