The Development of Laku Lampah Community Existence as a Place
of Historical Interested Members in Surakarta
Afika Fitria Permatasari, RB Soemanto and Supriyadi
Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences
Sebelas Maret University Surakarta, Indonesia
Keywords: Existence, Community, Laku Lampah, Conservation.
Abstract: Laku Lampah community is one of the communities interested in the historical aspect of Surakarta. This
community was founded by its members who are concerned with the conservation of historical heritage
around their environment. Laku Lampah community brings positive impact on the society. One of such
impacts is that people can find out the history in the villages where they live. This study aims at obtaining
the development of the existence of this community as a history interest group. This study was qualitative
study and used a phenomenon study approach. The techniques of obtaining data were observation, deep
interview, and documentation. Data validation used the triangulation method and data sources. Data analysis
used data reduction, data show, and drawing of the conclusion. The findings showed that this Laku Lampah
community becomes the way of gathering members who are interested in history and its conservation.
Historical site visits become the way for members to interact and discuss about the historical conservation in
the present. This Laku Lampah community could make the people aware and care about historical heritage
around their environment.
1 INTRODUCTION
Surakarta, better known as Solo City, is located in
the Province of Central Java. Solo has a high
potential for historical tourism attractions.
Kasunanan Traditional Palace, Pura
Mangkunegaran, Sriwedari Park, and Balekambang
Park are some examples of the well-known historical
heritage in Solo. Actually, Solo has a high variety of
cultural heritage buildings and historical attractions
which are rarely exposed. Every area of Solo City
has their own characteristics and histories.
Unfortunately, not everyone is aware of it. The
impact is that many people do not know about the
history of the place they live in. This situation has
caused many cultural heritage buildings and
historical sites to be neglected. As point of fact, the
cultural heritage buildings and historical sites such
as old architectural house, former historic buildings,
temples, ancestral graves, and inscriptions are able
to strengthen the potential of historical attractions in
Solo. Realizing many potential places which can be
visited and studied, groups that preserve history
have started to grow in Solo. These groups began to
explore the history of one area after the other, so
others become more aware of the history of their
inhabited places. These groups organize fun learning
activities, which do not just tell the history and
lecture the lessons like school classes. They create
activities that do not bore and make sleepy the
people who want to learn the history of any place in
Solo. The members of such groups who care about
history and want to preserve these historical
buildings are known as Laku Lampah Community.
Laku Lampah Community is one of the history lover
communities in Surakarta. This community tries to
explore and introduce to the public the various
historical sites that are interspersed and existing in
Surakarta through various activities.
The community do not move by itself, or by
merely one or two persons. Communities are run by
people who have the same goals and interests. The
presence of intense communication will create
solidarity among members of the community so that
the community can thrive and survive until the
present. Good relationship will bring solidarity that
is established so that the sense of ownership among
members becomes higher. The existence of a good
relationship among members affects the existence of
Laku Lampah in the local community. To maintain
888
Permatasari, A., Soemanto, R. and Supriyadi, .
The Development of Laku Lampah Community Existence as a Place of Historical Interested Members in Surakarta.
DOI: 10.5220/0007553508880892
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference Postgraduate School (ICPS 2018), pages 888-892
ISBN: 978-989-758-348-3
Copyright
c
2018 by SCITEPRESS Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
the existence of Laku Lampah activity, innovation is
needed for routine agenda in community. People
who are interested in every activity of this
community will never be bored to participate and be
a regular member of Laku Lampah.
In this study, the researchers examined the
development of Laku Lampah community existence
as a community of cultural heritage interested in
Surakarta’s history. The purpose of this study is to
determine the development of Laku Lampah
community as a community interested in cultural
heritage. To analyze the development of Laku
Lampah community, this study used the structures in
Anthony Giddens' structuration theory. This study
was a qualitative research with a phenomenology
study approach. The data collection techniques used
were observation, in-depth interviews and
documentation studies.
