Group Of Local People Research Articles

In Search of Public Support Toward Cultural Pluralism Enacted by Chinese “Potehi” Puppetry Acculturation

Indonesia is a country built from cultural pluralism and multi ethnicities. “Bhineka Tunggal Ika” is a paradigm propagated to build community’s mindset to build understanding among people from different traits, cultures, and religions. Diversities have potentials to increase social tensions, crises, and extremism that are all threatened the community resilience. At the same time, diversities continue to increase together with the increased number of migrations. As such, cultures embedded to migrated people and acculturate into the local people and cultures. One of the products of acculturation is Chinese Glove Puppetry, or Wayang Potehi. There have been so many studies investigating the acculturation process and the efforts of the enthusiasts to make this culture accepted by the local people. This is a good phenomenon as the understanding multiculturalism leading to strong resilience. However, there is a lack of data of how the commitment of public either from a group of local people and Chinese descendants in Indonesia accepting this acculturation and accepting this as a part of cultural pluralism. The present study surveyed 102 respondents revealing their commitment toward pluralism. The findings revealed driving and inhibiting factors. National ideology, the urge to unite, and external dangers are driving forces, while inadequate appreciation of pluralism, tolerance, and social disparity are inhibiting forces.

Volunteering with elephants: Is it a way of moving towards global citizenship?

This study examines the nature of European volunteer tourists’ experiences at Elephants World, Thailand as well as whether and/or to what extent such experiences foster a sense of global citizenship among them. It used an interpretive paradigm and a qualitative research approach. The informants included 21 volunteer participants from European countries. A combination of semi-structured interviews and participant observation was used to gather data. Data were then analysed via a thematic analysis technique, revealing that the experiences of the volunteer tourists were a mixture of general wildlife experiences, experiences related to self-development, and experiences fostering a sense of global citizenship. However, the last dimension of experience was found to represent only the soft mode of global citizenship. Five main obstacles were found to limit the volunteer tourists to become the critical global citizens: language barriers, their short period of participation, the intention and willingness of the volunteer tourists to learn about the root causes of problems in the destination country/host community, the active participation of wider groups of local people, and the volunteer tourists’ colonial perspective. These issues should be carefully by host organisations and sending organisations.

The Neglected C of Intercultural Relations. Cross-Cultural Adaptation Shapes Sojourner Representations of Locals

We investigated, by means of the Reverse Correlation Task (RCT), visual representations of the culturally dominating group of local people held by sojourners as a function of their degree of cross-cultural adaptation. In three studies, using three different methods (reduced RCT, full RCT, conceptual replication) with three independent samples of sojourners and seven independent samples of Portuguese and US-American raters, we gathered clear evidence that poor adaptation goes along with more negative representations of locals. This indicates that sojourner adaptation is reflected, at a social-cognitive level, in the valence of outgroup representations.

Evaluation of Authenticity in the Conservation and Development of the Jameh Mosque of Urmia

ABSTRACT Authenticity is a fundamental concept in the conservation of architectural and urban heritage. It has a very close relationship with cultural heritage values as well as being a conveyor of such values. This paper identifies the factors of recognition in relation to this concept by qualitative research methods and content analysis of international documents and theories. It also sets out the main research questions to be considered in relation to the concept of authenticity in the conservation and development of the Jameh Mosque complex in the city of Urmia, West Azerbaijan province, north-western Iran. Based on this premise, the paper evaluates the conservation and development of the Mosque at different periods, where the evaluation indicate that the measures of 1988 failed to consider the notion of authenticity. Then, establishing the correlation between the explanatory factors of authenticity and the actions taken in 1988 the impact of development is assessed by quantitative research methods. The result is that from the point of view of the specialists and the local people, socio-cultural factor has been neglected to a greater degree than other factors; so much so that the ‘socio-cultural’, ‘historical-evidential’ and ‘aesthetic’ values have been neglected in a downward trend. The findings are confirmed for both groups of local people and specialists.

