Indigenous Peoples, Heritage and Landscape in the Asia Pacific: Knowledge Co-production, Policy Change and Empowerment Panel 5: History and Heritage Date: October 14/15, 2020, 7PM LA/10 AM Taiwan/Manila

TRANSCRIPTS

Stephen Acabado: Okay, let's see it for maybe one more minute, and then we'll start Hello everyone. Good evening, from where I am. Good morning to most of you. Welcome to panel five of the webinar series indigenous peoples heritage and landscape in the Asia Pacific Knowledge co production, policy change, and empowerment.

Before we start, we acknowledge that as a land grant institution, the Department of Anthropology, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, and Asia Pacific Center at UCLA acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (Los Angeles basin, So. Channel Islands).

We are grateful for the support of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, through the Webinars on the Future of Anthropology Grant; The Henry Luce Foundation; The New England University First Peoples Rights Center, The National Chengchi University Center for Taiwan-Philippines Indigenous Knowledge, Local Knowledge, and Sustainable Studies; The UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology; and the UCLA Asia-Pacific Center.

The UCLA Department of Anthropology, UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Ifugao State University, the Partido State University, and the Save the Ifugao terraces Movement, are co-hosts of the webinar series.

Panel 5 is titled History and Heritage and this is something that is close to what I do, so I am excited to introduce the panel itself and the co-convener of the webinar series. Professor Da-wei Kuan will introduce the panelists in a few minutes. Archaeological practice and heritage conservation in Southeast Asia have recently shifted to active engagement with local stakeholders. This is due to the realization that involving communities results in meaningful research outcomes. A growing number of investigations are actively seeking the involvement of communities as both contributors and as active and involved research participants. These undertakings humanize our community partners and counter the exclusivity often associated with scholarly authority. An increasing number of scholars approach research as interdisciplinary, crossed-nations, crossed-ethnics, emphasizing that we no longer work alone.

This webinar series provides examples of this trend. It is predicated on the concepts of practice and agency and their impacts on cultural heritage in Southeast Asia. Panels in this series focus on communities drastically transformed by colonialism, we hope it will illustrate how archaeological and heritage scholars can empower indigenous and descendant communities through heritage conservation.

We focus on the concept of cultural heritage here since it encompasses and transcends disciplinary boundaries. It also has its origin in Western scholarship, and thus, has colonial connotations in post-colonial Southeast Asia. It is also important in identity formation, nation building, and empowerment. Although there is no all-encompassing definition that catches its magnitude, heritage unifies an interdisciplinary study and practice that focuses on the perceived importance of cultural or historical phenomena. Heritage is an intangible process replete with cultural and social values. In other words, heritage goes through a process of negotiation based on each community�s experience. Therefore, it becomes important to those who have a shared history, experience, and memory. Intrinsic in the concept of heritage is the idea of community. There can be no heritage if there is no group composed of multiple individuals who own history or a building or an artifact. Heritage has different levels of meaning to different groups and it is also a cultural product.

In the social sciences, the term heritage invokes our relationship with the past. It also provides a paradigm to link present-day identities to historical narratives. As such, the term becomes a powerful political tool that can be used for either inclusivity or exclusivity in nation-building. Indeed, heritage has been used to call for unity among peoples with similar historical experiences.

In Southeast Asia, deep precontact and long colonial histories provide an interesting case study for cultural heritage. The clash between the romanticized pre-European contact and the glorification of the colonial experience is evident in how heritage is understood by descendant communities. In this panel, we forefront examples from Southeast Asia where heritage conservation and management involved community inputs. Works by colleagues in Indonesia, Cambodia, Bali, Indonesia, and Thailand underscores the importance of involving communities in heritage issues.

Our panelists will be introduced by Professor Da-wei Kuan. Thank you.

Da-wei Kuan : Yes, thank you, Stephen. It's my honor to introduce you to our panelist and moderator today.

Our first panelist is Peter Lape. Peter is an archaeologist specializing in the histories of social change in Island Southeast Asia over the last 4,000 years. His research focuses on island landscapes and seascapes, cross cultural interactions such as trade and warfare, human-environment dynamics and climate change. He has conducted collaborative fieldwork in Indonesia, Timor Leste and the Philippines. He also has an interest in archaeological practice, museums and heritage management in Southeast Asia and the US, and has ongoing collaborations with Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest of the US.

Our second panelist is Jean-Baptiste Chevance. Jean graduated in 1997 from the Ecole du Louvre, Paris, and later obtained a master�s degree from the University of Sorbonne in 2005 followed by a PhD on Khmer archaeology in 2011, both focusing on Phnom Kulen archaeological sites. Simultaneously, he worked for various institutions in Cambodia such as the Ecole Fran�aise d�Extr�me-Orient (EFEO), the Institut National de Recherches Arch�ologiques Preventives (INRAP), and the Cambodian APSARA National Authority. In 2007, he founded and has continued to direct the Archaeology and Development Foundation (ADF). For the last twelve years, he has conducted many archaeological studies in Phnom Kulen together with the ADF team, which has had a significant impact on the present knowledge of the Angkor region and, more generally, of the Khmer empire.

Our third panelist is Wiwik Dharmiasih. Wiwik is a lecturer at the Department of International Relations, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Udayana in Bali, Indonesia. Her research focuses on some key themes in contemporary International Relations such as Political Geography, Conflict Transformation, and Community-based Natural Resources Management. She provided social and legal analysis for the UNESCO World Heritage Site nomination of Balinese irrigation system (subak) (2010-2011). She was involved in the establishment of a coordination and communication forum among pekaseh (subak head) in the management area of Subak Landscape of Catur Angga Batukaru (2014). She also helped design the monitoring and evaluation system of the management process of the Cultural Landscape of Bali Province under the Subak Research Center of Universitas Udayana (2014). She is currently active in supporting community participation and youth involvement in the management system of the Cultural Landscape of Bali Province.

Our fourth panelist is Rasmi Shooocongdej. Rasmi is an associate professor of archaeology and a former chair of the Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Archaeology, Bangkok, Thailand. At present, she is a director of a graduate program in Archaeology. Rasmi�s areas of interest include late-to-post-Pleistocene forager in the tropics, Southeast Asian prehistory, cave archaeology, and archaeology and ethnic education, destruction of archaeology of heritage, arts & archaeology and contest of archaeologies in plural societies. Her areas of specialization are Mae Hong Son and Kanchanaburi, western part of Thailand. She has carried out a long-term research project in Mae Hong Son province. Her recent project is Prehistoric Populations and Cultural Dynamic in Highland Pang Mapha project. Rasmi actively involves in archaeological developments and activities in Thailand, Southeast Asia. For instance, she has been an expert member of International Committee on Archaeological Heritage Management (ICAHM), a committee member of Shanghai Archaeology, an advisory board of World Archaeology, Asian Archaeology, and many important journals. Apart than professional services, she has also been intensively worked with the local tribal communities and Thai as well as Southeast Asian general publics on sustainable heritage protections and archaeological educations.

Our moderator today is Grace Barretto-Tesoro. Grace is Professor at the Archaeological Studies Program (ASP), University of the Philippines. Her research interests include mortuary practices, status, identity, cosmology, and historical archaeology. She was the Editor of the ASP journal from 1998 to 2016. She was a member of the Society of Philippine Archaeologists from 1999. She assists the National Museum in deliberating significant cultural properties since 2015. She is part of the SPAFA Journal Editorial Board. She is also a member of the Institute for Southeast Asian Archaeology Early Career Award Committee. Her current projects include the following: Pantropocene: Finding a prehistoric, pantropical �Anthropocene� headed by Dr. Patrick Roberts of the Max Planck Institute, investigating values and ethics regarding the dead in past and contemporary societies, and past cosmology. She edited the book Exploring Philippine Cemeteries published in 2016. So we, I, I would like to welcome all our participants and begin our discussion. So Grace, you can take over here.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Right, good day to everyone. Good evening. Good morning, wherever you are in this part of the world and to start now we will call each panel member to introduce their work and their activities in their respective geographical area. So let's start with Rasmi. Rasmi you are on mute.

