FOLKLORE STUDIES FOR SOCIAL COHESION IN INDONESIA

Abstract

Compared to other social sciences, Folkore Studies, or Folkloristics or merely Folklore, seems to be unfamiliar to most people. Folklore is known in common parlance as foktale or folksong, while it in fact it covers a vast array of cultural expressions. Folklorists deal with the materials of expressive cultures (verbal, material, and customary), but what attract them more are the people creating or recreating those materials. In this light, folkloristics confirms itself as a discipline placing high emphasis on humanistic aspects. Folklorists turn their gaze to the group of people and their culture marginalized from dominant discourses and practices. The committment is to take sides with the unnoticeable and “invisible”form of cultural expressions.
This article is intended to propose two things. First to encourage more studies on folkloric expressions of the Indonesian people. Ideally, the government needs to seriously consider the establishment of folklore departments in Indonesia, or as an initial step, to seriously support folklore performances in many areas of the country. The second is to argue that folklore studies and performances may benefit this country in strengthening its social ties. Humanity scholars and practicioners need to bring to the center the overlooked and marginalized cultural expressions. By doing so, they play roles in promoting inter-cultural understanding by making other people’s culture accessable to and understandable by others. Mutual understanding and then appreciations, I believe, can promote social cohesions among the Indonesian people whose cultural richness is undeniable.