Ethnobotany Study through the Utilization of Medicinal Plants in Obesi Village, Mollo Utara District, South Central Timor Regency

The culture of using plants as traditional medicine by a group of local people is always related to regional identity, rituals, and plant diversity that need to be studied in depth. This study is known as ethnobotany study. This study aims to determine, describe, and analyze the level of ethnobotany knowledge of plants in their use as traditional medicine by the Obesi village community, North Mollo district, South Central Timor district. The methods used were surveys and direct interviews which were guided by a list of questions for several Obesi villagers with the snowball sampling technique. The data obtained were presented in tabulated form and analyzed descriptively with a quantitative approach to determine the ethnobotany level of medicinal plants. The results showed that there were 40 types of plants from 28 families that were used by the community to treat various diseases such as rheumatism, appendicitis, hypertension, fever, convulsions, diarrhea, flatulence, and itching with the most used plant parts, namely leaves, fruit, roots/rhizomes, tubers, midrib, bark, and seeds and flowers in a very simple or traditional way. Ethnobotany level of knowledge based on age class is at a moderate level where the lowest (KU1) 0.574 and the highest (KU4) 0.899, and based on gender, women have a higher level of knowledge than men. The research results are expected to be used as a reference source for important information in the utilization of various types of medicinal plants in the surrounding environment.

Tourism as a livelihood development strategy: a study of Tarapith Temple Town, West Bengal

In India, tourism development has also been used as a strategy for upgrading socioeconomic conditions and living standard of the local people. This study intends to examine the effects of tourism on job and income distribution and also its effects on local people’s livelihood and living standard. The growth of tourism sector in the study area has developed some selected infrastructure and has also generated a lot of employment and income opportunities for the local people and outsiders. This study shows that the high paid jobs and income go to the outsiders, though 34.6% of the owners and employees are from adjacent villages of the study area. Though it is the result of a huge in-migration due to the attraction of jobs and income, one group of local people were found to be engaged in tourism activities only for their subsistence, whereas the other group of people were engaged in high income businesses. This situation creates an intra-village disparity in the study area and adjacent villages. Tourism also seems to positively affect the livelihood and standard of living of the local people. In the study village (Chandipur; Tarapith) where most of the households are directly engaged in tourism-related activities, they are found to spend 35.94% more than the control village (Batail) where none of the households are engaged in tourism-related activities. The expenditure, assets holdings and living condition are also better in the study village compared to the control village. As far as direct economic benefits are concerned, tourism seems to have promoted agricultural production, construction and supply business, craft and manufacturing products, etc. The study observes that lack of human capital among the local people prevents them from drawing the right economic advantage from the enormous growth of tourism in the area.

HAK ULAYAT ATAS WILAYAH PESISIR BAGI BENDEGA PASCA DITETAPKANNYA PERDA 11/2017 (Studi Di Desa Adat Tuban)

<p>Recognition of the exixtence of bendega as a traditional instituion in the Province of Bali is getting stroger after the issuance of Peraturan Daerah Provinsi Bali Nomor 11 tahun 2017 tentang Bendega. Even though i tis located as a traditional institution, bendega still given space to innovate in economic activities without ignoring the value of local wisdom. In Desa Adat Tuban, i tis found that there are groups of local people who are still pursuing the fishing profession. In addtion, this community group is also innovating in economic activities by utilizing the coastal areas which are Forest Park Conservation area Tahura.</p><p>The objectives of this study are (1) the find out and analyze the legal position of fishing groups in Desa Adat Tuban after issuance of Peraturan Daerah Provinsi Bali No 11 Tahun 2017 tentang Bendega; (2) knowing and analyzing the state’s recognition of fishermen groups in Desa Adat Tuban as the legal subject in charge of management of coastal areas.</p><p>This research is an empirical legal research. Using primary data obtained hrough observation an interview techniques. The secondary data is the collected<br />thorugh a literature study. All data collected is the analyzed qualitatively. The output of this research is a secintific journal with ISSN. In connection with the TKT research, the target that can be achieved in this study is TKT 3 in accordance with the indicators that have been determined.</p>