Rasmi Shoocongdej: Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Thank you so much grace and thank you, Stephen. And also, Professor Da-wei to introduce me to this panel. And so I would like to start with how I, you know, engage my community work or let me share you the slide. Okay, my so the sharing is will be the one that case study that I work in the Highland Mae Hong Son Province in Northwestern Thailand and the area that I work is the the border between Thailand and Myanmar so it is composed of the tribal ethnic group at least seven groups, which is making it more complicated to work in this area. It is difficult to really kind of run the project. So what the case that I work with, and I engage the community is a lifetime. I think it's a lifetime learning process. So, you know, I started in 1998 and throughout that time until now I still kind of like, you know, changing my approach to work with the community all the time because the situation also change by the policy of the government and the global you know impact on the locals. So my work that you know I engage the community. It needs a long term have, like, you know, trust from the people and they were here for over 20 years and I use the at the beginning of my work. Here let me show you that the areas where I work.

Here is the border between Thailand and Myanmar. Let me first introduce you, that the majority of the Thai unit in people ethnic group in Thailand Thai so the the minority here living in the Highland area. So the sense of the heritage, you know, the heritage in Thailand, the government use the term like Thai heritage. So it means that you know it's more likely to be like classical archaeology and also the general kind of like classical Like temple or Historical part, you know, like [inaudible] I, those kind of like general sense in terms of priorities. But when working with this and try to introduce the term like heritage is slightly different form. You know, the, the one in central Thailand or the, the one that is promoted by the state authority. So, and this is the group that lives in this area. 20 years ago it was quite difficult to work in this area and you need a translator to help you to communicate with people, you know, at least you have to be able to speak the Northern dialect. So you can communicate with people, but like [inaudible] At the beginning we have to entertain with people.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Hello Rasmi.

Rasmi Shoocongdej: Oh, and introduce them about, okay, I'm just gonna stop here. After that, you know, since 1990 Every project that I worked you know, there I always include the

management, kind of like a process in our work to engage the community there. So that is how I engage the people, the community in my work. Thank you.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Okay, this is a nice last slide you showed me. I think we can come back to that later.

Rasmi Shoocongdej: Okay. Thank you.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Right to me. I now call on Peter Lape to discuss how engages with the community in Indonesia.

Peter Lape : Sure. Hi everybody, I'm Peter and I want to thank the session organizers for this whole webinar series. I've been following along every one and really enjoyed them so far, and particularly looking forward today to today's because we have some archaeologists involved. So I'm going to share some sides here by way of introduction.

So I'm speaking to you from inside this building here which is on the University of Washington campus. It's dark. But my approach to community engaged scholarship is colored by my job and I have a kind of strange job. I'm split between two institutions at our campus. One of them is here in this building where I'm a professor in the anthropology department. And so this problem is typical of a American academic and this is where I do my archaeological research in Southeast Asia, and I also teach college classes. So here I am doing some project in eastern Indonesia. And many of those projects have involved community aspects or community programs. I often work with kids so high school age or even younger kids. I found that, and I'll talk about this a little later, it�s I found it to be a very easy way to get access to a community. And through the school systems. So the other part of my job is in a museum. So this is our new museum that was just built this year, a new building, the Burke museum, it's a natural history and culture museum, so it has collections of archaeological stuff as well as birds and mammals and plants and dinosaurs and all that kind of stuff.

So in this part of my job I actually work mostly here in Washington state where I live and primarily with Native American communities in this area, so the indigenous people of Washington. And it's through, I don't do excavations here. I work with collections in the museum. So we do public programs, we do a lot of repatriation work where collections or objects are returned to traditional owners. And lately I've been doing a lot of work with what my colleagues Ben Hopkinson calls knowledge repatriation. So it's actually putting archaeological artifacts or objects back into a cultural context and with communities. And I found that some of my most rewarding job. So, for example, up on the upper left of the screen is a boat, a canoe, a wooden dugout canoe. We have an ancient canoe in our collections that was found in the 1960s and last year I worked with a traditional canoe carver to make a replica of that canoe and then we actually did a voyage in the canoe down the river where it was found with tribal members from Michael shoot or a tribe in this area. And I've also done some landscape work. So this on the lower part of the screen is a map of Seattle, the city of Seattle. About 1850 so before non native people moved to this area and it has a coast Salish landscape terms, it shows this land forms before they were transformed by colonial industrial activity as a way of interpreting this place where we live.

And occasionally, these two parts of my jobs do come together. This is one example from the Philippines, where we brought together a village in Palawan island called Sibaltan together with a tribe in the northwest, the Suquamish tribe that's quite near Seattle. Both of these communities had similar challenges. They were traditionally fishing communities where fishing was starting to die out. They were encountering a lot of mass tourism and young people moving away from the community. So the two groups had a lot to share with each other about the role of heritage and we're sitting here in front of a museum that this Sibaltan village built. It's a traditional house of this area for you and in house. And so we were just sort of a my job was more to bring these people together rather than to direct the program. So really rewarding thing. So that's I think we'll get into the panel. Some of the more details of my project. I'll stop sharing the screen here. And I'm looking forward to grappling with some of the questions I see coming at us and having discussion with my fellow panelists. So thank you.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Thank you very much, Peter. Let's now go to Wiwik again from Indonesia.

Wiwik Dharmiasih: Hi everyone I'm Wwik. Thanks so much for having me here. And for the kind introduction. I'm going to share my presentations if you can see it? So I'm going to talk about my work at Subak Jatiluwih and that's one of the Subak inscribe this World Heritage Site in Bali. To give you a little brief introductions on the site Subak Jatiluwih is located in the sea area on the map. It is one of the largest clusters within the cultural landscape in Bali. It was inscribed in 2012 by UNESCO and it represents the Tri Hita Karana philosophy, a traditional Balinese belief. So this is the area of Subak Jatiluwih. Subak system is a traditional irrigation in agricultural life in Bali. It has mountains and forests as the water supply, water catchment area and they have rice fields, rice terraces, village where the farmers live and then they have networks of water related temples. That's how they kind of like to organize their agricultural system and also ceremonies that is related to the Subak activities. So the Subak system was acknowledged as UNESCO World Heritage Site because it shows this philosophy. That is if you want to have prosperity or happiness tou have to balance your relationship as a human being to the environment and then to the spiritual realms and then also among each other. So this is the look out from Subak Jatiluwih. It is located in Tabana district and it is one among 22 Subaks that's located in the area and you know it is also the most visited Subak in that area.

The reason we did our research with photo voice methodology last year here because there is, a, there is a land, I would say extreme land changes in the area and then I work at the University and the Subak Research Center as well. And we were approached by the Community farmers that work with us during the inscription of the World Heritage Site. And also with the young people that came from the area that kind of like questioned what is happening to our area. Now that it is UNESCO world heritage, it should be protected, but now there's this massive land conversion and as you can see from the photo, which was taken by one of our participants. How a farmer in 2015 converted his productive rice field into a restaurant. And ever since this development there have then mushrooming effects from other farmers to build also like tourism facilities in the larger or smaller scale.

And this is when I did the work with the community during the inscriptions of the Subak system as a World Heritage Site. As you can see I mostly work with male or men. You see the representative of government agencies and also representative of the Community, which are mostly men. It's kind of like interesting when the conflict happened and the community came to us, it kind of like struck me that we never actually talk or engage ourselves with the other part of the community. Like young people or women within the Subak community. So we had this idea to, to do research, together with Photo voice international how we can engage Local people in Subak Jatiluwih to get their perspective about Subak, how they want to manage the Subak, how they view the subak in the future.

This is one of our activities. It lasted for for about six months, the participant took photos and then they presented the telling story about why they take the photo and then they kind of like discuss the agreed teams that they want to they want to show them want to share. And we're currently on the final stage of our of our research project where the participant will exhibit and present their story through their photos that were taken, and this is one example of trials exhibitions that they did with student from The Maryland University. And before we have bigger exhibitions, where the participant wanted to show and present their perspective. Through the photos to government agency particularly UNESCO representative and kind of like to express their concern of the management of the World Heritage Site particularly and Subak Jatiluwih. So that's all a little introduction about the work that we're doing.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Thank you Wiwik. And now let's go to JB.

Jean Baptiste Chevance: Yes, thank you. Good morning, good evening, everyone. My name is Jean Baptiste. Usually they call me JB Chevance. I'm an archaeologist working in Cambodia for the last 21 years now specializing in the Clarion buyer. I'm just going to share a few slides with you to Introduce our project here so I hope you see that.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Yes.

