UNDERSTANDING INTERCULTURAL PROCESS AND OUTCOME GOALS ON PUPPET SHADOW

 

UNDERSTANDING INTERCULTURAL PROCESS

AND OUTCOME GOALS ON PUPPET SHADOW

BY

GALANG AJI, REIHANESA PUTRI, RAVELINO

 

1.0 Introduction

Intercultural process mostly founded in every single cultures. The culture itself might occured independently or affected by the other culture. There are many factors that can affect to the process of creating cultures. As it stated by Pamela Hyatt, culture was created by several combination related to social and people behavioral as refered to the culture. Pamela also stated that dynamic process also hapened when there is ocurred culture in society. The study concluded that in every culture, there must be an intercultural process happened in order to creating culture.

Intercultural process also has been the most interesting part to analyze since it related to the root of the culture itself. Intercultural process is actually learn and studying the origin of human toughts in different dimension. We should apply many knowledge and materials in every different point of view in order to get full understanding. With studying this subject, we as the observer comprehensively understand what is make the culture grow and developed by people.

The underlined meaning of intercultural process is actually followed by the outcome goals. Chung, (2021) stated that outcome goals related to its movement, emphasizing the close connection between ‘process’ and ‘outcome’ as the dynamic movement of change or transformation – from small shifts between am ethnocentric mindset to anethnorelative lens, moving from an “unconscious incompetent” manner toward “conscious comptenece”.

External outcome comparatively viewed of intercultural flexibility as constructive movements moving toward the achievement of instrumental, socioemotional, and intersecting identity goals with increased productivity, satisfication, and attunement.

In line with the intercultural process and its outcomes, the best oject to be analyzed might be puppet shadow. We may know about little backgound of this culture product. The combination between two cultures created the new one, but still have their own similiarity. Background in this study will be the main media that we will learn and search. Intercultural process and its outcomes should be found in the way people and several person involved towards the aculturation of this object.

Based on the background above, the problem in this study can be formulated as follows: How did the intercultural process occure in the puppet shadow?.

This study will be focused on analysing the process of aculturation of puppet shadow in order to get the outcome of this study. The method and framework can be done with reading and having full understanding about the context of this object. Many sources and other research is necessary as our foothold to prove our opinions related to the context.

3.0 Methodology

On every single circle or group of people there should be an habbit or custom that been embedded on them. This kind of social system is called culture. L. Anthony  (2013) stated that Culture refers to society and its way of life. It is also been proved before by Keesing (1974) culture is defined as a set of values, benefits, or a cluster of learned able as well as liveable. The term “society” means that culture is actually happened/occured because there is communication between two society.

This research article discussed the intercultural process of cultural product of our subject which is Puppet Show. The research provided the approach to analyze and investigate intercultural process in puppet show by considering two different background behind the subject. The theories we used from C. Chung and Toomey (2021) about six principles of deepening intercultural process is relatively matched with our subject. We as a researcher sorted many sources and references to help and reinforce our findings so that it can legitably proved by the expert.

In this paper, we conduct the online research about the similarity between two cultures. The research participants are the source person whose their opinion and findings are scientifically certified. We collect and clasify the similarities and differences of the subject that can be used for verify our findings. After we got the data based on several experts and previous research done by another researcher, sorting the data and matching it with our findings is an appropiate ways to achieved the current goal of this research.

Since it is qualitative paper, we use many of resources that spread through the internet by quoting and concluding the other finding to match up with our finding. Because of this methodology, the findings and conclusion including the datas are formed in written – quoting and explaining based on the experts.

This case is certainly will involve the process of the way culture is affected people and how they spread among the society. As it written on the background, this study will discuss and study about intercultural process. Intercultural communication is actually studies the communication across different cultures and social groups and describes many communication processes and related issues among groups of individuals from varied cultural backgrounds N.Hastutie (2016).

Hastutie was studied the intercultural process on the journal titled “Intercultural Communication: A current Perspective” that can be found on every social group. The study is involve many people in every different backgrounds and ethnicity in order to get the information in different point of view. In studying intercultural communication, we as a observer should observe in different angle and toughts to getting an understanding toward it.

