Weaving Through Crises: Longitudinal Looks at Post‐ <scp>COVID</scp> Life and Livelihoods in Eastern Indonesia

ABSTRACT This article examines the meaning of ‘crisis’ from the perspective of rural smallholders on Flores Island in East Indonesia. Using the market closures and mobility restrictions of the COVID‐19 pandemic, we explore how those living in remote areas managed the longer term social and economic consequences of the coronavirus ‘crisis’. Drawing on longitudinal data gathered through household surveys and in‐depth interviews between 2017 and 2023, we analyse how smallholders managed care for their families, land and migration from pre‐ to post‐pandemic. Our findings show that more smallholders feel that post‐COVID life is just as challenging, if not more, than during the pandemic. Their sentiments illustrate how serious constraints continue to affect their ways of living and farming in Flores. Although the coronavirus crisis did indeed cause livelihood difficulties, such as fluctuating commodity prices, closed markets and the loss of jobs in cities, their life circumstances (in 2023)—including failed harvests, crop disease and rising daily costs—make present times feel just as challenging. We discuss what these findings add to recent analytical framings of ‘crisis’ when viewed from smallholders' lives and rural regions such as Flores Island.