Jean Baptiste Chevance: Yeah okay. So our project is basically focusing in Kulen area which is a few kilometers 30 kilometers north east of Angkor as you can see on the map.

This is the sorry about that. I didn't put any location about Cambodia, but I guess we all know where it is in Southeast Asia. The Angkor Park is of course was attracting most of the research attention for the last century. But nobody really work on this mountain, which is the Kulen mountain the mountain literally 30 kilometers north east or Angkor. And my attention was triggered a few years ago when I arrived in Cambodia to explore those sites and to see what was there, and also to realize that the communities, the villagers there were very much isolated and in harsh situations. So basically, the idea was that there was a very rich archaeological heritage and the population, which was struggling so it's also a very special site because it's the only major geological feature in Angkor region, as you might know Angkor is the flat landscape.

And on the north of Angkor you could see this, you can see this important mountain range raising up to almost 500 meters. It's a plateau with several villages about 10 villages, 4600 people at the moment. And as I said, numerous archaeological sites, most of them, corresponding to the city of Jaya the second from the late 8th century, early 9th century AD.

The forest cover has been very important until recently, and has been also very much damaged recently by deforestation. So that's also one of the aspects that I will highlight maybe later.

The importance of Kulen mountain is the fact that it's at the birth of every River and streams in the Angkor region. So basically the modes of Angkor reservoir from temples are all filled up by streams and rivers that are coming from the Kulen area. So my idea when I first came there was to firstly survey the political side. Try to catch up to the knowledge that was previously done by the French researcher from the late 19th century, all the way to 1930s 1960s. Of course, nothing was done during the war, which has had a lot of consequences on the recent history of Cambodia and the situation and the knowledge of archaeological sites for the people, the communities and the young scholars. But the idea was also to set up a project, which was the global approach. Not only focusing on the ecological problematic demining first because Kulen was a stronghold of the Khmer Rouge, but also mapping excavation conservation training, but also to try to address the issues that the villagers are facing, not only in terms of health but education, environmental, agriculture. And so on and so the the whole project took a few years to be designed and carefully thought and then in 2007 I set up the collision Development Foundation, which is the British charity, also an international NGO recognized in Cambodia and our main partner are the UPSARA authority in charge of Angkor sites, but also the Ministry of Environment in charge of the complete National Park. So we have been running this project for the last 12 years now with a lot of activity involving the villagers in many ways, not only ecological research and conservation, but also development activities as I said previously. Thank you.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Thank you very much, JB. I'd like to ask Rasmi. When I first met you, years ago, you've been already working with the community. Can you tell our participants or attendees when and how did you realize that you should engage or include the community in your research?

Rasmi Shoocongdej: I think that the almost at the beginning of the the research project because my research project it's interdisciplinary and I have different scientists that work with me. We have an incident that one of our colleagues collected a sample without asking the community. So it's a big thing for the community and we have a meeting. And then, you know, since then, from the beginning of the project, even though we kind of are aware of this issue. We start, I start to really talk to the people of every village that we did survey. So it's not just one village, but the whole district that you have to go to every village. So that what happened to me.

And then, you know, every time that I work, I involve people, community at the beginning of my project. Not just like after or in between. But at the beginning of the project.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: How do you approach them?

Rasmi Shoocongdej: I just have to like ask them for the meeting there. They have a regular meeting in the village once a month, so I when I know that when they're going to have the whole village, like hundreds of people they gather for the, you know, meeting. I asked their permission that can I go there and talk to them and tell them that I introduced all my research team and tell them what I am doing. And, you know, in fact, I mean, you know, normally, if you get permission from the fire department or the forestry department and the governor, you can work without asking the permission from the community, but I think that it's important to ask them permission. So I did that, you know.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: So the community was receptive at the very beginning.

Rasmi Shoocongdej: At the very, ya know, they asked a lot of question because the most difficult thing is they're afraid of the Spirit. I think that throughout Southeast Asia is the same thing. They believe that when we disturb the archaeological site, we distirbed the spirit. So, that is, you know, I couldn't get this in some cases, I could get the permission right away. So I have to do the community environment. I talked to a lot of seniors, and you know, elders and talk to the leader, not just the, you know, our, our community, but all of them. Although I will admit we work very hard to talk to them and explain to them what we are doing. Yeah.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Thank you Rasmi, I want to ask Peter if he had similar experience in Indonesia. So again, how and when did you realize that you should work with the engaged community and any challenges that you faced, considering that you are an international archaeologist and because Rasmi as a Thai, already faced challenges with her fellow Thai countrymen, perhaps we had the different or similar experience before in Indonesia.

Peter Lape : Yeah, well. So to start, when I was a graduate student, I had a field school in California and the professor, the teacher, the field school actually had a community engagement aspect. And I was lucky to be the student that kind of worked on that side of it. So from the beginning of my training I think I really enjoyed that part of it. So when I went to Indonesia in the late 1990s to do my dissertation project, I brought that idea with me thinking I would want to do this. And of course, I found it's completely different. In so many ways. And I was faced with a whole new set of challenges like Rasmi said about working with Native Americans in the United States, you begin from a very negative point where most native people have a very bad experience with archaeology and archaeologists for decades or centuries, really. So your work as an archaeologist has to work against that and to work with people to get past that very negative attitude and I didn't find that in the places I worked in Indonesia. In fact, people really didn't have any opinion of archaeology, or any past experience with it. Which was good in some ways, but in other ways they had no also no idea what I was doing.

So there's a lot of explaining about what my goals were. And I also faced language challenges as I was learning Bahasa Indonesia, but I wasn't very good at it. I still am not great at it. And I like you mentioned, I had permission from the national government to do my work, but I had no guidance about who else to ask. And so I struggled a lot to find the right people to talk to. And I found in the late 90s, the government in Indonesia was very different. Now I think with the rise of democracy and decentralization and Indonesia. But at that point it was still a dictatorship and the government relationship with people was very different. So I had to kind of work around the government. And that's where I, as I mentioned earlier, I found schools were a good place to do that. It wasn't apolitical but it avoided some of the problems of working with government officials in Indonesia at the time. Now, it's very different. I found at least at the local level, government is much more democratic and trusted by people. So it's a different scene these days, but I had, I made so many mistakes. And ran into trouble. And a lot of it was misunderstanding and the wrong kind of approach. I still make mistakes. Yeah. Now, and really the biggest one was I think dedicating enough time to the community aspect is challenging. When you're an academic it's not necessarily rewarded in our system. I think that's changing but and also the kind of the unknowns. Like I had a similar experience as Rasmi where I asked for local permission to excavate people were very worried about the spirits. And I didn't I, you know, they said no. And I said, okay, and moved on but I didn't have time. I didn't give time to figure out what was going on because I felt rushed to dig, and, you know, finish my research. And that's often been a problem for me. Finding the kind of the right amount of time to do this, especially as a foreigner when I have my visa is limited. I can only be there for two months or something and then I have to leave and it's expensive to fly back and forth. So I don't know if I answered your question.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Yeah, well, we mentioned that you made mistakes and you're learning from these mistakes. We�ll get back to that later when we discuss best practices. Thank you, Peter, for your answer. Wiwik, you mentioned that you mostly work with the males in the society in the community. What challenges, I know, that, so what are the challenges that you face? As a female academic.

Wiwik Dharmiasih: Well, I must say first, my background was international relations. And the Subak is an agricultural, a traditional agricultural, system in Bali. So when I first joined in I was doing research on water issues in Bali where I met professors Stephen Lansing, and he was doing all this nomination those year for the Subak system. And a lot of question that I received was like, what are you doing here? And I'm like, Okay, we're just trying to make the Subak system to be protected. And my answer, hopefully will also answer. I saw the Q and A from one person Saiful that asks, What is this all about? At the beginning, we wanted to protect the Subak system because Bali is a very popular tourism destination. So every area now is trying to double up tourism facilities. I'm talking about before the pandemic happens and Subak system facing this threat of losing their landscape. There are about 701,000 hectares per year lost due to development. So the idea of making it a World Heritage Site would be just like, you know, protecting the system and also protecting the landscape. And I know for a lot of people, it's kind of like, are you sure you want to make a World Heritage Site because it's like two sides of a coin, righ?. You want it to protect the landscape, but also at the same time you're inviting more people to visit the world heritage site. So it's kind of like, you know, a tough decision.

