Is it possible to be corrupt yet ethical? Or good but unethical? In one of Indonesia's most corrupt towns, the answers to these questions are far from clear for young elite civil servants, who must navigate the moral‐ethical landscape of post‐Suharto bureaucracy. For them, anticorruption efforts heighten uncertainty regarding what corruption is and facilitate slippage between various constructions of ethical selfhood. The uncertainty arises at the intersection of local moral economies, national ideologies of state building, the particular global morality of anticorruption, and a conception of the good that inspires neoliberal ideas on governance. Finding themselves at this intersection, young civil servants can find no unambiguous contrast between being “good” and “corrupt.” [corruption, anticorruption, good governance, civil service, morality, ethics, Indonesia] Apakah mungkin seseorang yang melakukan praktek korupsi akan tetapi pada saat yang bersamaan menjadi seseorang yang etis? Atau sebaliknya; apakah mungkin menjadi seseorang yang baik akan tetapi juga tidak etis? Di suatu kota yang paling korup di Indonesia, jawaban terhadap pertanyaan di atas sangatlah tidak jelas dan sulit untuk diterangkan bagi elit Pegawai Negeri Sipil (PNS) muda, yang harus menavigasi tatanan moral dan etika dalam tubuh birokrasi pasca kekuasaan Soeharto. Bagi mereka, upaya gerakan antikorupsi justru meningkatkan ketidakjelasan tentang apa itu korupsi dan mempermudah tergelincir di antara beragam konstruksi dan makna etika. Ketidakjelasan itu timbul pada saat terjadi persinggungan antara ekonomi moral lokal, ideologi nasional tentang pembentukan negara, nilai moralitas antikorupsi global dan konsepsi tentang kebaikan, yang menginspirasi ide‐ide neoliberalisme tentang pemerintahan. Bagi PNS yang berada di tengah‐tengah persimpangan ini, mereka menemukan ketiadaan batas yang jelas antar menjadi “baik” dan “korup”. [korupsi, anti korupsi, good governance, Pamong Praja, moralitas, etika, Indonesia]

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In this article, I explore how anticorruption strategies affected a tender held in 2008 at the Department of Public Works in Kupang, eastern Indonesia, in ways both unexpected and unintended. I show how anticorruption programs get refracted at the local level and become unanchored from their original intention, leading to an obsession with adherence to the form of the anticorruption discourse that runs counter to its spirit and actually undermines the anticorruption initiative by providing new opportunities for corruption. Here I contribute to recent anthropological attention to both corruption and documents by looking at how traces of corrupt procedures can be found in the very documents designed to counter them. I argue that documents form a significant ethnographic point of departure from which to study the unintended effects of anticorruption programs, especially when they perform the ambiguous effect of both strengthening the anticorruption discourse and subverting it. [corruption, documents, Indonesia, construction sector]ABSTRAIT J'enquête dans cet article la manière dont les stratégies de lutte contre la corruption affectèrent un appel d'offres par la Section des Travaux Publiquesà Kupang. Je démontre que la réalisation des programmes de lutte contre la corruption au niveau local les détache des intentions qui les motiventà l'origine, ce qui donne lieù a une obsession par la conformeà la forme du discours contre la corruption, qui vaà l'encontre de ses intentions originaires et finit par engendrer de nouvelles occasions de corruption, sapant donc l'esprit même de ces initiatives.Je contribueà l'intérêt récent en anthropologie porté sur la corruption ainsi que sur les documents. Je soutiens que les documents constituent une base de départ ethnographique importante pour l'étude des effets fortuits des programmes de lutte contre la corruption, particulièrement quand ils ont l'effetéquivoque de renforcer ainsi que de subvertir le discours contre la corruption. [corruption, documents, Indonésie, secteur de la construction] RINGKASAN Dalam tulisan ini saya mengeksplorasi strategi anti-korupsi mempengaruhi -secara tidak diharapkan dan tidak diinginkan -sebuah tender di Departemen Pekerjaan Umum di Kupang, Nusa Tenggara Timur, pada tahun 2008. Saya memperlihatkan bagaimana program-program anti-korupsi menjadi bias di tingkat lokal dan terlepas dari tujuan awalnya yang mengarah pada obsesi dengan kepatuhan terhadap bentuk wacana anti-korupsi untuk melawan semangatnya dan sesungguhnya memperlemah prakarsa anti-korupsi dengan memberikan peluang-peluang baru bagi tindak korupsi. Saya berkontribusi pada perhatian antropologi akan korupsi dan dokumen dengan melihat pada bagaimana jejak-jejak prosedur yang korup dapat ditemukan dalam dokumen yang dirancang untuk melawan korupsi.Saya berpendapat bahwa dokumen-dokumen membentuk titik berangkat etnografi untuk mengkaji akibat-akibat yang tidak diinginkan dari program anti-korupsi, khususnya ketika mereka memperlihatkan akibat yang ambigu, yaitu memperkuat seka...

This article focuses on the physical composition of the Eastern Indonesian provincial town of Kupang, a town thought to be characterized by interethnic tensions. I examine the assumption that social segmentation is explainable in terms of ethnicity. In order to show that ethnicity not the sole explanation for social segregation, I draw on urban anthropological insights proposing an anthropology of cities-and in particular Setha M. Low's concept of the "divided city"-to look at the kinds of social segmentation that are suggested by the development of new residential areas in Kupang. When comparing the composition of Kupang during colonial times to its current lay-out, it becomes clear that, even though Kupang started out as a city characterized by ethnic segmentation, it has been developing towards a city based on class-segmentation. This class-segmentation reflects access to state employment and resources. Nevertheless, being a provincial town instead of a larger metropolis, class segmentation (physically or socially) is far from rigid. As such, provincial towns can form a fascinating space to explore physical segregation, social stratification and social mobility. [Eastern Indonesia, Kupang, West Timor, ethnicity, class segmentation]. bs_bs_banner

This article engages recent queries in anthropology regarding where to find openings for reimagining, recreating, or rearticulating a moral and political otherwise. I suggest we can find such openings in the political potentiality of ironic experiences—intensely unnerving confrontations with the discrepancy between accepted norms and cherished ideals, of which these norms fall short. Through a person-centered account of one of Indonesia’s most well-known waria (transgender woman), I demonstrate how an out-of-the-ordinary woman’s pursuit of a pious, ordinary life occasions a profound estrangement from common understandings of what it means to be Muslim. This, then, facilitates the possibility of reimaging religious and political orientations despite a national political context of growing incommensurability between Islam and non-heteronormativity.