The study, conducted within an applied-anthropology framework, used participant observation, in-depth interviews, informal conversations and documentation to examine the relationships among ecology, customary land tenure, kinship, Indigenous language, traditional knowledge and customary institutions. Its participants included customary leaders, elders, women, youth and other community members in Keerom. The qualitative design focused on how these elements sustain cultural continuity rather than producing numerical estimates of language use, participation or rates of cultural change. The findings are therefore specific to the experiences and institutions of the communities represented in the research.

Customary land tenure and the keret kinship system emerged as central mechanisms for regulating access to resources, inheritance, social obligations and conflict prevention. These structures connect territorial relationships with social relationships, helping organize collective life and maintain a shared identity. The study’s technical framing treats Taikat culture as an interconnected biocultural system: land, water, forests and sago groves are not merely resources, while language, knowledge and customary institutions do not operate independently of the ecological settings in which they are learned and used. The reported crisis concerns the weakening of these linked relationships and the conditions that allow them to persist across generations.

Formal education, religious transformation, market integration, migration and administrative expansion were identified as pressures that have altered traditional learning environments and reduced opportunities for transmitting Indigenous language, ecological knowledge and customary practices. On this basis, the authors argue that cultural sustainability among the Taikat depends on strengthening language revitalization, protecting customary territories, reinforcing Indigenous education and recognizing traditional governance institutions. Their central conclusion is that cultural preservation in contemporary Papua must maintain the interconnected social and ecological systems supporting Indigenous identity and resilience, rather than treating cultural continuity as the safeguarding of isolated customs alone.

Subject of Research: Qualitative ethnographic research on biocultural sustainability among the Taikat people of Keerom, Papua

Article Title: Cultural sustainability crisis of the Taikat people of Papua

Article References: Frank, S. A. K., & Idris, U. (2026). Cultural sustainability crisis of the Taikat people of Papua. Discover Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-026-04780-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43621-026-04780-8

Keywords: Taikat people, Papua, cultural sustainability, biocultural systems, Indigenous languages, customary land tenure, traditional knowledge, intergenerational transmission, ethnographic research, customary governance, Cultural, sustainability

The study addresses a persistent gap in design education. Although universities hold remarkable textile and clothing collections, teaching has long favoured text and images over direct contact with artefacts. Researchers have noted that students often lack experience in interpreting material culture, and that no clear, replicable structure exists for studying historical objects in the classroom. Vidal and Salvado set out to build exactly that structure: a pedagogical framework rooted in industrial textile heritage, tested under real teaching conditions, and measurable in its outcomes.

The raw material of the exercise was deliberately specific. From the museum’s René Delimbeuf collection, the team selected textile samples that shared three defining characteristics: a composition of 100 percent wool, a Batavian twill weave structure, and a houndstooth pattern design, all dating from 1960. The houndstooth was chosen for its dual significance—it dominated the pages of L’Officiel magazine in 1960 and reappeared prominently in trend forecasts for the 2025 Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter seasons, giving students a rare opportunity to trace a single motif across more than six decades of fashion history.

The pedagogical engine behind the project was Dee Fink’s Taxonomy of Significant Learning, a framework that treats education as a transformative process integrating foundational knowledge, application, integration, the human dimension, caring, and learning how to learn. From this taxonomy, the researchers constructed a Design Practice Framework with four sequential stages: Comprehend, Replicate, Reinterpret, and Materialise. In the first stage, students explored the archive, studied a 1937 reference textile sample and its debuxo—the technical drawing that guides the arrangement of warp and weft threads—and consulted both historical magazines and contemporary trend publications to situate the pattern in time.

The Replicate stage pushed students from observation into practice. Working first with contrasting markers on paper, they decomposed the houndstooth visually and structurally, identifying formal variables such as technique, scale, and colour alongside conceptual variables like cultural meaning and historical context. They then moved to vertical hand looms, weaving the Batavian twill structure on raw cloth before progressing to two-colour houndstooth fabrics made with recycled wool yarns donated by regional textile factories—a detail that wove sustainability into the very fabric of the exercise.

Reinterpretation was where the creative stakes rose. Each student selected one of five pre-chosen archive references and developed at least four textile surface proposals through hand weaving, manipulating scale, colour, shape, and texture while respecting the colour palette of the original. In parallel, they produced at least four digital print proposals in repeat using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, remaining faithful to the colours and forms of the historical pattern. Throughout, students documented their evolving ideas in sketchbooks modelled on the working practice of textile designer Zandra Rhodes, who describes the creative process as a continuum—a visual journey in which drawing functions as a means of thought itself.

To evaluate the results, the researchers turned to the creative thinking theories of Edward de Bono, particularly lateral thinking and the Six Thinking Hats model. Five experts with between nine and fourteen years of professional experience in fashion design, textiles, and academia independently scored the work of ten representative students across six criteria: originality of approach, conceptual provocation, cognitive flexibility, conscious management of the creative process, emotional and intuitive expression, and feasibility and applicability of the result. The scores were encouraging. Averages ranged from 3.7 to 4.0 on a five-point scale, with the highest marks awarded for process management, emotional expressiveness, and the practical viability of the final proposals.