So the challenge at first for me because I'm from a different background, but as a Balinese I feel like I know the system. I mean, I grew up around my area with sorry I grew up. My house was surrounded by rice field. And then I saw how it changes when roads were developed and a lot of land conversion was happening. Afterward, so it's a learning experience for me. And it's also interesting because during all the process of nomination, even after it was inscribed I met only with government agencies and community representative. And a Subak system mostly their by male farmers, because the work is kind of like difficult. They have to check on water system from the forest, and then up to the all their member rice fields. So it's always with men and one of the photos that I show my presentation when we're doing mapping for the Subak landscape, it's part of after it was being inscribed as part of the protection effort. It was all malel. So when the conflict happened in 2015 and then I have the farmers coming in. It made me realize when they say somebody in our member community changed their landscape into a tourism development and then after that another young, I mean, young people came to us and say, like, I saw my dad coming to the university and I mean he's a farmer. What is he doing in the university? So it kind of like it builds up this question and like Peter says we made mistake it's a learning process. That's when I kind of like realize, oh my god, this is just like, the thing that we kind of like missed. We didn't hear other voices from other people in the community, because all this time we're just working with representatives from government agencies or from the community. So, and one of the biggest challenge for me was like, because I'm not from agriculture, so I'm also learning new things about the Subak system. All my knowledge are based on literature review or talking to my parents and families and friends, but not really coming to the community and kind of like having a discussion with them.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: But does the UNESCO recognition help?

Wiwik Dharmiasih: Well, we're hoping that it helps, but like, again, like I mentioned, when it was inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Site, we expected that there's a protection efforts to the landscape and the government did establish a governing assembly to manage the landscape. But again, community like Stephen mentioned earlier, when he introduced the panel community, it's not the same person. They consist of different people with different interests. So, this, this dynamic system that we need to capture because now the community are divided in the landscape. Those who want to protect and preserve the Subak landscape and those who wants to capture the opportunity to develop tourism facilities to increase their economic benefit.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: As a scholar, how do you address that concern?

Wiwik Dharmiasih: At the moment, what we're doing is we have this research project with photo voice international and we want to kind of like capture the perspective from other people in the community like women. We rarely hear their voices. Or young people, because I think one of the challenges for agricultural system, not only in Bali, but also around the world is who is going to do farming later, a lot of the like the children of these farmers already working a tourism industry, tourism sectors, you know, in other island, in other parts of the island. So I think all, I think what we are doing as it's called. It's just continually engage yourself with this community and ask their perspective and because, like I mentioned, it's a changing system. And there's a lot of people in it with a lot of different interests. So especially what we can do is just trying to give them a platform, how they can voice their concerns and their challenges.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Thank you Wiwik. JB, many international archaeologists have been working in Cambodia for a long time, decades. And how do you think the colonial experiences help or perhaps serve as an obstacle hamper your work on heritage conservation?

Jean Baptiste Chevance: So yeah, to, to summarize quickly the situation we have been very in a situation where basically to it's 100 years of French scholars know from the late almost mid 19th centuries, with the 1860, the first explorers. Prior to colonization and then systematic exploration of archaeological sites at the late 19th century, then you feel the colonial like real institution, the most important institution, the only institution actually working in Southeast Asia at that time, under the French Colonialism period. So this institution was really producing a lot of material, which was only in French as, as far as I know, for the Cambodian archive and this remains until the independence in 1953. So after the independence, there was a bit of a shift. With the setting up of the University of Fine Art, which was done in 1965 And fortunately, there was only one generation of archeologist who were able to graduate it because in 1970 civil war, then decades of horror for Cambodia. So we have a situation where we had a knowledge produced by French researcher, anthropologist, archaeologist, art historian, linguist or and then this all came up with the brutal end in 1970. We actually stopped for 20, this actually stopped for 25 years it only came back in the 90s with this time a different approach. A multicultural, not only French based publication. So this whole context as a very special gives a very special pattern. So for us, the challenge is really to assimilate that knowledge from our predecessors and to try to transmit to the younger generation. Now the difficulty is that they do not always speak French.

So we have to kind of play between languages, the level of education, when we talk about it in communities is obviously a challenge because, as in my case in Kulen mountain obviously the villagers have. I don't want to be rude at all, but the level of education is quite low. On the other hand, they have a knowledge and this is what is also very interesting for us. So it's obviously difficult to transmit the archaeological knowledge right away like this. You have to first you have to digest information and then try to transmit through different channels. But they have a knowledge which is very useful for us as archaeologists, and also for the knowledge in general of the region. So, I think the the real key is to exchange between the local community about their knowledge, it could be the topography, it could be the anthropological approach, their own beliefs and this has to be particularly taking, It has to be taken in consideration when you do archaeology research in Cambodia. For example, you have to do a ceremony before any excavation, which I think it's the same in most of Southeast Asia as this is really important. But they do have a knowledge which is bringing information to us. So I'm not sure if I answered your question, but basically it's, it's all a matter of exchanging as much as you can. And for my case it was and it is still challenging as Peter mentioned, because we are not from the area where we work even though we tried to speak the language.

Also, yes, you know, integrating as much as you can, young scholars and students. That was one of our objectives to welcome as much as we can, archeologist, young archaeologists who just graduated or not even graduated. And give them an opportunity to to have field experience and post excavation experience so they can learn what is an archaeological site and how do you approach the whole problematic on a global scale, on the smaller scale. And how do you treat the archaeological artifacts and how do you share this knowledge, after. So it's all about exchanging and it's also all about taking a lot of time. That's why we, I think one of the key aspects is to spend time. It's just not something you can do in a couple of campaigns. It takes years.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Thank you, JB. Peter, you mentioned that when you went to, the first time you went to Indonesia, that the political system was not stable or that. Am I correct?

Peter Lape : Well, it was stable if there's a dictatorship for 25 years it's pretty stable, but it collapsed while I was there.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Hi. So how do you think community, engaging the community facilitate healing in post-conflict settings and how does community engagement impact the community itself and empower them?

Peter Lape : Yeah, so I've, I've worked in two places that were immediately post conflict. So in Maluku and Eastern Indonesia in the early 2000s, there was a fairly major violent conflict. Ostensibly between Muslims and Christians, but there was a lot of different fault lines and I actually couldn't go there and work for several years, the government closed it to any outside researchers. So during that time I had a grant. Actually, I had to switch my area to Timor Leste or East Timor, which funnily enough had just emerged from a violent conflict after declaring independence from Indonesia in 1999. So I started working there in 2002, it was still under UN administration and it was a very, it was immediately clear when you land at the airport with UN, you know, those white cars that UN people drive, a lot of guns and basically the whole country was destroyed. So where all the people were living, all the schools, all the power plants and all the hospitals were destroyed. So it was a very, it was, I had this research idea that I wanted to do there, and immediately kind of warfare became the thing that I had to do because it was so it was all around me. So I started a project actually studying kind of the history of warfare in East Timor.

So, the community work there was you know, I think my work was very minor. This was a very traumatized population. A lot of people died. It was very fresh in people's mind and I think thinking back. This is, I think, a place I wish I could do it over again because I just didn't understand the level of trauma. I had never experienced warfare myself like that. And I would change it up. So regardless, in 2007 I was finally able to go back to Maluku. The conflict had basically ended. There was still a little bit going on. And I took the lessons I learned from Timor to Maluku and I also knew Maluku a little bit better. I had, you know, a lot of close friends there and I kept in touch with them through the conflict period. And what I found is that archaeology, because our evidence doesn't usually, it's not usually fine grained enough to see like ethnic differences or religious differences between people. It's kind of a good place to look at people's shared heritage as a way to kind of move beyond conflict.

