Negotiation Of Cultural Identity And Values In Macassan Traditional Games In Indonesia

Traditional games have been neglected for more than thirty-two years. However, since the implementation of the decentralization era commencing at the beginning of 2003, it began the establishment and appreciation of local ethnic and cultural identities across Indonesia. Traditional games since have been proposed to be one of the activities within the school contexts. Despite many schools reject to accommodate this activity, some pro-preservation and maintenance of local culture and identities propose this traditional game to the Department of Education to be included as one of the extracurricular activities in schools, particularly in primary school contexts. In this paper, we intend to share the stories of the four school principals in promoting traditional games across the school communities. They convince others about the importance of the games and values for children. We involved in several games activities with the principals and they share with us their values of traditional games on many occasions. This paper also describes the implication of the traditional games that have a robust impact on the establishment of social-cultural skills and identities of communities. It implicates the shed light on how teachers and students can apply traditional games effectively in extra-curricular learning and become aware of values embedded in the games. It suggests that the paper provides insight into how teachers in primary education can better prepare students to establish their local identities and further contributes to the debates on cultural identities and traditional games