Uncovering community-defined well-being for sustainable maritime livelihoods among Indonesia’s coastal communities

This qualitative exploratory study examines how maritime communities in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, define and experience well-being, addressing a gap in contextually grounded scholarship relevant to the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 1, SDG 3, and SDG 14. Existing frameworks often rely on externally imposed indicators that inadequately capture coastal realities, limiting their utility for sustainability policy. Using semi-structured interviews with 104 participants from two purposively selected regencies, Takalar (Makassar) and Pangkep (Bugis), this study employed inductive reflexive thematic analysis. Well-being emerged as a multidimensional, relational construct spanning family, economic, social, psychological, spiritual, and physical domains. While these domains largely converge with those reported cross-culturally, what is distinctive is their organization: family operates as the axis around which the others are ordered, and material security acquires value through its contribution to collective continuity rather than individual accumulation. Locally institutionalized reciprocity, notably the punggawa-sawi system of collective fishing labor and the marriage exchange of uang panai’ , is examined as the concrete means through which this ordering is enacted. Well-being is thus not an individual condition but emerges through family responsibility, social solidarity, and spiritual meaning, with social ties and spirituality serving as key coping resources under environmental and economic uncertainty. Theoretically, this study extends universalized and individualistic models of well-being by showing that shared domains may be differently configured and differently produced in a relational, ecologically dependent setting. Practically, the findings offer an empirical basis for culturally grounded sustainability interventions strengthening family resilience, social cohesion, and sustainable livelihoods in maritime regions.