Conference Presentations by Shuri M. Gietty Tambunan
The dynamic flow of South Korean popular cultural products has transformed the way " East Asia " ... more The dynamic flow of South Korean popular cultural products has transformed the way " East Asia " is perceived in Indonesia. Consumption of these products greatly influences consumers' imagination, as argued by Appadurai, which becomes an arena of negotiation as well as contestation in the sites of individual and communal agency. On the one hand, consumers in Indonesia perceive these products as a representation of " East Asia, " which is considered a well-known entity that is often used as a strategic defense mechanism (i.e., against Western cultural domination). On the other hand, consumers are seeking for more familiar goods in the form of mimicking products, such as I-pop's boy/girl band or Indonesian television sinetron copying plots from K-dramas. This paper investigates how cultural borrowing and/or appropriating are strategically used in the meaning-making process of the new global and the modern portrayed by South Korean popular cultural products and their copycat versions. The author argues that, instead of focusing on the authentic and inauthentic cultural products that oversimplify the debate, this phenomenon should be analyzed as a form of pastiche, which reveals the repetitive nature of popular culture flows in Asia as well as of cultural borrowing and/or appropriating.
Culinary practices in our everyday lives have been analyzed in a great deal of researches arguing... more Culinary practices in our everyday lives have been analyzed in a great deal of researches arguing that food and drinks are essential parts in identity construction. The main function of culinary practices is to establish a sense of belonging in a particular environment. One of the tools in disseminating information about culinary practices whilst constructing one's cultural identity through culinary practices is social media, in this case Instagram. Through a Cultural Studies perspective, this research investigates how Panggang Ucok, a culinary business in Jakarta, relies heavily on culinary innovation mixing localities from all over Indonesia to sell its products. At the same time, through its Instagram account, there are multiple strategies used to construct personalized images by emphasizing on the owner's family as well as close and friendly relationships with the employees and customers unlike other Instagram pages owned by other culinary businesses, which focus solely on the products. In other words, in the dynamic relationship between the business owner and the 'imagined audience' of the Instagram page, Panggang Ucok is constructing an ideal image of a traditional-modern, commercial-private, and local-global articulation of identity.
Dalam keadaan politik Indonesia yang cenderung menggunakan isu SARA sebagai alat politik, kekhawa... more Dalam keadaan politik Indonesia yang cenderung menggunakan isu SARA sebagai alat politik, kekhawatiran terbesar adalah makin tergerusnya rasa toleransi terutama pada anak-anak. Karya sastra anak dengan tema multikulturalisme dapat membantu anak untuk mengidentifikasi budayanya sendiri dan budaya lain serta membuka ruang dialog. Hefflin and BarksdaleLadd (2001) berargumen bahwa anak-anak memiliki kecenderungan mengidentifikasi dan mencari keterkaitan diri mereka dengan tokoh atau situasi yang ada dalam buku cerita yang mereka baca. Dari hasil observasi awal peneliti, di Indonesia, belum banyak buku cerita anak yang mengusung tema perbedaan dan keberagaman. Sejauh ini, wacana multikulturalisme di Indonesia masih dalam tataran mengenali dan merayakan (recognition dan celebration) perbedaan sehingga dampaknya tidak terlalu signifikan. Beberapa peneliti mengenai pendidikan multikulturalisme melalui karya sastra memaparkan beberapa langkah yang bisa diambil agar kita tidak hanya sekedar ‘merayakan multikulturalisme’ (the perspective of celebratory multiculturalism). Langkah-langkah yang bisa diambil adalah membangun kesadaran keberagaman melalui eksposisi terhadap pengetahuan kebudayaan diri sendiri maupun kebudayaan orang lain, meningkatkan rasa menghargai terhadap perbedaan kebudayaan dan mengenali bahwa setiap kelompok memiliki nilai-nilai yang berbeda (tidak memaksakan nilai yang kita miliki terhadap kelompok lain). Pertanyaan utama penelitian ini adalah strategi narasi apakah yang digunakan buku cerita anak di Indonesia dalam membangun kesadaran keberagaman dan menghargai perbedaan agama, ras, etnis dan gender? Buku cerita yang dipilih sebagai studi kasus adalah Cap Go Meh oleh Sofie Dewayani, Rainbow/Pelangi oleh Melly Sutjitro dan Tetap Teman meski Beda oleh Nurul Hidayati. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengeksplorasi bagaimana buku cerita anak di Indonesia mengkonstruksi pemaknaan terhadap keberagaman dan pada akhirnya dapat mensintesakan strategi-strategi efektif yang diharapkan dapat digunakan penulis buku cerita anak lainnya di Indonesia.