BATUR: THE MOUNT, LAKE, AND TEMPLE’S SANCTITY, SOCIAL RELATIONS IN THE COMMUNITY, AND THE TOURISM BUSINESS

Batur region in Kintamani Subdistrict, Bangli, Bali, is at first a living place of a group of local people with holy, sacred markers characterized by Hinduism. The most popular holy markers are Mount Batur (1717 m), Lake Batur, and Pura (Temple) Ulun Danu Batur. Later Batur is known as a tourist destination where many tourists both domestic and international come and go everyday. This paper describes the existence of the Batur region as a unity of three things: sanctity or holiness (sacred area), social relations of the local community, and tourism business. This study is qualitative which its data is taken from books, journals, and other documents with the techniques of qualitative data analysis.
 The result of the study shows there is a high complexity in Batur due to its position as a sanctuary (holy area), a place of community life, and a tourism area. Batur is a sacred area, at least because of the Mount Batur, Lake Batur, and Ulun Danu Batur Temple so that such a region is honoured by all Hindu believers in Bali and outside Bali. However, today, Batur is also known as a popular tourist area because the mount, the lake, and the temple are really very interesting to be enjoyed (or consumed as tourism products) and in fact, the region is also surrounded by other beautiful tourist attractions in Batur and Kintamani, i.e. Penelokan, Toyabungkah, Trunyan village, agricultural fields, and a new, man-made one that is the Batur Global Geopark.

Rank aggregation of local expert knowledge for conservation planning of the critically endangered saola

There has been much recent interest in using local knowledge and expert opinion for conservation planning, particularly for hard-to-detect species. Although it is possible to ask for direct estimation of quantities such as population size, relative abundance is easier to estimate. However, an expert's knowledge is often geographically restricted relative to the area of interest. Combining (or aggregating) experts' assessments of relative abundance is difficult when each expert only knows a part of the area of interest. We used Google's PageRank algorithm to aggregate ranked abundance scores elicited from local experts through a rapid rural-appraisal method. We applied this technique to conservation planning for the saola (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis), a poorly known bovid. Near a priority landscape for the species, composed of 3 contiguous protected areas, we asked groups of local people to indicate relative abundances of saola and other species by placing beans on community maps. For each village, we used this information to rank areas within the knowledge area of that village for saola abundance. We used simulations to compare alternative methods to aggregate the rankings from the different villages. The best-performing method was then used to produce a single map of relative abundance across the entire landscape, an area larger than that known to any one village. This map has informed prioritization of surveys and conservation action in the continued absence of direct information about the saola.