Statistical analysis reinforced the credibility of these findings. Kendall’s coefficient of concordance, calculated at W = 0.624, indicated moderate to good agreement among the five evaluators, suggesting the de Bono-derived grid provided a coherent and reliable framework for assessing creativity. Yet the slightly lower scores in originality and conceptual provocation revealed an instructive tension: students, absorbed in mastering the technical demands of weaving and digital representation, tended to prioritise faithful interpretation of the historical pattern over radical experimentation. The authors suggest that future iterations should build in more explicit strategies for conceptual risk-taking during the early phases of the creative process.

Student questionnaires added a vivid human dimension to the data. Eighty percent of respondents reported full understanding of both the digital and manual processes, and none found either method difficult in the extreme. But the emotional readings diverged in a revealing way: while sixty percent found the digital design process fun, sixty percent rated the hand-weaving experience as very fun, with not a single participant describing it as boring. The tactile, sensory engagement of working wool through a loom generated a depth of motivation that screens could not match, even as digital tools offered speed and precision for testing colour and scale variations. The researchers conclude that the two approaches are complementary, pairing the expressive qualities of craft with the iterative power of digital technology.

Beyond the classroom, the study carries a broader argument about cultural sustainability. By reinterpreting patterns preserved in the Wool Museum, students become agents of heritage regeneration, transferring industrial know-how from the past into contemporary design practice and giving museum collections new functions and meanings. The authors acknowledge limitations—a small sample, a single semester, one pattern type—but see the framework as replicable across institutions and motifs. As fashion education confronts questions of identity, sustainability, and technological change, this Portuguese experiment suggests that the future of design may be woven, quite literally, from the threads of its own industrial past.

Subject of Research: Heritage-based design didactics using historical industrial textile patterns in fashion design education

Article Title: A methodological study in design didactics based on historical patterns of industrial textile heritage

Article References: Vidal, L., & Salvado, R. (2026). A methodological study in design didactics based on historical patterns of industrial textile heritage. European Journal of Cultural Management and Policy, 16, Article 15859. https://doi.org/10.3389/ejcmp.2026.15859

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/ejcmp.2026.15859

Keywords: fashion design education, textile heritage, houndstooth pattern, cultural sustainability, design didactics, wool museum, hand weaving, digital design, creative thinking, pedagogical framework, Batavian twill, object-based learning

The study, published in Discover Global Society, rests on a deliberately conditional argument. Local knowledge, the authors contend, does not inherently become tourism value; a tourism activity is not inherently a social innovation; and social innovation does not necessarily produce inclusive development. Each step requires something extra. Knowledge must be translated with community authorization, translation must reorganize relationships and capabilities to count as innovation, and innovation must be institutionalized under community control before its benefits can be called inclusive. In Kampung Yoboi, the researchers found strong evidence for the first two steps and only partial evidence for the third.

The raw material is distinctive. Sago, the starchy staple of Papuan communities, functions simultaneously as food, livelihood, ecological system, cultural identity, and intergenerational knowledge. In Kampung Yoboi it has been reinterpreted as a tourism experience through guided sago-forest tracking, traditional food preparation, storytelling, and the sago grub festival. A tourism manager told the researchers that sago is not merely food but the community’s identity, a medium through which visitors can learn about the culture, environment, and way of life around Lake Sentani. The floating settlement itself, with its colorful docks and painted houses, has been reframed as the destination rather than a backdrop to separately constructed attractions.

Methodologically, the study is an interpretive qualitative case study. The team used purposive, criterion-based sampling to assemble informants across seven categories: one community leader, four members of the Tourism Awareness Group known as Pokdarwis, one tourism manager, five residents involved in tourism, four local knowledge holders, five visitors, and four village-level institutional actors. Semi-structured interviews lasting forty-five to sixty minutes were audio-recorded with consent, transcribed, and analyzed thematically in NVivo 12, combining deductive codes drawn from social innovation theory with inductive codes that surfaced unanticipated issues such as dependence on individuals and damaged facilities. Triangulation across participant groups, field observations, and documentary sources strengthened the analysis, and an audit trail preserved interpretive decisions.

The findings show that tourism value in Kampung Yoboi is co-created rather than manufactured. A community leader explained that the village becomes attractive because what visitors see comes from local life itself, from the lake, the houses on water, and the way people live with sago and nature. Ordinary infrastructure doubles as tourism infrastructure: bridges are both daily pathways and visitor routes, and household practices such as craft production and food preparation become small-scale income opportunities. This supports value co-creation theory, in which tourism value emerges from interactions among residents, knowledge holders, visitors, and the material environment rather than from managers alone.

Yet the translation process remains fragile. Much of the community’s knowledge about sago, customs, and lake life is transmitted orally and resides with individual elders. One local knowledge holder noted that many stories still need to be written down and introduced more clearly to visitors and younger generations. Without community-controlled documentation, the researchers warn, tourism development could fragment or erode the very knowledge it celebrates. The study treats documentation not as a technical fix but as a political question: who decides what is recorded, who is authorized to share it, and how customary authority is preserved when cultural content circulates to outsiders.