Katakunci: sastra anak, strategi narasi, keberagaman
Trending social media phenomena in Indonesia involving the other woman or “pelakor,” which is an ... more Trending social media phenomena in Indonesia involving the other woman or “pelakor,” which is an Indonesian word associated with a woman who “steals” (mencuri) other women’s husbands, are fundamentally public persecutions. The process of naming (and shaming) by popularizing the term “pelakor” has been argued by scholars or Indonesian feminist activists to be simplifying the complexity of infidelity in which the woman, and not the man, is persecuted by the society as the guilty party. In other words, within the dominant patriarchal ideology, the catfigthing image of the legal wife blaming and shaming the woman who “steals” her husband prevails female inferiority and oppression. This research aims to challenge the normalization of the wife and the other woman’s imagery of catfight in social media by examining its cultural workings. The chosen case studies are the aforementioned viral video and several Instragram accounts which were spesifically made to shame the other woman (pelakor). By conducting a textual analysis, I would argue that language is used haphazardly by initiating the word pelakor and how this recent social media phenomena is a distortion of female empowerment.
Keywords: social media, shaming, female catfights, infidelity
The Indonesian Frontiers of Social Science will be a valuable space for young scholars to engage ... more The Indonesian Frontiers of Social Science will be a valuable space for young scholars to engage in intellectual discussions and to exchange ideas among different field of studies. There are not a lot of opportunities such as what is being offered by Indonesian Academy of Science as it provides resources for young social science researchers to be able to develop professionally in their academic specialties. It will also open up a chance to contribute to the knowledge production in Indonesia. In my field of study, Cultural Studies has always aimed to deconstruct the imbalanced power relation in knowledge production, which I believe could be done through intellectual conversations, such as through this symposium. Knowledge production in Indonesian social science should no longer be pursued within the framework defined by theories or frameworks from the ‘West.’ It does not mean that we could eliminate first-world knowledge structures or produce knowledge completely unmediated by the ‘West’. However, setting up a process of identification within the locale, in this case Indonesia, and also with other countries, such as other Asian countries, could establish an alternative frame of reference. By engaging with multiple issues in many kinds of field of study, the symposium will definitely be a frontier in rapidly developing social science in Indonesia.
My research mainly focuses on how Asian countries have become a reference for one another in the matter of social, political, and also cultural issues. By looking at the flow(s) of media texts, such as film and television programs, the notion of Intra-Asia cultural traffic has been an alternative conceptualization of today’s global phenomena. Films and TV series have also been regarded as powerful medium in projecting social imagery. Through my research, I explore the commonality and contradictions in the Asian experience, especially being compared to with what is happening in Indonesia nowadays. I believe this will initiate new discussions in order to serve the main goal, the augmentation of knowledge production in Indonesia and Asia in general. The focus of the research is divided to two levels: macro level (the flow of these media texts within the network of the regional media industries) and also micro level (the individual consumers in their active and critical meaning-making process as they are contextualized in the Indonesian social and economic preconditioning). By applying multi-layered methodological tools as in combining textual analysis, institutional research and ethnographic methods, I highlight the significance of a multidimensional approach in order to capture the complexity of the issue instead of just focusing on particular aspects.