So what I found, actually, as my archaeological project and I was collaborating with folks from Maluku including someone who I was hoping was going to join us today, but couldn't in the end, Marlon Massey, who was from Amban, from the city there. What we found is our project was kind of hijacked by people there to as a peace spreading project. So like there's newspaper articles about our project that talked about, you know, these archaeologists are finding evidence of before we were Muslims and Christians, but we were all the same religion and we shared this brotherhood basically 3000 years ago. So we kind of rolled with that, you know, that that worked. And that became also our message. And it wasn't the only message, but people were really there's so much emphasis there on kind of religious history, like the history of Islam, history of Christianity. And when I asked like school kids about history, they always refer back to this history of Islam. And to have a different story to tell that was separate from this kind of religious story, which was the source of the conflict was, I think, very healing. And we ended up doing some eventually some kind of like mini exhibits and we did a radio show and kind of different public programs that use that as kind of a starting point. So that's, that's one example I think. You know, just in general, having being able to reflect on history can be healing, but also having something new to talk about something. Kind of new evidence and we're always discovering these new things when we're excavating, that that provides a new place for people to get along with each other. And I think that can be productive.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: I think so. Based on Peter�s answer is that politics and archaeology, if not all the most of the times are intertwined. Rasmi, in Thailand, how do you make archaeology, or do you make archaeology apolitical, or are nationalist approaches in archaeology appropriate? Oh, you're on mute.

Rasmi Shoocongdej: Yes, I am. Okay. Oh, for the question. I think that for me, I think that archaeology is a politic. But I�m aware that situation or the context in Thailand, you know, archaeology is also used, the use of archaeology is used as a natural is kinda like, you know, propaganda as well because of, you know, archaeology, or the, what we can see is, you know, in the curriculum in the textbook and also even in the tourists kind of like, you know, destination. So you can see the propaganda of the Union, the state that use the history, like capital. Capital city like Thai as a, you know, kind of like the major source of heritage as well. So it showed the great sense of like the Thai to you know this to other ancient capital of Thailand.

So it still exists in the, you know, like Thai society the use of nationalism. But as for me, you know, as an archaeologist and an academic, that you know I will take the side of a politic, for the use of archaeology. But even in the community work, you know, I take this side but I am aware that the local community also uses us as you know, economic like development. The group, one group of the people want to conserve, especially the senior you know group, but the head man or the order local administrator one to promote the tourists, you know, economy, within the village. So we have to accept that our part of archaeology, the site will be used for that kind of purpose. So the politics that we talk about is the national politics, the local politics and the community politics that we see within our society.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: And how do you safely navigate through all of these politics?

Rasmi Shoocongdej: Well, the thing is, you know, I learned it. You know, like Peter, JB, and also Wiwik that at the beginning, you know, of my work, I don't know, what to do but throughout the process, I am learning that we have to take that you know we start to do oral or local history. We have a colleague, the historian, you know what, with us and also anthropologists that work with us. I used to do everything by myself. You know, I do that to talk to the people. But later on, I think that, no, you cannot do that. You know, we don't have time. I mean you be teaching full time and also do research. So, so we have to when we accept a new project. We have a historian and also anthropologist who were with the community to work with. You know, and once we study the local history, we can talk to them, you know, more and the connection with the community. I think that we have a more good kind of like a relation and we understand that what is politics within the village, who is who. So we can negotiate with them as well. And in terms of the larger picture. We all know that, you know, in the Thai society when you work in the Archaeology Society, you know, you have to talk to home, you have to talk to the governor, you have to talk to the local administrator, you have to talk. That is that you know that order, we know the structure of the power we know.

But within the village sometimes you don't know you have to make sure that you understand the sides of the people and you know so you can really hear all of their voices. You have to make sure that you in the kinda like you know, you, you, you, are fair for every group you know when when you work on that. So we just kind of like learning by doing, and make a little mistake as well. Like Peter and JB, you know I make a lot of mistakes, but I'm learning and I know every time that we make a mistake, I never let it last for a long time. I would talk to the people, you know, I couldn't find them and apologize or or try to explain to them. So that's why we have a long term relationship and good relationship with the people after all. And the whole team also, you know, before we go to the field, all of the research team will have to understand the situation. And, and, you know, that is the way that we are doing. Yeah. And we know that why we kind of learned who is who. And that we deal with the difference in power, you know, in the village. Yeah.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Thank you Rasmi. You mentioned power. I want to ask Wiwik, how does community engagement impact and empower the community that you're working with?

Wiwik Dharmiasih: The research project that we're doing with photo voice has a very interesting aspect. We gave cameras to the participants and asked them to take photos and then tell stories of why did they take that photo. And then during the discussion we kind of agree on the next team. They are going to engage more in their next, you know, taking photos. So we have a various age range or participants, we have an elder woman who's like 70 years old and we have a young, young boy who is like I think late teens, 17 years old, 17 to 18 years old and it's kind of like interesting when we first introduced this project and we give them cameras. They started taking photos of the things that they like and this is the first thing that we noticed that old people, the older generations are farmers, they take photos. Not very good in terms of technicalities or quality, but they have very rich stories about the photo they're taking. And for the young people that have very good technique skill. The photos are beautiful, very focused, but their story is very lacking. So we kind of like to make them engage with each other, talk and communicate about what to Subak is. We ask them to first define what Subak is for themselves. And it's very interesting because when they did that, they draw pictures of the Subak and they forget the most important aspect of the Subak -the people. They always draw the mountain, the rice terraces, the water system, the temple, the cows, but they don't draw themselves.

They are an important part of the Subak and during this process also, it's very interesting because then we get to hear stories from young people. And in the old generation in particular. We call her Dadung Lisa. She's the oldest one, 70 years old. She never holds a camera and she always feels shy about herself, because she didn't go to school, but the photo that she took, it kind of like gives her power to voice what she's been dealing working in a farm as a woman. How, how it's very difficult to carry the harvest, how it's difficult because the road infrastructure is not very friendly to women and or the young people who've kind of liked the idea of farming, but they're not part of it. So when they present their photos. They often say, oh, this is what we want the farmers to do. And, you know, and then you can see the gap that ok, you are part of the community, but the way they say it's like they're not part of the community. So there, and then they begin to see like who's going to like continue the Subak system, who's going to continue this practice in the future and how we can engage not just between us as a researcher to the community, but also within the community and through our project, we're just trying to make this communication happen, not only from the young generations and to the older generations, but also from the female and the male participant. Because very often the male participant was like, that's easy. You know we just carry the harvest and then the woman would say no, it's not. You don't know how heavy my burden is because you don't carry the harvest on your heads and we need the road infrastructure so that communications really help. And I feel like it really empowers them because after certain times, they feel more confident in taking photos and telling stories about the photo they are taking and then sharing their experience to other participants.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: You think they're fully engaged now.

Wiwik Dharmiasih: Yes. At first it's very, it's very difficult, especially for the women, they always say they always stay quiet in the back. And so, like, you know, let the male farmers talk more and the young people will kind of like, you know, just kind of like, we call it ignorance in staying away from the discussion. So we're slowly trying to like breaking the ice between the participants and make them have conversations and then when they kind of present their voices or stories and then we ask the participant also to comment on that. And it's kind of like, it's an interesting learning experience.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: For JB, you mentioned the challenges, some of the challenges you face in engaging with the local community so two questions for you. Um, how does the top down

approach affect your work in your area? And are there any instances of negotiation between the research findings that you discover as a result of your analysis and the community interpretation of the site?

Jean Baptiste Chevance: So yeah, the top down approach. By top down approach you mean the involvement of people from outside the community or government.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Yes, outside the Community and the Government also.

Jean Baptiste Chevance: Okay, so basically we couldn't have done this project without the involvement of this government because as a foreigner and as a different institution from the government, we had to get the endorsement from them. So this is how it became we as an organization we are the one. We extended the area of action of the UPSARA authority in the Kulen mountain. So it was interesting intrinsically linked to our project to arrive in this area and to have the backup of the government. So it was already. This is already a statement, but then the difficulty of the situation is that you have qualified Cambodian people taking decision regarding the community, which has been basically left alone for decades. So I think we it, it has to be very carefully engaged, the dialogue. And one of the small success we had, I think, was to be a link between the government and the community because our approach was to be embedded in the village and to stay there by hiring maximum of local people. First, because there is less turnover in our team, and also because I think you spread better the message if you are working directly with the people in the area.

So yeah, as, as I thought, the link, being the link between the government and advising the government for example, for the maintenance of the sites, for the conservation of the sites or for any development project. That is actually happening at the moment, in Kulen we have a new road crossing the whole plateau and of course it has major consequences on the whole dynamic. People are easily able to travel now but newcomers are also able to come and buy lands which is illegal. More pressure on the natural resources of the park and so on. So we also act as a link between the government and the population and take, you know, advice from the two sides and try to make the situation better. Your second question, sorry.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Oh how do you address if there are any instances of differences in terms of your interpretation and the local communities interpretation?

