Ropewalking and Safety Nets Local Ways of Managing Insecurities in Indonesia

This volume discusses how national and local social security in Indonesia has changed over the past decades and in particular during the economic and political crisis of the late 20th and early 21st century. The contributions, based on case studies from urban and rural Java, focus on the evolution of existing formal and informal institutions providing social security and at the ways in which people create access to such institutions and develop strategies to handle insecurities. The main conclusion is that informal institutions providing support to those who need it, more and more tend to exclude the poor and weak sections of society, and that government policy in this field is only beginning to address these major social issues.

Juliette Koning, Ph.D. (1997) in Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, is Assistant Professor at the Vrije University Amsterdam (The Netherlands). Her most recent publications include Women and Households in Indonesia (2000), Natural Resources and Social Security (2001), and Generations of Change (2004).

Frans Hüsken, Ph.D. (1987) in Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, is Professor of Anthropology at Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands). He published most recently Beneath the Smoke of the Sugar-Mill. Javanese Peasant Communities during the 20th Century (2000) and Violence and Vengeance. Discontent and Conflict in New Order Indonesia (2002).