Helping professionals need to codify indigenous and cultural knowledge from Southeast Asia to better serve communities in times of crisis. Southeast Asian knowledge is influenced by its cultural, religious, and geographical context and emphasizes ancestral ties, community, and ritual. Examples of codifying this knowledge include advocating for diversity as a work ethic standard and understanding local identity to better help clients and enable participatory development. Codifying this knowledge can strengthen cultural resilience in disasters and atrocities by gathering communities to solve problems from within using internal motivation and authentic drives.

1. Codifying HELPING PROFESSIONALS’ PRACTICES: SEA’S
CULTURAL RESILIENCE in DISASTERS AND
ATROCITIES
Art and Spirituality
Muchammadun
Dept. of Islamic Community Development, FDIK
State Islamic University of Mataram
INDONESIA

2. Problem Statement:
Science is not the only Western postulate. However, they are too westernised (Ragab, 2019;
David C. Lindberg, 2017)
Krystal S. Tsosie, Katrina G. Claw (2020), Soeharto (2019), Muchammadun (2019): Indigenous
knowledge needs codifying.

3. Sasak shadow puppets: Panji tales
Mataram State Museum
National case: in a need for PTKIN. I.e. Islamic Community Development
dept. (35 in Indonesia, varied in knowledge, skills, and ethics, not yet
standardized. OTH tacit knowledge not documented.
In particular: risks of disasters, atrocities-> participatory development.
Codifying: arrange (laws or rules)
into a systematic code.
Helping Professions: Human
service jobs: teaching, counseling,
community development.

4. SEA Setting:
Disastrous
Ring of fire;
Atrocities: refugees,
religious/cultural based
unrest.

5. Atrocities: Significant rate of child marriage and its impact, and happening in global south.
UNICEF, 2018: “The highest adolescent birth rates at the country level are seen in Lao PDR (94),
Cambodia (57), Thailand (50), Indonesia (48) and Philippines (47)”.

6. Easter Island
11th-12th century
British Museum
Madagascar
Ndated
Musee du Quai Branly
USING CULTURAL CAPITALS as means of SEA’S COMMUNITY EDUCATION
Reverence for the ancestors is a defining feature of Global South culture and spirituality
expressed in statues that are very similar in style:
Indonesia
12th-13th century
Thomas Murray Collection

7. Global South similarities:
Helping Practitioners need : (CP1) knowledge Cross Cultural Understanding (CS2)
Respect for diverse beneficiaries and Active communication with beneficiaries.

8. A Sasak man ritually washing (wudhu) in Lingsar springs before performing
Muslim prayer.
Local example: Religions match
local wellbeing.
The Sasak people believe Datu
Wetu Milir, a student of the
famous sixteenth century Javanese
Sufi saints, travelled to Lombok to
spread Islam.
As Islam acknowledges unseen
realms, such as angels and spirits,
it did not contradict indigenous
beliefs concerning ancestral
blessings, protection and fertility.

9. Local example:
The interior part shows a carved wooden dragon (naga), covered in white cloth,
inspired by indigenous cosmology.
Wetu Telu priests (pemangku) at Bayan Mosque

10. Creative economy
in Sasak former
textiles include
the
naga dragon
Ritual cloth (usap) with nine naga
probably symbolising points of the compass
meaning the cosmos
19th century
Bayan, Lombok
National Gallery of Australia

11. Local example 3: Bayan Mosque cemetery
with grave marker suggesting the stylized
shape of an ancestral figure and depiction of
drum (kendang) as part of communal
instrument.
Epitaph:
Drs. R. Irakasmamsi
Born 29-9-1958
Deceased 29-9-2011

12. Sasak textile arts depict a variety of figurative motifs reflecting ancestral beliefs and more recent
influences from Balinese and Javanese art.
Ritual cloth (usap) with ancestral figures
c.1900, Lombok
National Gallery Australia
Yarn winder with shadow puppet figures
early-mid 20th century, Lombok
Musee du Quai Branly

13. “Cloth that is regarded as sacred has to be made with ritual. The whole village is
involved in this ceremony from the first commencement of planning. The custom joins
families together because they get to know one another. There is a sense of communal
solidarity that for Islam also has a spiritual element… . For the whole day during the
weaving ceremony, a person reads out loud stories about Islam from an ancient
manuscript.”
Sacred cloth with
uncut warp (kekombong)
early 20th century
Lombok
National Gallery of Australia
Hj. Usni Indah Handayani, Mataram State Museum
Communal ties remain strong...

14. In our crisis themed context, it becomes cultural ethics throughout the
archipelago to gather to solve problems.
Beyond the authority of the government, this is a common good helping the
authority to accelerate community wellbeing and development.
It is from within: internal motivation and authentic drives.

15. Codification of Science in SEA, as part of Global South
world, displays the following features :
They have been influenced by cultural and religious
contacts with the wider world.
Through these contacts SEA knowledge and culture has
overcome some continuity and changes
However their indigenous sacred function
continues to emphasize:
(1) Ancestral ties
(2) Nuanced atmosphere of community
(3) Ritual importance.
THANK YOU
Contemporary Sasak songket textile
with ‘pineapple’ motif.

16. Codifying examples:
1. Advokasi recognising diversity sebagai etika kerja (ACWA,
5.1-5.8).
2. Pemahaman identitas lokal-> membantu pemahaman
klien lebih baik-> pembangunan partisipatif;