The source person is obviously needed to assists the research. That is why Hastutie brings people in different background to get their opinion and information about two different culture. We as a observer should digging the information from two sides on each subject. The result of the study must be precisesly correct – referring to the source persons that we use to help us.

The source is not only formed in source person or any kind of direct information from someone. Studying intercultural communication is actually flexible for everyone to study it. We can use many sources that has been scattered out of there in order to get the prove of the information. The sources must be related to the topic, background of the object and trusted from the experts. This study can be simple and flexible research because intercultural communication is always related to culture and society which means these has many sources and references to be used in our study.

The deepening intercultural communication will be the best way to studies this case in order to get the answer about the process of the intercultural itself. C. Chung and Toomey (2021) wrote and concluded about the principle of deepening intercultural communication. There are six principles that have been used to underlined the process of intercultural itself;

1.      Intercultural communication involves mismatched expectations that stem, in part, from cultural group membership differences.

2.      Intercultural communication involves varying degrees of biased intergroup perceptions.

3.      Intercultural transactional communication involves the simultaneous encoding and decoding of verbal and nonverbal messages in the exchange process.

4.      Intercultural communication involves multiple goals, and the goals people have are largely dependent on how they define the interaction episode.

5.      Intercultural communication calls for understanding and acceptance of diverse communication approaches and styles.

6.      Many intercultural encounters involve a well-meaning culture bump or clash.

Furthermore, there also occurred some outcomes from the study as its result of it. The outcomes are decided into two parts. It stated by C.Chung (2021) that “internal outcome” comes from developing intercultural flexibility as a continuous development of internal mental agility, elasticity, and a commitment with an open-hearted ethnorelative mind set to see things from other cultural person’s (perspective) or point of view. Comparatively, C. Chung and Toomey also observed the “external outcome” of intercultural flexibility as constructive movements moving toward the achievement of instrumental, socioemotional, and interescting identity goals and with increased productivity, satisfication, and attunement.

We discovered that the intercultural communication is obviously affected the process of the entry of puppet shadow in Indonesia. It starts with cultural blended by newcomer from India. The intercultural process happened along with the growth of people’s that dynamically change the society and their habbits that led them into new behavioural and social background. Intercultural communication is actually can forme and cause aculturation between the cultures – as you can see it on the puppet shadow. Based on this study we can conclude that intercultural communication is actually can form and cause aculturation between the cultures – as you can see it on the puppet shadow.

3.0. Findings

3.1. According to Chung. (2021:147), there are six points/ principles to support increasing the understanding of intercultural process.

1. Intercultural communication involves mismatched expectations that stem, in part, from cultural group membership differences.

In this context, Puppet show (Wayang Kulit) is actually originated based on Hinduism culture. J.J Hans (1993:102) Leiden University state that there are found some manuscript related to puppet show written in sanskirt the one is  rupopajivane in epic of Mahabharata that means shadow theater. In the early era of Hindu-Budhism, many people (especially Java) already known the shadow theater called mawayangan taken from the name of local artist Galigi Mawayang on that time. The source is taken from one of epigraph titled “Balitung” is written “Si Galigi Mawayang Buat Hyang Macarita Bimma Ya Kumara” meaning “Galigi put on a Hyang show by taking the story of the young Bhimma." The story tells about the relationship between human and God (Sang Hyang) and Bimma represented as human taken from one of the character of Mahabharata. The entire point of this story is about worship the Hinduist God called Trimurti. It started from here, it is clear that puppet show is actually used from introducing a religion.

2. Intercultural communication involves varying degrees of biased intergroup perceptions.

The term intergroup means viewing a person as a representation of a group membership category and deemphasizing a person’s unique attributes Chung. (2021: 147). In this context, it is related to the person (intergroup) that have brought the culture to Indonesia. Acculturation is held important causes. Before Walisongo used and mix the culture of it, many Pandit (monks) used puppet show to introducing their culture from their land, India, through braves and adventurous story of Mahabharata that contained the core of Hinduism on it. Starting from that time, when the era of Islamic kingdom appears, Walisongo used this method to spread Islamic religion because there has been planted to all people that puppet show is one of easiest ways  to spread any culture to the people since Hinduism era. Sri Mulyati on her book titled Tasawuf Nusantara also mentioned that this method is actually found by Raden Said (Sunan Kalijaga) adapted from Indian local shadow theatre to spread culture and religion.

