Longing for prosperity in Indonesian Borneo

This thesis explores Dayak villagers search for prosperity at a Central Kalimantan frontier in Indonesian Borneo. Concretely, it asks how do marginalised people deal with the growing sense of uncertainty caused by livelihood instability in consequence of accelerated political-economic and environmental change? How do they navigate a present that refuses to offer stability and well-being and constantly is changing be- yond their control? To address these questions, the thesis looks at local livelihoods and their transformation, and examines the imaginaries of prosperity and well-being that inform these strategies. By doing so, it argues that both the past and the future provide people a space of hope to imagine a prosperous existence and that this back- and forward-looking is itself a way of dealing with the uncertainty of the present. Therewith, the thesis not only sheds light on what it means to make living in both a material and ideological sense in rural Borneo in contemporary times, but it seeks to offer a critical account of current Indonesian state practice of frontier development.