Performing rural heritage for nation branding: a comparative study of Japan and Indonesia

ABSTRACT

The study aims to examine (1) how the nation brands in Japan and Indonesia are represented by the performances of rural heritage, 2) how locals legitimate their collective identities with nation imaginings, and 3) how the brand association of rural heritage places contributes to the nation brand. Using a comparative study, this paper examines how the Tsumago post town in Nagano, Japan, and Penglipuran village in Bali demonstrate how for rural places to contribute to the idyllic rural imaginings for each nation. The research project use qualitative approach by interviewing local people and tourists, observing local activities, with the collection of media data, and an examination of the data using discourse analysis. The research results are that: (1) both destinations construct their nation brands through the discourses of space, (2) discourse of people movements, which circulate in a turbine model of heritage process, and (3) the discourse of nation branding. This study supports the need to study the local characteristics and performance patterns of rural places that are seemingly idyllic to represent the imaginings of nation. As a conclusion, both places, similarly and differently, combine the narratives of rural place using local, nation identity, and tourism imaginaries that are circulating globally.

KEYWORDS:

• Nation branding
• performance
• rural
• heritage
• comparative study
• Indonesia
• Japan

Acknowledgements

The author express her immense gratitude to Dr. Susan Leong, Dr. Shaphan Cox, and Dr. Elaine Tan from Curtin University as supervisors of her PhD research work; Prof. Greg Dickinson from Colorado State University for providing advices and reference letter; Gilang Ahmad Fauzi, S.S., M.D.S from Travelxism for the support in Japan and document productions, Koichi Ishizuka and Kenichi Hamaya from Sumitomo Foundation, and all those people involved with Tsumago heritage and Penglipuran for their time and patience when being interviewed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Desideria Cempaka Wijaya Murti is a lecturer at Universitas Atma Jaya Yogyakarta, Indonesia in the Department of Communication Sciences, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences. During the research process for this paper, she is completing her PhD in Media, Culture, and Social Inquiries at Curtin University, Australia under a full scholarship from the Indonesian Endowment Fund of Education Fund (LPDP) from the Finance Ministry of Indonesia. She also received funding to travel to Japan and conduct some comparative research case studies under Sumitomo Foundation. Her research interests are related to the intersection of cultural heritage tourism, visual communication, marketing communication, spaces, and media.

ORCID

Desideria Cempaka Wijaya Murti http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6673-9372

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in:

Murti, D. (2018). http://ddfe.curtin.edu.au/5AF3D9B88F520/

Murti, D. (2018). http://ddfe.curtin.edu.au/5B57E2644E9A1/

Notes

1 Finally, for the category of governance, the discourses commonly emerge surround Pancasila (Indonesia’s nation philosophy) (Schwarz, 2018), investment (Fischer, 2012), developing country, corruption (Gellert, 2015), and issues about security in a democratic country (Kusumohamidjojo, 1986).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by Sumitomo Foundation under FY2016 grant for Japan-Related Research Projects Number 168204; Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education or LPDP (Lembaga Pengelola Dana Pendidikan) under PhD Scholarship Number 20150922304395.