The practice of mediated participation in Indonesian marginalised communities

Abstract

The question of participation has often been asked as an issue of degree, namely how much members of a society are allowed to have a voice in their collective life. Rather than evaluating the degree of equality reached between actors, this article attempts to identify existing practices that contextualise participation, and thus enable and constrain it. Two case studies, involving marginalised communities in participatory film production, were analysed: a community of believers in a traditional religion (penghayat) in Elu Loda and a community of people with disabilities in Salam Rejo. These communities were observed during their participation in film workshops, from October 2018 to February 2019. Fourteen participants, two facilitators, and one programme officer of the sponsor were interviewed. In addition, participants and a selection of community members who interacted with the process were invited to fill in a questionnaire designed to elicit their communicative practices in relation to storytelling, making pictures, and community meetings (Elu Loda n=49, Salam Rejo n=31). We studied how personal stories were circulated in these groups and how some individuals used the film as a channel to distribute their version of the stories, while still their collective way of storytelling was disconnected from the workshop. Second, we learned that culture shaped how certain people become more visible than the others and how these people developed skills to be more visible, which opened the door to their participation. Third, the participants’ embeddedness in their culture and community affected what aspects they were inclined to participate in and for what reason: in the workshop’s technical know-how and/or in the content.