Jean Baptiste Chevance: Um, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to say if there is a local. I mean, there is a local interpretation of our findings that's, that's for sure. But again, the link has to be reinforced because our interpretation of the archaeological discoveries are and that's one of the weak point of our project, I must confess, is that we still need to share more with the local community. I think this was hampered by the fact that they are villagers and it's far from their first consideration. Archaeology, you know, it's not obviously the first emergency in their life. So you need to create the kind of consciousness of heritage in this population by involving them in any stages of the research: survey, restoration, archaeological excavation, and so on. So, by doing so, then you can create a situation where they take awareness. It's a long term process and And again, it's, it's, it's still ongoing for us.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Have the community declared or started or initiating ownership of the area?

Jean Baptiste Chevance: Of the heritage? Yes, in some way, yes they are managed now because of authority of the UPSARA authority. They are 50 guards and workers in charge of the maintenance. So, of course, this group of people from the village is directly interested in gaining some economical benefit from us as a guard. But I think by doing so, it creates a dynamic where they take ownership and by exchanging with the governmental authority and also as a link, they can really take ownership. The two other examples I would give are the CPA, which is the community protected area. So that's a protected area within the National Park where forest is preserved and where local villagers are still able to come and gather.

So this has been going on for 20 years. It's not our initiative, but we work with the CPA members to continue to protect that for us. And we actually set it up very recently, and we hope to open it in a couple of weeks, a community based tourism center. Actually two, in two different villages and this is also for us a way to catch up with the local community, with the villagers because this center will be a tool for them to to to make additional income because tourists will, Nationals first because of the situation and in the future international tourists will come to this place. And the objective is for us to get a tool for them to make income, but also to reappropriate this knowledge. And that's where we also act as a link between what we have produced with them, of course, because they were involved in the research, but the analysis was more our team of archaeologists. Now we have to give back through the center. And so it's a long term process through different channels as a worker or with this, with this center but it's happening. Slowly but surely.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Thank you, JB. Rasmi. Um, you�ve been working for, you've been working with communities for a long time. How do you sustain their interests, how do you sustain community engagement and does your work provide any roles, future roles, for the community members?

Rasmi Shoocongdej: You know, like we go back every, every year. We live at the village, you know, we stayed there. I always have the team live there. So some of my resources, you know, live there for seven years. Yeah. So, we know the people and we participate in all kinds of activity like ritual activity, any activity that happened in the village. So we have someone matters like you know we just leave. We always kind of like yeah be there and if any, you know, if they want us to do help with anything regarding the archaeological interpretation or visit the site. We are always there. So that's why we'd still kind of like, maintain, you know, our relationship with the people in the village, and also with the local officer there you know, and we also, you know, work closely with the school, the village school through the, you know, sometimes we give a lecture to the to the school and take the school to the children and to the site as a part of, like, a local history lesson, you know, something like that.

So that, but you know, kinda like happened to us. And also we have local people work with us as a research assistant and she just recently got a new job as a school teacher in the village. So she is the main, main person, you know, that who will highlight, you know, will be the community leader in terms of transmitting our knowledge through the community. It's kind of like, you know, all where we work with her since she was a small child. She came with in our workshop, like school workshop and after that she went to the University, but she still saw us working there. And after she graduated we invited her to be a part of our you know team as a research assistant and then she know more how we operate our work and see can, you know, we're kind of like, you know, work to her own community. So that's why we kind of still sustain our, kind of like, our work there and that relation with the people. Yeah.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Thank you Rasmi. Peter, you mentioned earlier that people were more receptive or more, or more engaging, when they became aware of sites that were pre Muslim and pre Christian. How do you think an engaged scholarship helps community heritage preservation and management, especially with this kind of when they become more aware of their past. And when they feel that they are part of that they're part of the collective history.

Peter Lape : Yeah, I think, well, I mean that's, that was a lucky first step that just worked out, but I think I'm just, I'm still reflecting on Rasmi. I�m sort of jealous of the ability to have people have this long term presence in a place. But I think the ultimately, we kind of have to find what community members want out of this process and it's often not necessarily what we want out of it. And sometimes it even goes against what, you know, I like to preserve things. I don't want things to ever change, but people who live in a place, they want change sometimes. Like Wiwik�s case when, you know, people don't want to work in the rice fields. They want to do something else. And so I feel like my training as an archaeologist did not prepare me to ask the right questions, I guess. And that's where I've been puzzling along trying to figure out how to do this and learning some things along the way.

But really I think ultimately, it's like we have to ask the right questions and also sit back and really listen to what people are telling us, and that can be hard to do, I think at times. And you also have that as Wiwik mentioned, you know, a lot of divisions between generations are between genders and you may not have the same access to all those different groups. And you sometimes have to put more work into getting to listening to, you know, a variety of people. So, yeah, I think in the luckiest cases are when our communities community's objectives are somewhat related to yours as a researcher or as an archaeologist. Like that I showed this slide of a Sibaltan in Palawan in Philippines. That was a place where that all started because I co taught a field school there with Victor, Grace's colleague at UP. We just did a two week excavation in the town. And we assigned two of our students to actually create a museum exhibits in that two weeks was amazing. Rapid Response exhibit while we were excavating things they were taking them and putting them in this exhibit and writing labels and signs and that kind of thing. After that experience, one of the American students went back the next year and spent almost a year living there and what people in Sibaltan wanted was they wanted to engage with tourism, which was happening nearby in El Nido, mass tourism. But they wanted to happen on their own terms and they wanted it to be about their own heritage. They didn't want people to just come and drink beer on the beach. They wanted people to learn something about their history and so they started this kind of museum building craze. They've built two community museums and they built a replica canoe or a boat. They've made these, all these activities in town where you can do all these different tourist activities, but they're about community heritage. So that's it just happened that I think Sibaltan wanted these things at the same time, we were there and our objectives kind of linked up and we're able to collaborate on these things. But that doesn't always happen. You're muted grace. Sorry.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Okay, we have five minutes before we go to the question and answer, but I want to ask Wiwik and JB if there have been any community led projects because of your engagement with them. Wiwik, you first?

Wiwik Dharmiasih: Okay, thanks. So because this new methodology that we use in the community that we started like last year. So we're still like, you know, in in the process of having that research, but I wanted to say that the approach that we're using really give the power to the community to the participant instead of for us, the researchers, we were just there to facilitate the process. We give them the power through the camera in their hand to take photos to see and to express their concerns and challenges that they face to discuss it among themselves. And then we kind of like, help them, support them when they want to do the exhibitions to related stakeholder that they want to invite in this case UNESCO and related government agencies. And it's also interesting because there's a lot of issue that we kind of like we missed in the first place when we kind of like proposed the site to be a World Heritage Site.

The idea was we wanted to, to protect the landscape. But then we don't want to make it like a museum because it's a living culture, people do live there and like I mentioned, and also Peter said, they change. What we're doing there, it's basically just to help them see the changes that's happening, and then help them adapt to those changes on their own criteria. For example, there are key themes that are emerging during this process. They are aware of the landscape changes. They are aware of the increasing tourists that's coming to the site to see their livelihood, to see their landscape. They don't want to stop that. But they want to be involved in that and they want to have the power to kind of manage the site like Where do you want to have a parking lot for tourists because there's like 300 400% increase in visitors to the area. They want to be the person that tells stories to the tourists instead of tourists coming into the area with travel agents coming from outside of the area. They want to, they want to have more opportunity to market their product. There are requests to help for support for organic farming, for example, from the farmers and to market their products. So they want to have that access so I think yeah, I think this kind of, it's an ongoing process. It's a work in progress. What we do, we can do to support them is continue to facilitate and like Rasmi also mentioned we involve local community to be the facilitator of these projects so that when it's finished and over, they can still continue doing it with their with themselves and you know and have the ability to voice their concerns and also the ability to kind of manage, to make decisions of what they want to do with their community.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Thank you, Wiwik. JB, in your part of Cambodia or in Kulen? Any community led projects?

