“I then straightly called my father to ask” : Educational School Trips and Cultural Identity

Author: Samsudin Arifin Dabamona (Swansea University; Uniyap Papua)
Speaker: Samsudin Arifin Dabamona
Topic: Language education
The (SCOPUS / ISI) SOAS GLOCAL CALA 2019 General Session

Abstract

In many studies of tourism and travel, visitors’ identity has been placed on the agenda (see Ishii, Gilbride, & Stensrud, 2009; Purdie, Neill, & Richards, 2002). An educational school trip, a sub set of educational tourism, has been argued to contribute to the issues of student visitors’ cultural identity due to the exposure of cultural values particularly if the place attachments are associated to their cultural attributes. Low & Irwin (1992) argued this is caused by place attachment that includes cognitive and emotional linkage associated with the place. In addition, they claimed; visitors with no connection may gain different senses regarding elements of belonging and identity attachment to the place.

The study reports on findings of the analysis of how native Papuan student visitors in secondary level in Indonesia make meaning of their own cultural identity and explores responses to Papuan cultural issues facing as young Papuan generations through educational school trips. Two cultural venues, Cultural Museum of Cenderawasih University and Abar village, were selected regarding their cultural place attachment to Papuan cultures and could be linked to in-class curriculum.

The goals, expectations and the perceive outcome of native Papuan student visitors were elicited through interviews and observation. Data were analyzed adopting grounded theory combined with student visitors’ direct quotes in the results as the emphasis was on allowing ‘the respondents to impart their own reality, cataloguing the socially constructed knowledge of informants rather than the hypothesizing of the investigator’ (Riley, 1995:636)

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