One of many cultural form of Raden Said is a puppet shadow show called Punakawan. Based on the journal from UIN written by Amirul Sholihah, Punakawan consists of  the words Puna means difficult, kawn means friends. Then it means friends in difficulty. The study in the journal is also research about the message of the puppet itself related to human life such as; born, moral, and mortal.

3. Intercultural transactional communication involves the simultaneous encoding and decoding of verbal and nonverbal messages in the exchange process.

D.Chandler (1977) explained that encoding and decoding is the way of information conveyed through communication. In a simple way, this is how conversation is work when there are people who conveyed the meanings and the other (audition/addressee) will proceed and understanding the meanings. This is also found on the way intercultural process works in puppet show. Javanese Puppet Show (Wayang Kulit) is created when two cultures have their own communication. The way Raden Said adapted Hindian Puppet show depicts the process itself. There are acculturation happened between those cultures as the effect of the communication between addressee (assumed as Raden Said) and addresser (pandits). As explained by Mun’im (2007) Raden Said starting to creating his own story and puppets after he saw and learnt about one of the greatest epic from India titled Ramayana.

4. Intercultural communication involves multiple goals, and the goals people have are largely dependent on how they define the interaction episode.

Based on Toomey. Understanding Intercultural Communication (2021), three types of goals are important in an intercultural encounter process: instrumental goals, socioemotional goals, and identity goals.

a. The instrumental goals means task-based goals  in terms of “getting something done or clarified”. In this case, as it stated by Indriyanto Fungsi Wayang Kulit Dalam Penyebaran  Agama Islam Di Demak (2017) Puppet show (Wayang Kulit) as a medium of entertainment, education, information, art, philosophical understanding, propaganda media and others.

b. Socioemotional goals (or sometimes labelled as relationship goals) refer to relational role expectations and the proper or improper behaviors by the two cultural communicators in the situation. Simply it is situational-based goals. The history says that Raden Said taught the religion through his puppet character based on Hinduism cultures since that time people are still influnced by Hinduism culture as it is stated on J.H Saputra’s book titled Sunan Kalijaga (2010) creating brief history of Javanese Puppet shows that in 1470, people especially in Java are still influenced and familliarized by Gamelan and Mawayangan as the result of Hinduism culture in the past time.

c. Identity goals refer to the projected self-image or self-worth issues in the interaction scene.

Toomey said that  It can be interpreted inconnection with our desire to have our cultural, ethnic, gender, disability, professional, age, LGBTQIA+, and/or personal attributes respected in the communication. In this context, the accurate point is actually located on personal attributes. Javanese people in that time is craving about the truth about a religion. People demand it because basically Indonesian culture based on religion even there can be proved when people is still adhere to animism. Tendencious of religion is the people’s personal attributes.

5. Intercultural communication calls for understanding and acceptance of diverse communication approaches and styles.

As it’s been mentioned in point two that Walisongo used this method to spread Islamic religion because there has been planted to all people that puppet show is one of easiest ways  to spread any culture to the people since Hinduism era. People are easily accept all of the islamic culture include its religion because the method that Raden Said use is very easy to learn and people has already know it. The truth is actually located on people itself. Bobtio (2015:47) on his research, Bobtio stated that Indonesian people is already found the show before Hinduism spread among people. The show consists of a puppet doll made with weeds, grass and bounded by bark. The show have its simillarity with Hindu’s shadow theatre with platform using cow’s skin and small lantern to create the shadow. Bobtio in his research mentioned this is actually used for their spirit worship (animism).