The Diaries of George C. Woolley, Volume 2: 1907–1913 by George C. Woolley

Reviewed by: The Diaries of George C. Woolley, Volume 2: 1907–1913 by George C. Woolley H. S. Barlow The Diaries of George C. Woolley, Volume 2: 1907–1913 George C. Woolley Danny Wong Tze Ken and Stella Moo-Tan (eds) Kota Kinabalu: Department of Sabah Museum, 2016. ISBN: 978-903-9638. xiii, 1482 pp. The first volume of Woolley’s diaries was reviewed in JMBRAS Vol 89 Part 1 (June 2016). This second, more substantial volume, covers the years 1907–113. The main episodes in Woolley’s life at this time were a brief stint as District Officer in Beaufort, then a stint from 8 November 1907 till March 1910 when he served as District Officer, Province Clarke, based at Sipitang. This was on the west coast of Borneo, readily accessible from Labuan and, also, partly by the new railway line to Tenom from Jesselton. It was a dagger-shaped district, extending from the Klias Peninsula in the north, south to beyond Long Pa Sia, bounded on the west by the Sarawak border. Woolley’s stint in Sipitang appears to have been an extremely agreeable and happy one. Here he was away from the petty politics of colonial Jesselton, and encouraged to undertake long trips into the interior of his district to report on conditions there, and arrange for the introduction of such modest facilities as the Chartered Company would afford. This seldom extended beyond court hearings, and the establishment of rudimentary government offices. Ross Ibbotson on p. 63 has attempted, with some success, to superimpose on a 1:500,000 Tactical Pilotage Chart from the UK Ministry of Defence the routes of Woolley’s major excursions. Although routes along the coast, generally by boat, were well travelled, the country inland, was rough and roadless with two mountains well over 6000 feet. There were, of course, no proper resthouses, so on such excursions Woolley was obliged to sleep in the houses of village headmen or in sulap (primitive huts, often consisting of little more than an attap roof and a raised bamboo floor). It must have been a harsh and tough life, laced with danger and uncertainty: headhunting raids from over the Sarawak border were not uncommon occurrences. Unfortunately, with few exceptions, Woolley gives no account of the fascinating talks he must have had with his hosts on these travels, not to mention detailed accounts of the village ceremonies he must have witnessed. For the reader, the diaries in this volume are greatly enhanced in value with Woolley’s own photographs. At this time he became an extremely enthusiastic amateur photographer, developing his own prints. Many of the resulting photographs have survived and are reproduced alongside the diary entry which specifically refers to them. The majority are of individuals, or groups of local people, or views of sulap or rather grander buildings Woolley encountered on his travels. [End Page 167] Woolley was anxious to stay in his Sipitang post for as long as possible and, by keeping a low profile, managed to stay for 2½ years. He was then, in one of the frequent reshuffles of expatriate officers, posted back to Jesselton as Commissioner of Lands. This took him all over British North Borneo at the time of a rubber boom. This made the post particularly important. The Chartered Company was keen to establish rubber estates along the west coast, in view of the success of the Sapong and Melalap estates, in the Interior Residency, linked to Jesselton by the recently completed railway line. Woolley’s generally brief and cryptic comments on his land work indicate that there were frequent disputes with traditional land owners objecting to arbitrary confiscation of their property. These issues remain, over a century later, in disputes over land now taken over, not for rubber but for oil palm, without adequate free, prior and informed consent. Plus ça change . . . Perhaps the most important of these was the Papar Land Case, in which Woolley was deeply involved, initially assessing whether claims by dispossessed Dusun landholders near Papar had been adequately compensated. The overall result was that, thanks to the activities of the Dusuns themselves, the Roman Catholic Church and the dissident lawyer R. B. Turner, the...

Co-creating an open platform at the local governance level: How openness is enacted in Zambia

The open mode of thinking, acting and being has been associated with liberating, participatory and collaborative arrangements that have prompted us to redefine how research, science, innovation and citizenship are to be conceived. In an era where much is said about the ‘open society’ and open innovation, looking at the interplay between involvement, technology and social good becomes of particular importance and interest. Having employed an action research approach, we examine how actors have enacted an open technology at the local governance level in a town in Zambia. Our interest is in how the different groups of local people have co-created the technology through multiple negotiations, organizational forms and institutional arrangements. Being theoretically inspired by the ‘technology enactment framework’, we propose an approach for framing the design of participatory technology projects at the local governance level, with implications for both theory and practice.

The State of Food (In)Security in the Trans-Himalaya, Upper-Mustang, Nepal

Food insecurity is a global issue, with higher prevalence of hunger in developing countries. Low crop yield and food production - due to difficult topography and traditional farming methods - combined with lower income; fluctuations in prices and supply, and low quality of food have been causing food insecurity in Nepal. This research examines food (in)security situation in Upper-Mustang, Nepal. The results are derived from the data collected through face–to-face interviews with the heads of 66 households, in-depth interviews conducted with 22 key informants, and discussions with the group of local people in different (6) places. The household food system was studied from livelihood perspectives and food (in)security was assessed in relation to self-sufficiency or production sufficiency, access, utilization, and stability of food. Households in the Trans-Himalaya acquire food from multiple sources such as farming and livestock ranching, buy food from the market, and also receive food aid for the sake of survival during the food crisis. Food security situation in terms of self-production in Upper-Mustang is at worst stage that many households are facing severe to chronic food insecurity. Studied households access marketed food, though the price they pay is very high. The worrisome issue is that there is no significant improvement in food security situation over time in the Trans-Himalaya. Study found that not the household size but dependency ratio in the household increases food insecurity. On the other hand, quality of farmland in terms of cropping intensity and availability of irrigation rather than the farm-plot size contribute for food security. The issue of food security is still a valid development policy goal for Nepal in general and for the Trans-Himalaya in particular. Accordingly, food security interventions are important. Yet, policy for interventions should look into all components of food systems, particularly providing irrigation, promoting local food varieties, and provisioning for food subsidies and food aid together with subsidies in food transport.

