This page provides online resources
to assist users in carrying out web-based research on Indonesia and East Timor. Suggestions for additional links are always
welcome!
Edited by Elizabeth Coville (ecoville@gmail.com)
What's Up on the Web:
# 16 - More on
ethnic groups
A fortnightly update on
items of special interest to researchers on Indonesia and East Timor and
accessible through links on this page.
I
decided I would make a return trip to the Wikipedia page of
Ethnic Groups in Indonesia, which has grown from 49 to 50 pages since I last
visited two weeks ago. I did a bit of exploring, starting with the
Toraja entry, since that is
familiar territory for me, followed by several other groups.
I
think it would be a good thing if people who work on specific groups would
regularly visit their Wikipedia entries. I understand that if you register with
Wikipedia as a contributor, you are able to see some of the behind-the-scenes
activity on the site. That is something I plan to do in the new year, but for
now I'll just be a reader and consumer.
I am wondering how this knowledge gathered and placed on Wikipedia is
being assembled, where it is coming from, and where it is leading readers. So I
paid attention to the notes, references, and external links. On the Toraja
page, I didn't find any links to classic ethnographies. But I did find some
scholarly articles and papers that are recent enough to be online. If people
follow the links from this page, they are led to a somewhat different literature
than if they were browsing in a library.
Along this line of thinking, I found it interesting to consider
three types of sources that are new to me. (This is not meant to be exhaustive
by any means, as I didn't spend very long doing this.)
One is the
11th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. This was the source of some of
the entries. Why the 11th (from 1910-11) and not other editions, I don't know.
Another thing I noticed was the influence of special media rreports. For
instance in clicking on the link to the Badui of West Java, I find that one of
the external links is to a magazine article entitled "On
the Road from Sapporo [in Japan] to Surabaya". This Time Asia special from
the year 2000 also includes stops at a few other places in Sumatra and
Java. Similarly, I recall several special media reports from the tsunami two
years ago and wonder if any of these would be useful sources of accessible
information about ethnic groups in Indonesia.
A third new type of source that I stumbled on is the
Joshua
Project, a U.S.-based evangelism project which has gathered a large amount
of material on ethnic groups around the world, including in Indonesia.
Having
only just scratched the surface of Wikipedia's sources of information on ethnic
groups in Indonesia, I want to end with something small and light-weight. The
net always offers suchdistractions! Take a look, for instance, on Wikipedia's
Indonesia Portal at the "Did
You Know?" page. Don't overlook the rotated items.
With
the end of another year approaching, I like to remember how much has changed in
the last few years with respect to the web. So take a look at David Pogue's "My
Life B.W., Before Wi-Fi" which takes place in Bali back in 1995.
Posted on Dec 15, 2006
@ 2000 Antara Kita. Southeast Asian Studies
Program, Yamada House, Ohio University, Athens, OH
45701-2979, USA.
This site was last updated on Dec 29, 2006