Jean Baptiste Chevance: Yeah yeah yeah. It is starting, but I want to stress something that I absolutely with Wiwik is that the fact that you need to give the tools to the community as an advisor guiding them and then to, you know, let them do the job. The reason is, the objective is not to give yourself or myself a full time job. I consider myself as a link between some knowledge and another knowledge or a situation that you want to improve involving this community. So this is quite important. But yes, in our zone in our area, as I said, the community based tourism center is something that, It didn't came from the community. The will wasn't there. I don't think the idea was there. But it's something that we as an organization anticipated because we have seen on one another village on the same plateau that tourism can be a threat. Basically, the most visited archaeological site and also environmental site in Kulen is the waterfall. There's a huge waterfall with a big reclining Buddha, which is very famous. There's also a 12th century temple. And these sites are very visited but villagers moved to within this the sites were not from Kulen, and there were people from outside taking over villagers and taking the business out of them. So we didn't want this bad situation to happen again in the front of the village. We are the other village, we are because of the extension of the new road. So the idea was to set up that center where tourism can be organized and advised by us but managed by the villagers. So there's a whole work that we're doing at the moment on training the local guide training the motortaxi driver, the cook, and so on, which is far from the archeology, obviously, but it's part of the global approach that we have in terms of heritage.

Also, we have to translate that knowledge that we have built with them over these years of excavations. And this is the training of the local guide mostly but also I think by having tourism as an opportunity coming to us pretty soon. We have more leverage to show them how important their heritage is and also they are a natural environment. Something I briefly mentioned in my introduction, it was the major deforestation of that national park because of a multitude of reasons I don't have time to go in, but basically the deforestation is mostly happening because of the villagers. It's not something from outside that allows a company to come and take over. It's casual not found expansion over the forested areas. So to me, it's very hard to tackle this issue. It's also threatening the archaeological sites. So we've been working on this for the last 10 years by zoning demarcation. And I think one of the last, it's still ongoing, It's not a project. It's an activity, but It's getting there. It's the settlement of tree nurseries in primary schools and this is not only planting the seed of the tree and reforesting area which is actually happening. And we're on the rainy season, but it's also planting a seed in the mind of the young people saying you have to also preserve your natural environment, you have a beautiful rainforest, which is which is melting away, which is disappearing and you have to take care of it. So, tree nurseries in primary school where are now completely managed by the teachers. We still are here for advising and finding the good location to reforest the deforested area, but this is also good dynamic and a good example, I think, to show that you know you can transmit things and then they can work by themselves.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Thank you very much. JB. Now we're going to look at the questions from our attendees. The first question is for Rasmi. Do you think heritage as a concept is a colonial imposition to local knowledge systems? Oh Rasmi, you're on mute.

Rasmi Shoocongdej: Okay. I think it's part of it though. Oh, it's the way that we use it, especially in Thailand. It's kind of like the thing that we continue using it and you know, we cannot deny that. But what is important is if we are aware of how the term heritage has been used. And if we are aware of it, then I think it should be okay but within that sometimes we call the cultural resource map, you know, more than heritage, but you know so that that term will be more medium. But now I think that people try to use the term heritage, you know, within the Thai context, more and more because it's get more sense of kind of like ownership you know. It's really due to the ownership of the, the, whatever, you know, archaeological site or their culture so that's what happened in Thailand.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Thank you. This question I think is best for Peter to answer as you work with several communities, one in Indonesia, one in the Philippines and one in the US. So the question is, how does the indigenous concept of heritage differ from the western concept of heritage?

Peter Lape : So that question is a great question. I don't have a perfect easy answer, I don't think. I would also say the Western concept of heritage is, I think, a little different in Europe than it is in the USA. And one thing I think Wiwik mentioned but it runs through all of our talks a little bit is this idea of living heritage. So I think in the American context heritage is something you preserve in place, you like freeze it and it can't ever change. And that has proven to be very problematic. I don't think this is as true in Europe, I think it's tended to be more living landscapes and that kind of change allowed a little bit. So I think that's one factor. I think the other thing is in the American context, we have tended to give less value to things like oral traditions and more value to like science. Like archaeology science or written documents and that kind of thing. And this is, I think, a very colonialist approach and it's changing a little bit in the US. I don't see the same problems in at least in Indonesia where things like adat, or traditional law are seen as very valid and recognized by the federal government. So yeah, I think the I think every place is a little bit different. I don't know if you can quite define Western versus indigenous that clearly. I think that it's more complicated than that. It's certainly worth asking the question, though, because we take, you know, concepts of heritage from what we learned and try to apply them to places and it's often worth really questioning that structure and, you know, one big thing is this kind of top down. I think JB talked about this a little bit, but heritage as something even UNESCO international right this international, national body comes into a place and sets a set of rules about what you can do. I don't know if that's a western tradition or where that comes from. But it seems often to lead to conflict about how you manage places. And I think all of us recognize that there has to be more control at the community level for it to really have sustainable to work in the long term.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Thank you, Peter. Wiwik -This one, this question is for you. So this participant, thi attendee was wondering about the decision to bring Subak to the UNESCO world

heritage. Is it because to protect the land from land conversion or to increase the tourism in Bali? Which one weighs more?

Wiwik Dharmiasih: Okay, to be honest, like I mentioned earlier that the idea of making the Subak landscape a World Heritage Site was basically to protect the landscape and also to kind of like increase the livelihood of farm farmers because Bali is almost 90 or 80 90% depending on tourism. So, but, again, when we want to make a site a World Heritage Site. It's like two sides of a coin, you either protect the site or you destroy the site even more because of the you will definitely increase more visitors to the site. So the whole idea of making it a World Heritage Site for us was just to protect the area and the livelihood and the culture of the people. But on the way, now we have seen more people are building more tourism facilities within the site as happen everywhere in World Heritage sites around the world. That is one of the challenges that we're facing now. And this is also, I think, a little bit connected to the previous questions because the term heritage is a this concept defined by UNESCO with operational guidelines and this is how you do governance and the management of the system, but at the same time the Subak system is the traditional system which is, it runs based on the the water course. So you have the forest, you have the rivers and then you have the rice terraces and the villages. But now, if you can see them in the modern structures of governance, these areas are divided in different districts. So the management's are kind of like overlapping within each other.

Like the site that I'm working now, which is part of the largest cluster and cultural landscape in Bali. The forest, the lakes are located in different districts. So the water sources are run by different governance systems and the farmers are on the other side of the district. So it's kind of like overlapping how and how can we protect and manage the system if we don't return the power to the community, because I think they're the one that knows best how to control the area. So at the moment, tourism gave a lot of economic benefits to the islands and the government, kind of like focusing on how you can have, you know, increase your income. By facilitating this tourism development within the area and this process, I think that needs to be communicated with local people because they're the ones who owns and manages the area, how they want to say open their area for visitors, how they want to manage the area. So yeah, it's kind of like it is being protected. The farmers feel proud that they are part of the World Heritage Sites. They are aware of their culture now, not that they weren't before but they feel like the proudness is there because you know they're part, they're being recognized internationally. But also at the same time, it increased tourism visitors and land conversions in the area so yeah, it's like two sides of a coin and then that's kind of like the work that we need to continue doing to balance them at least.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Okay, thank you. Thank you Wiwik. This one�s for JB. How do you respond to or approach situations where community based projects promote exclusivist forms of identity or ownership over sites?

Jean Baptiste Chevance: I'm not sure to understand perfectly the question.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Okay, how do you approach. How do you respond when community based projects, promote a specific identity or ownership of sites. For example, if a community wants to claim that one religious group or ethnic group has a control or right over the side and the narratives of this site.

Jean Baptiste Chevance: I'm not sure it has happened yet in our situation. But what I would do is that I wouldn't tame them. Or I wouldn't say they were they shouldn't do that. I think we should encourage any activity, any action which is empowering the communities or the villagers because the top down approach as Peter said is not always the best. These people have a world, have a knowledge, even though it's not always academic, but it's very valuable as well. So it has to be encouraged, but we can give advice we can give. We can be the link and combining our knowledge, our academic knowledge or just, you know, recent technology such as drone using drone mapping, or just GIS technology or stuff like this. We're able to bring tools to them to show them, hey, if you take ownership of this area, this is how it looks like from the sky. Being again, being links between those villagers, those communities and their approach if they, if any, if all their projects if they have one.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Yeah, thank you JB. Maybe Peter can also answer. If one community decides that they want to claim or control the narratives about the site.

