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This paper is the first report on the research project titled “Interdisciplinary Study of Mutual Cultural Exchange between Japan and Indonesia （III）,” which was funded by the Research Institute of St. Andrew’s University. It aims to explore the kinds of videos that people on the island of Sumba have uploaded on YouTube and their backgrounds. This study focuses not only on the ongoing phenomena but also on a more broadly defined media that have completely changed since the late 1980s. Presently, many anthropologists face difficulty in conducting research owing to COVID-19. This research project is a kind of tentative online ethnography that connects the newest digital data with the materials on hand. In Indonesia, an emerging economy in Southeast Asia, internet users have been increasing rapidly, and most of them use mobile phones. The island of Sumba is located on the periphery of eastern Indonesia and one of the country’s most sparsely populated and impoverished regions. Before the Christianization began, all the Sumbanese believed in marapu （ancestral spirits）. However, with continuous modernization, the number of marapu followers has decreased drastically. They have also faced legal and social discrimination. Their marginalization should be considered based on the background of videos made by the Sumbanese. The paper examines three YouTube channels and other genres of videos. First, the “Lii Marapu Project” channel, funded by NGOs, intends to revitalize traditional marapu cultural assets, such as Sumbanese music. Second, students of the Christian University of Wira Wacana Sumba make and upload short movies. Most of the movies are based on the theme of the Sumbanese customs, such as marriage prescription, which they are concerned with. Third, a junior-high school teacher produces short movies depicting cheerful high school life in which local students perform. Compared to serious stories made by the university students, these movies are produced with relatively less local culture and have a larger audience. Besides these short movies, this study also explored a video made by another Sumbanese teacher depicting his own version of history in which Sumbanese ancestors appear to originate from the Garden of Eden. These YouTube videos can be discussed in terms of two kinds of changing media. First, the media through which Sumbanese history and traditions are disseminated have completely changed. During the late 1980s, village elders abided by customs passed down aurally from generation to generation and conducted annual rituals for marapu. There was no written text of customs. Threatened with the extinction of these aural traditions today, some educated and Christian Sumbanese have been eager to learn their history and tradition. They post their own research results on blogs and videos of Sumbanese history on YouTube. These videos are thought to be modernly revitalized tradition. Second, media have been localized and diversified in Indonesia. After the age of national and local television broadcasts, as internet use is proliferating, videos on YouTube made by ordinary people have become an alternative Indonesians can choose among various media contents. |