The social innovation dimension emerges through what the authors call relational recombination. Elders contribute cultural interpretation; households supply food, crafts, and hospitality; Pokdarwis members and the tourism manager coordinate activities; visitors provide feedback and recognition; and village institutions shape legitimacy and resources. Training sessions and community forums allow residents to discuss visitor suggestions and improve management skills. A Pokdarwis member described how villagers support tourism in different ways, some making crafts, some preparing food, and others beautifying the village. Innovation here is not technological novelty but the reorganization of roles, relationships, and collective capabilities in response to locally defined needs.

However, the researchers draw a sharp line between emergent and institutionalized innovation. Kampung Yoboi’s creativity is relationally rich but institutionally weak. Roles and responsibilities have not been fully formalized, tourism is not consistently integrated into village planning and budgeting, and activities depend on a small group of motivated individuals. A tourism manager observed that the ideas already exist but must be managed collectively so tourism does not depend on a few people and instead becomes a shared responsibility of the whole village. Youth involvement in digital promotion and oral history documentation is promising but remains peripheral to formal decision-making.

Inclusion, the study’s most demanding criterion, is emerging but incomplete. Recognitional inclusion is the strongest dimension: tourism visibly affirms sago culture, floating settlement identity, and lake-based livelihoods, and the village’s national recognition, including a place among the top fifty villages in the 2021 Anugerah Desa Wisata Indonesia and finalist status in the 2025 Wonderful Indonesia Award, has reinforced community pride. Economic opportunities exist through food, crafts, and hospitality, but they remain small-scale and unevenly accessible. Procedural and distributive inclusion lag behind, because evidence on who controls priorities, who receives the largest benefits, and how women, youth, and less-connected households participate is limited. Visibility of Indigenous culture, the authors stress, is not the same as inclusion when communities lack authority over representation and development priorities.

Material constraints compound the governance gap. Limited village funding restricts the maintenance of bridges, toilets, sanitation systems, and public spaces, and poor sanitation threatens both visitor comfort and the environmental quality of Lake Sentani. Human resource limitations affect guiding, interpretation, digital promotion, and safety management, while existing training is too occasional to build a continuous capacity system. These constraints reinforce one another: weak institutional recognition limits funding, inadequate facilities reduce visitor satisfaction, limited skills weaken service quality, and reliance on a few individuals threatens continuity. The central problem, the researchers conclude, is not a shortage of creativity but the absence of stable governance, financing, maintenance, and capacity-building arrangements.

The study’s theoretical contribution is a conditional pathway with clear policy implications. Local knowledge contributes to inclusive community-based tourism through community-authorized translation, relational recombination, and community-controlled institutionalization. The authors recommend integrating tourism into village planning and accountable budgeting, treating bridges, sanitation, and public facilities as shared community and visitor infrastructure, establishing representative coordination among village governments, customary leaders, Pokdarwis, knowledge holders, households, women, and youth, and making benefit distribution transparent. Institutionalization, they caution, should not mean imposing external bureaucratic models that displace Indigenous institutions, but rather formalizing rules and roles while the community retains cultural authority.

The limitations are acknowledged candidly. A single-case, interpretive design with twenty-four informants cannot establish statistical representativeness or causal effects, demographic data were too incomplete for subgroup analysis, and the absence of longitudinal data prevents assessment of whether current initiatives endure. Visitor statistics are also patchy; available records indicate roughly 1,852 visitors during 2021 to 2022, but comprehensive seasonal series do not exist. Future research, the team suggests, should compare Indigenous lake-based tourism cases, track governance and benefit distribution over time, and test whether the proposed pathway holds under different customary, ecological, and institutional conditions.

For a village of floating houses on a Papuan lake, the stakes extend well beyond tourism. Kampung Yoboi demonstrates that communities can convert inherited ecological knowledge into experiences that visitors genuinely value, and that this conversion can strengthen identity, pride, and learning. But the research also delivers a caution to policymakers and destination marketers everywhere: participation is not empowerment, visibility is not inclusion, and creativity without institutional foundations risks evaporating when its few champions step away. The pathway from knowledge to inclusive development, the study shows, must be built deliberately, governed locally, and maintained continuously, one bridge, one budget, and one documented story at a time.

Subject of Research: Local knowledge and social innovation in inclusive community-based tourism in an Indigenous lake settlement in Papua, Indonesia

Article Title: Local knowledge and social innovation for inclusive community based tourism in Kampung Yoboi, Papua, Indonesia

Article References: Risamasu, F., Srem, A. I. A., Wabe, T. G., Manaqib, I. W., Amandaria, R., Azkar, R., Darma, R., & Ardiansyah, M. F. P. (2026). Local knowledge and social innovation for inclusive community based tourism in Kampung Yoboi, Papua, Indonesia. Discover Global Society, 4(1), Article 265. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44282-026-00627-9

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44282-026-00627-9

Keywords: community-based tourism, Indigenous tourism, social innovation, local knowledge, sago, Lake Sentani, Papua, inclusive development, value co-creation, participatory governance, cultural sustainability, Indonesia