Kinship Innovation Model: Citizens Responses to Protective Policies in the Indonesia-Timor Leste Border Area

This study explores how COVID-19 mitigation policies trigger deviant adaptation among border residents. This article uses a qualitative approach with a case study research strategy. To ensure data representation, the author uses multiple relevant information sources and conducts in-depth, semi-structured interviews with informants aware of and involved in illegal economic activities, drawing on rational choice theory and anomie. Meanwhile, the study conducts internal validity, reliability, construct validity, and external validity tests to ensure research quality through a data-source triangulation strategy. The findings of this study elaborate on Merton's innovation in the context of rural communities in border regions of related countries, where illegal sociological-based economic activities not only maintain kinship solidarity but also serve as justifications for survival that transcend state authority. This article concludes that Haumeni Ana residents' kinship innovations respond to protectionist policies and weak state structures in peripheral areas. Addressing these structural problems requires strengthening the state apparatus and revitalizing border market governance to reflect residents' needs and characteristics.