The dynamic flow of Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean modern-day television dramas in Indonesia has ... more The dynamic flow of Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean modern-day television dramas in Indonesia has offered new resources of imagination. The cultural, political and social specificity in Indonesia has created significant distinctions in how these television dramas (re)construct the shared imagination of East Asia compared to how it is in other locales. I will evaluate the ‘geocultural/linguistic’ hypotheses, which argue that the flow of television products in Asia is mainly driven by regional affinities, namely the sharedness of linguistic, historical and cultural roots. By highlighting issues like gender and sexuality, the discourse of ‘Chineseness,’ and family piety, I will look at how the television dramas mediate these issues in the day-to-day experience of the contemporary Indonesian audience. This research builds on a multi-layered methodological tools of textual analysis and audience studies aiming to understand the complexity of active audience engagements in relation to cultural globalization in Asia.
Book Reviews by Shuri M. Gietty Tambunan
Asian Journal of Social Science, 2012
Papers by Shuri M. Gietty Tambunan
Routledge eBooks, Dec 14, 2017
International Review of Humanities Studies, 2018
In order to be acknowledged as a World Heritage Centre by UNESCO in 2016, the city government tra... more In order to be acknowledged as a World Heritage Centre by UNESCO in 2016, the city government transformed Sawahlunto, which used to be an old mining city, into what the government claimed as a culturally touristic mining city. The city had basically been declared as a dead city; however, the government has strategically increased its economics through tourism. This article focuses on the meaning-making process in the construction of the city image(s) basing the process in the discussion of the politics of collective memory and cultural heritage. Data, mainly findings from observations, interviews and textual analysis, were collected from two tourism sites namely Goedang Ransoem Museum and Lubang Tambang Mbah Soero. The aim of the research is to interpret how the people in Sawahlunto make sense of the image construction of the city or even contest it as the government conveyed particular meaning in redefining the city‟s identity. Abidin Kusno‟s conceptualization of collective memory ...
Uploads
Conference Presentations by Shuri M. Gietty Tambunan
Katakunci: sastra anak, strategi narasi, keberagaman
Keywords: social media, shaming, female catfights, infidelity
My research mainly focuses on how Asian countries have become a reference for one another in the matter of social, political, and also cultural issues. By looking at the flow(s) of media texts, such as film and television programs, the notion of Intra-Asia cultural traffic has been an alternative conceptualization of today’s global phenomena. Films and TV series have also been regarded as powerful medium in projecting social imagery. Through my research, I explore the commonality and contradictions in the Asian experience, especially being compared to with what is happening in Indonesia nowadays. I believe this will initiate new discussions in order to serve the main goal, the augmentation of knowledge production in Indonesia and Asia in general. The focus of the research is divided to two levels: macro level (the flow of these media texts within the network of the regional media industries) and also micro level (the individual consumers in their active and critical meaning-making process as they are contextualized in the Indonesian social and economic preconditioning). By applying multi-layered methodological tools as in combining textual analysis, institutional research and ethnographic methods, I highlight the significance of a multidimensional approach in order to capture the complexity of the issue instead of just focusing on particular aspects.
Book Reviews by Shuri M. Gietty Tambunan
Papers by Shuri M. Gietty Tambunan
Katakunci: sastra anak, strategi narasi, keberagaman
Keywords: social media, shaming, female catfights, infidelity
My research mainly focuses on how Asian countries have become a reference for one another in the matter of social, political, and also cultural issues. By looking at the flow(s) of media texts, such as film and television programs, the notion of Intra-Asia cultural traffic has been an alternative conceptualization of today’s global phenomena. Films and TV series have also been regarded as powerful medium in projecting social imagery. Through my research, I explore the commonality and contradictions in the Asian experience, especially being compared to with what is happening in Indonesia nowadays. I believe this will initiate new discussions in order to serve the main goal, the augmentation of knowledge production in Indonesia and Asia in general. The focus of the research is divided to two levels: macro level (the flow of these media texts within the network of the regional media industries) and also micro level (the individual consumers in their active and critical meaning-making process as they are contextualized in the Indonesian social and economic preconditioning). By applying multi-layered methodological tools as in combining textual analysis, institutional research and ethnographic methods, I highlight the significance of a multidimensional approach in order to capture the complexity of the issue instead of just focusing on particular aspects.