Niching sustainability in an Indigenous community: protected areas, autonomous initiatives, and negotiating power in natural resource management

Although sustainability science has been developed within the Western knowledge system, and Indigenous science has been studied at the local level, these two streams of thought are premised on a common understanding of the relationship between humans and the environment. The practitioners of each, however, have not yet engaged in productive, practical dialog. This paper used cooperative game theory to better understand the choices and tradeoffs made by Indigenous Taiwanese villagers who were in a “competitive” situation with regard to Indigenous autonomy and government-led protected areas. The aim was to understand how interactions among different groups of local people could affect community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) processes that aim to balance environmental sustainability with Indigenous autonomy. Results show that the knowledge and rights of Indigenous people could be part of a compromising collaboration with legislation-supported protected areas, if this collaboration benefits Indigenous autonomy as well as sustainability of the local environment and livelihoods. Indigenous science can inform changing landscapes, while sustainability science can provide analytical approaches and planning schemes for resilience. We suggest, though, that the trade-off process should be open and include a well-communicated mechanism through which all parties can negotiate power in a mutually agreeable way, merging Indigenous and sustainability concerns into one actionable collaboration. The types of conflicts analyzed in this study are characteristic of the conflicts typically associated with sustainable development.

Community Forestry as Perceived by Local People Around Cross River National Park, Nigeria

The prior identification of local people's preferences for conservation-development projects will help gear nature-conservation strategies toward the needs of different groups of local people. This will help policy-makers in designing a more acceptable and effective conservation strategy. This article reports a study of local perceptions of a community forestry project that aims to help improve the design as well as local acceptance of the project. The data originated from personal interviews conducted in communities around Okwangwo Division of the Cross River National Park in southeast Nigeria and were analysed using ordered logit and binary logit models. The results showed that >50% of the respondents were satisfied with the community forestry project. The respondents' perceptions were mainly influenced by education, age, gender, and willingness to contribute money to tourism as well as the contributions of cocoa, banana, and afang (Gnetum africanum) to the respondents' income. The results from this study have important implications for nature conservation in Nigeria and potentially other conservation contexts across the developing world.

Insiders and Outsiders in French Social Housing Allocation: How Conflicting Rights Exclude Disadvantaged People

Abstract The ‘right to housing’ in France implies that disadvantaged people suffering poverty or housing difficulty enjoy priority access to social housing. However, the disadvantaged in fact have serious difficulty obtaining access to social housing in France. In this article, insider–outsider theory (Lindbeck & Snower, 2002) is employed to explain the exclusionary process of French social housing allocation. Insider groups of local people, existing tenants and employees are represented in this complex allocation process and obtain privileged access. Disadvantaged outsiders suffer stigmatisation and exclusion. This article demonstrates how conflicting constitutional rights and a complex written bureaucratic procedure instrumentalise this exclusion of the disadvantaged. A new ‘opposable’ right to housing could help some disadvantaged groups, though it has significant limitations. Creating a level playing field for insiders and outsiders in a simplified procedure could help to improve housing access for di...

National Celebration or Local Act of Reconciliation? Public Ritual Performance and Inter-Ethnic Relations in an Australian City

This is a study of the reshaping of Australia Day celebrations in Lismore, a small city in New South Wales, which was motivated by an attempt to make the celebrations inclusive of Indigenous people and to portray the Australian nation as unified rather than divided along lines of race and culture. It shows how and why a group of local people went about reconstructing the Day's events, and how this helped to shape (but not to homogenise) the symbolic messages conveyed. The analysis demonstrates how the specific changes were located structurally both in local initiatives concerning the relationship between Indigenous and White Australians, and also in a wider State and Federal context affecting this relationship. The nature and significance of the changes made to Australia Day are analysed by drawing on the anthropology of performance and other work on public ritual.