6. Many intercultural encounters involve a well-meaning culture bump or clash.

Many intercultural miscommunication episodes begin with an unintentional culture bump or clash. Archer. (1991) stated that A culture bump is a cultural violation on the behavioral level when our meanings do not overlap with one another  in viewing the same behavior, which creates communication awkwardness or embarrassment. In this context, the culture bump is located on the media that Raden Said used to teach islam among people. The media that he used for spreading the culture and religion are abstractly not a big deal for people. The problem is located on Islamic culture itself. It has been taught for all moslem that any kind of human appearance imitation (drawing, dolls, statue, and miniature) are prohibited to create. As its mentioned by Quraish Shihab, it written in hadith that it is prohibited to sculpting statues depict human appearance and any kind of it that indicated human physical picture because it is considered to rival the God because God is the creator of everything. With this problem, Raden Said turned all of his puppets into caricature rather than real human appearance. The form of his puppets can be found on Punakawan which they have different model than the other Javanese puppets.

B. Movements Toward Outcome Goals

We emphasize the close connection between “process” and“outcome” as the dynamic movement of change or transformation—from small shifts between an ethnocentric mindset to an ethnorelative lens, and moving from an “unconscious incompetent” manner and toward “conscious competence.” Chung. (2021:156). There are two outcomes that we can achieve from studying intercultural process especially in Deepening Intercultural Process Thinking and Outcome Goals. The outcomes are;

a. Internal outcomes

The internal outcomes deals with the way people see the cultures from the other point of view of another cultures. In this case, as a result of learning intercultural process we can see as observer that Puppet Shadow (Wayang Kulit) has its own function based on other culture (Hinduism POV). It might have its special function different from the other one that applied in Indonesia.  We can’t generalize its function to each other because there is an intercultural process on it that affect the functioon of Puppet shadow. As far as we know, acculturation is the key of the intercultural process of Puppet Show in Indonesia.

b. External outcomes

Comparatively, we view the “external outcomes” of intercultural flexibility as constructive movements moving toward the achievement of instrumental, socioemotional, and intersecting identity goals and with increased productivity, satisfaction, and attunement. In this point, flexibility is the point. We already found that both people between Hindian and Indonesian are flexible because they have similarity to each others. Both people had tendency to the religion. The cultures are mixed well and easily adapted in Indonesia because Indonesian are very adaptive society. It can be seen how Hinduism are easily affect people even it created society formed in Hindu’s Kingdom through the land of Indonesia. As it works on it, the same ways also done with Islamic taughts. Puppet shadow was created as the result of intercultural process between Hinduism and Islamic taughts. The additional key – the flexibility of people make it happened even as our cultural heritage of our nation.

4.0. Conclusion

Based on the study above, the result show that several process refers to six points of deepening intercultural process occured in the process of intercultural communication on Puppet shadow. The process is included on social group, people’s background, social conditions, communication background.

The intercultural communication is obviously affected the process of the entry of puppet shadow in Indonesia. It starts with cultural blended by newcomer from India. The intercultural process happened along with the growth of people’s that dynamically change the society and their habbits that led them into new behavioural and social background.

The study above shows that the beginning of Islamic culture begins with the action of Walisongo, especially Raden Said. Raden Said was used puppet shadow by doing (based on analysis there is happened decoding and encoding) to gain information by Hindu’s culture. Raden Said then blended both culture to create a new tools for preach an Islamic toughts to the people. He created an original puppet shadow (imitating from Hindu’s puppet shadow) called Punakawan.

The character of Punkawakan is actually taken from several toughts of Islam. Raden Said used his own puppet character to show how human should live in this world. The goals of Raden Said is to make people realized that life is once and they can’t be reborn. The thoughts are; Born, morality, and mortality.

Taken from this case, we can conclude that intercultural communication is actually (can forme and cause aculturation between the cultures – as you can see it on the puppet shadow).

Referencess

Ting-Toomey, S., & Chung, L. C. (2022). Understanding intercultural communication (Third edition). Oxford University Press.

 

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L. Anthony, (2019). An Sociology of Culture in Sociolinguistics. UNMAWA University.

Keesing, (1998). Defining Values in Socio-Cultural among Society. British Columbia Student Press.

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J.J. Hans, (1993:102). THE JOURNEY OF HINDUISM IN EAST INDIE. Leiden University.

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