Empowering Local Communities to Preserve their Folklore: A Project in Eastern Sumba

This article p resents a project of empowering local communit ies in eastern Sumba to preserve their folklo re. Culture encounters in globalized world encourage local communit ies to reflect on the dynamics and vitality o f their own culture. Given the fact that oral-based communit ies are marginalized in articu lating their cultural identity, this project aimed to involve local communities in eastern Sumba to preserve their folkloric expressions. Activities comprised focus group discussions, folklore research, and d igital documentation of folk music and dance. Th is project is expected to establish collaboration between scholars and local communit ies to promote the importance of local knowledge preservation and the needs for the digital documentation to support future data preservation.