Peter Lape : Yeah, that's I haven't actually had that experience directly, at least at that level, but I've certainly had you know, different people within a community making statements. I mean like in Indonesia and East Timor to certain degree, there's a certain, like older men kind of own history in many of these places, especially where there's not a lot of written sources to draw from. So the knowledge of the stories of the past is the property of older men. And that's also partly the source of their power. And so when I work with high school kids who start to learn about these histories, it actually you know in many ways destabilizes that system a little bit. So it's, it's not exactly your question, I think. But I think it is important to recognize as outsiders coming into a community that we can, things we do do have an impact, some sometimes unexpected ones. And sometimes they're even we have no control over what to do with that. Right. So I may think that, oh, it's great to empower the youth to take ownership of history. But actually there's all kinds of effects that might come out of that, where do we actually want to reduce the power of elders in a community. That's a very important stabilizing force in small communities. So I think it's, it's almost like you're playing with fire and you have to be cognizant of the things that you do are going to our are making an impact, whether you have control over it or not. And most of the times you don't.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Thank you, Peter.

Rasmi Shoocongdej: Grace, can I share my experience? You know, I have a case that I think that people take that or narrative in terms of the data about the archaeological site for it. For instance, the site that I work, it's the cemetery of this lock coffin. So when we we share our information, we say that okay this is the multiple burial, you know, within one coffin. And the coffin is the size of, the coffin its range between five meter to 11 meters. So the locals, some of the elders would say that No, no, no, it's not true. It's not too many people and the size of the people should be like the same size as the coffin. So it's very tall, you know, so the people, the ancient people have to be very tall didn't so they can lay down in the coffin. And, you know, so that is what they believe and they call the coffin is P man or spirit, you know, spirit that mean that people who have female is very tall. [inaudible] Local people and this is what they believe, I think, is this okay if they have their own voice, you know, in terms of interpretation of the archaeological heritage.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Yeah, thank you Rasmi. Thank you to all our panelists. And as a way to end this panel, I'd like to ask to ask each panelist to perhaps give advice or what should be the best, What should we follow, what are the best practices in engaging with the community? Um, let's start with Wiwik.

Wiwik Dharmiasih: Okay, thank you. I don't know if I can give advice. But I can share from my experience that it is very important to engage directly with the community because it gives the platform for people usually that have no opportunity or less opportunity to voice their concerns and challenges and in many cases we often forget about that. So yeah, and we also need to be aware that community changes and those changes, we need to ask back to the community. Like how many of those changes they want to accept and how they adapt to those changes and have an opportunity not only to voice their concern, but also to have a discussion among themselves about the solution for all these challenges or problems that they're having. We just have to remind them that they have power and we often forget that we often think, like, you know, Like when we go to the Subak, for example, and then we talked to them and their first question would be, like, okay, So what's the solution and we just sometimes need to remind them like we came here just to study from you to learn from You instead of us teaching you guys, so yeah, so I think, giving them more opportunities to voice their, their perspective, that would be, that'd be great.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Thank you Wiwik. From JB, any advice on best practices.

Jean Baptiste Chevance: Yeah. Yeah, sure. I mean, I totally agree with Wiwik. I would add something maybe else that but maybe it's more natural for you as you are from Bali. And I'm still a foreigner in Cambodia, even after 21 years and I will still be. But I think one of the one of the main advice I would give is to be as much as you can as to be involved and based and embedded into the local communities. So you live with them, you understand what's the rhythm. You understand their issues, where they work, the way they harvest and so on. Along the year you understand, of course, the culture you listen to and consider what they say. That might sometimes not be, you might not agree with that in some, in some cases, but you will have to consider and ask yourself why you don't agree with that. And consider the knowledge and the changes that they want. And then turn this into actions which are benefiting these people, but also fitting with what you believe is good. So it might be quite objective, sub sorry subjective, but I think the way to make it more subjective is actually to have this exchange with these communities.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: All right, thank you JB. Peter, Any advice on best practices.

Peter Lape : Well, just to echo what's already been said, and something I think Rasmi might have said earlier about the importance of having good partners. I've found, like Rasmi, having people who are committed to the same engagement processes, helping me maybe from just different disciplines or different kinds of expertise has really been a game changer for me and allowed me to do, you know, kind of focus on what I'm good at and work with other people. And it just increases the level of engagement that you can manage having good partners like that. And sometimes they're from the local community there or they may not be and as someone unlike I think my three co panelists here, I'm not based in Southeast Asia. So my challenge is always, how do I do this from a distance during short visits. You know, kind of, you know, I go back after a year and everything's changed, so I don't, you know, that's very difficult, I think. I wish I could be based more closely with the communities. I work in, but I think there's still things you can do as a long distance scholar. And finally, I guess I think JB kind of alluded to this, but there's a I think a level of commitment. I mean, I'm just committed to this site. I love it. I get a lot out of working with communities and it makes my work pleasurable and exciting and fun. And I think that kind of a joy that you get out of doing this community work is keeps you going through the difficult times.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Thank you, Peter. And last but not least, Rasmi.

Rasmi Shoocongdej: Thank you. All the panelists already say something that is similar to my case. It's very similar, but I would think that the most important thing that you have to go to like Peter says is to commit to the, you know, community that you work with, and you have to have a kind like long term engagement with people. JB just said it and Wiwik. It cannot happen quickly, you know, you have to show them how committed you are and they can trust you and then that this can be a lifelong and sustainable in the future. And also when you work there is always a two way relationship and or engagement or even you know the communication. I never say that, I will work with them, but I will. I always, you know, now I say that I'm learning from them on every aspect, you know, I put archaeology along the site first and then learn about their community. You learn about their local history first and then the strategy is that I use it to work with them. To be useful for their practice, say something like, you know, we surveyed a lot of caves and we mentioned to them that the cave is the source for the water, you know, during the irrigation or the environment change. We can notice from the cave, you know, the water level, something like that. So archaeology you know I talk about archaeology, but applied archaeology can be useful for the community as well. You know, I share all of the knowledge about the weaving, you know that the loom that we found and very similar to the modern community. So when they saw something like that, they can connect it with us, you know, so it's something that we do, we have to think about like the way that we can communicate, you know, with them and sharing our experience with them and then you know you get the kind of like a small sustainable in terms of make the sense of belonging and they feel that, you know, this is belonging to them. And before they want to change it to the tourist destination. They want to make sure, in the case of the community that I work with, they want to make sure that it's all protected the site or Or protected and we have enough knowledge before it is open and they also know how to, you know, take care of the site.

Grace Barretto-Tesoro: Thank you very much Rasmi. Thank you to all our panelists. Thank you to the sponsors and organizers and I believe that there is a link on the chat box regarding if you want a an E certificate, please fill out the form and then there are also links to the works of our panelists. And you're also invited to the next panel next, panel 6 next week and the information is on the UCLA website. Thank you very much and this ends panel five and I hope, we all hope to see you again next week. Thank you. Have a good day.

STEPHEN ACABADO: Thank you Grace. For those interested The papers by JB, Peter and Wiwik are all part of a Routledge volume on community engaged research that we hope will be out in the next six months and I think Rasmi is also familiar with that proposal. Thank you all. This presentation is really a testament to the great investment and commitment of these panelists and of course Grace and your investment and commitment and getting the community to just work with you to engage in what you do is exceptional. The response of the communities to own their heritage is again a testament to the importance of your advocacy. I know I say as an academic and someone who also does heritage and archaeological work this kind of investment is not really credited in our promotion and tenure. It's changing as Peter mentioned but it needs to be institutionalized. And also there's not a lot of funding available for us to do this kind of work. So we really have to look for people, more agencies that are willing to invest in this kind of research as JB is familiar with this, this work needs a lot of funding from donors. Anyway, I think this panel illustrates that Southeast Asian archaeology is heading into the right and engaging directions, engaging the community together. And getting them involved involves a lot of investment on our parts and an investment on the community. But in the end, engagement, empowerment results in more meaningful work. We don't just jump in, leave and then write papers and then get tenure and be full professors. We need to work with communities and also give back to, to the communities to do work with. So evaluations are the links are for the evaluation and E certificates are on the chat box and we invite you for panel six scheduled next week, same time, and we're going to focus on Pacific histories. I think, more, more, more, more archaeological and heritage conservation presentations next week. Thank you.

Peter Lape : Thanks, everyone.

Rasmi Shoocongdej: Thank you everyone. Nice to see you.