ABSTRACT
Discussion, so far, has focused on agency and the choices that Maneo exercise in the course of living their lives, managing kin and exchange relations. Nearly all decisions require consideration of their effects on and interpretation by others. As they maneuver through various social encounters, Maneo try to ascertain and influence how their intentions will be perceived. Interpretations of agency reciprocally influence their evaluations of interactions more broadly and affect how suspicious or magnanimous they will be in the company of others. The tenor, even composition of community may be at stake. In privileging the experience of face-to-face interactions as the locus of community, I do not mean to dismiss the profound effects of Maneo involvement in the wider cross-currents of colonial and postcolonial Indonesian history. Charting involvement with the wider world, as I do in this chapter, to examine possibilities for local, everyday interactions goes beyond mere description of the impact of outside events. The impact exceeds simply undermining local stability or bringing change to an otherwise unchanging traditional society (Viswanathan 1998:42).
