The Ethnography of the Papua Region lecture in the last week was held on November 18, 2024 at 16.00 WIB. Prof. Dr. Setiadi, M.Si. and Dr. Muh.Zamzam Fauzanafi, M.A. as the lecturers of the class presented Dr. Simon Abdi K. Frank, M.Si. who is a lecturer in Social Anthropology from Cenderawasih University, Jayapura. The meeting was conducted through a zoom meeting. The lecture began with an introduction to ethnography by discussing universal things, one of which is through the evolution of biology and culture so that phenotypes / visible characteristics are found which are categorized by the characteristics of the negroid race.
Questions and answers also took place, Dr. Simon showed a map of Papua and students were asked to guess what the map looked like. Some students mentioned that the map looked like a cassowary bird, some also mentioned that it looked like a dinosaur, kiwi bird, this made students and lecturers in the class discuss with each other. In addition, he also emphasized that when studying Papuan ethnography, it is inseparable from its environment, mythology, origin and so on, including talking about Papua New Guinea which is included in the process of Papua’s historical journey. Dr. Simon also said that when it comes to Papua, it is divided into customary areas. Prof. Koentjaraningrat, the father of anthropology, has also conducted research on West Irian, the mention of which varies but is currently more often called Papuan land referring to phenotypic characteristics. Finally, Prof. Dr. Setiadi hoped that the students will get a new understanding and if there are questions, they can be discussed further.
[Humas FIB UGM, Writer: Dewi, Editor: Sandya]