The Sedgeford Crisis

The Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project, set up in 1996 as an experiment in 'democratic archaeology', was shaken by a major internal crisis between November 2007 and July 2008. An attempt by a small group of local people to establish top-down control over the project was defeated by a political mobilisation of the project's mass base of volunteer archaeologists and community activists. This article, by a leading protagonist, analyses the crisis and comes to some radical conclusions about the nature of community archaeology, democratic organisation, and the way in which political power is sometimes contested.

A project description of Outlook

The Outlook project based in Manchester offers a range of activities, support and skills training to people over the age of 17 with ongoing or previous drug or alcohol issues. The programme was originally implemented in 2002 in response to identified need for a comprehensive dedicated outreach service to cater for the diverse needs of problematic drug and alcohol users across the east Manchester area (Iredale, 2002). The catchment area for service users has since been extended to include the rest of Manchester city centre (ONS census 2003 estimates that the Manchester city area has a population of approximately 432,400 people).The programme is based on a community model, reaching out especially to ‘hard to reach’ groups of local people in many socially excluded areas of Manchester. The indices of Multiple Deprivation show that Manchester has an exceptionally low ranking position in the North West compared with the rest of the UK when accounting for factors of income, employment, education, health, skills and training, barriers to housing and services, and crime.

Vi hilser da på hinanden...: Social kapital i en dansk udkantskommune

Gunnar Lind Haase Svendsen:
 “But at least we greet each other“. Social capital in an outlying Danish municipality 
 
 In recent years, many people living on social transfer incomes have moved to more outlying municipalities in Denmark. This includes Ravnsborg, a municipality situated in an outlying rural area in the northwest corner of the island of Lolland, about 150 kilometers southwest of Copenhagen. During the past two decades, the arrival of newcomers from Copenhagen, many of them fully dependent on these incomes, has lead to deterioration of an already overstretched municipal economy, resulting in tensions between groups of local people and the newcomers. This raises the question of the human and economic consequences of the confrontations between these two groups. In order to analyze this issue, fieldwork and interviews were carried out employing a bridging/bonding social capital theoretical framework. The study revealed both a physical and mental gulf between the local residents and the newcomers, especially between the “locally born“ and “Copenhageners“ living on income transfers. The mutual distrust and distance – increased by gossip, negative media reports and symbolic violence, led to group isolation and to an “oppose each other“ attitude, summed up as exaggerated binding social capital. The article focuses on the role of open and inclusive as opposed to closed and exclusive networks, which involves a qualitative focus on the positive side of social capital, as well as its “downside“. Such a qualitatively oriented, sociological approach can be seen as relatively new within research on social capital that has been dominated by macroeconomic and quantitative approaches.

Incidence of cytogenetic damage in lead–zinc mine workers exposed to radon

The purpose of this study was to detect cytogenetic damage in mine workers working in a lead-zinc mine, which could be associated with a combined exposure to radon and heavy metals. Our study involved 70 mine workers from the lead-zinc mine. We used peripheral blood lymphocytes as the target material. The total share of structural chromosome aberration (SCA) decreased significantly over the 3 years of monitoring, from 5.08/200 analyses of metaphases in 1995 to 3.28 in 1997, owing to the decrease in exposure during the process of mine closure. The share of SCA was significantly different from the group of local people, who had never worked in the mine (1.43), as well as from the control group of Slovene residents (1.88). The share of micronuclei (MN) in mine workers also decreased in the monitored period, from 14.65/500 cytokinesis-blocked cells in 1995 to 11.77 in 1997, while the sister chromatic exchange (SCE) level did not change much (from 8.105/50 analysed cells in 1995 to 7.73 in 1997). Owing to the closure activities, the received concentrations of contaminants were falling constantly, particularly concentrations of radon. This was particularly evident in the level of SCA and the MN incidence, while the SCE values remained nearly on the same level. This indicates that the incidence of SCE is probably more strongly influenced by heavy metals than by radon.