2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This research used a qualitative research method
with phenomenology approach. Phenomenology is a
research strategy in which the researcher identifies
individual experiences related to a particular
phenomenon. Understanding experience makes
phenomenology a research method that requires the
researcher to study a number of subjects and directly
involve themselves to develop patterns and to
conceive relationships (Creswell, 2016). The
application of phenomenology approach in this
research was helpful to explain the development of
Laku Lampah community as a group interested in
the cultural heritage of Surakarta.
Sources of data in this study originated from the
primary data in the form of interviews and
secondary data obtained from documents and
archives owned by Laku Lampah Community.
Purposive sampling is used to determine the sample
of data sources in this study which includes key
informants, main informants and supporting
informants. Purposive sampling is used to determine
the sample of data sources in this study which
includes key informants, main informants and
supporting informants. Data collection techniques
used is observation, in-depth interviews and
documentation. Observations is conducted by
researchers with directly involved in every routine
activities held by Laku Lampah. Interview is
conducted with key informant who is founder of
Laku Lampah, main informant who is member and
management of Laku Lampah and supporting
informant who is Laku Lampah participant. The
documentation used is derived from journals and
articles related to the issues being researched and
related to Laku Lampah. In addition, the
documentation is also a photograph of activities
carried out by the Laku Lampah community.
3 FINDINGS
Laku Lampah Community is one of the historically-
interested communities in Surakarta. The name of
Laku Lampah is derived from the Javanese
Language, which is divided into two words. The first
word means walking, while lampah means walking,
too. If two syllables are combined, Laku Lampah
means walking by tracing and heading to something.
The purpose of the community is to be a place
for people to know more about the heritage in
Indonesia generally and in Solo particularly,
increasing the love and interest in heritage,
becoming an alternative to heritage introduction by
visiting heritage sites and educate the community to
take care and preserve the heritage. The vision of
Laku Lampah is to become a heritage association
that makes people aware and participate in
maintaining and understanding the values of heritage
in Indonesia generally and in Solo particularly.
Additionally, the mission of Laku Lampah is to build
public awareness of the importance of history and
historical heritage, educate people to know and be
eager to maintain historical buildings and spread the
stories of the history to people out there. The focus
of this community is the activities are held every
month. This community started its first activity with
the name Blusukan Ndalem Pengeran event on April
22, 2012.
Since its establishment, Laku Lampah has held
four programs or events. The first program was
Blusukan Solo which, as suggested by the name, was
an activity done by going around Solo or Surakarta.
In this activity, participants were taken around to an
area that has stories and historical sites such as
buildings, ancestral graves, temples, monuments,
and old houses with ancient architecture.
Participants were also given historical stories while
visiting these places. The stories given were usually
obtained from building owners, caretakers, and
community leaders in the area. The second activity
program of Laku Lampah Community was Dolan
Bareng. Dolan Bareng had the same activities with
Blusukan Solo, but the difference lay in the location.
Dolan Bareng focused more on the outside of Solo,
which still has a historical relation with Solo. The
third activity program was Gowes Together. Gowes
The Development of Laku Lampah Community Existence as a Place of Historical Interested Members in Surakarta
889
Together had the same core activities with Blusukan
Solo and Dolan Bareng, but in this activity
participants did not walk but ride a bike to go around
existing historical sites. The last activity was Visit
Museum. This activity was a program devoted to
students. Laku Lampah cooperated with school
parties to invite their students to join on history or
museum tours.
To further develop its existence as a place of
history interested in cultural heritage, Laku Lampah
is required to always innovate in every activity that
it organizes. In addition, to be better known in the
community, Laku Lampah community is also
required to follow the development of technology as
a means promotion. To fulfill all these demands,
certainly, Laku Lampah community must be
innovative so that their existence in society will be
maintained and growing. Based on the research
conducted by the researchers, the development of
Laku Lampah community as a place for cultural
heritage conservation focuses on three things:
creating new activities, innovating in every routine
activity, and utilizing social media as a means of
promotion.
3.1 New Activity
Basically, every activity of the Laku Lampah
community was limited by the participant quota.
This is because the visits in every activity were
conducted house to house. In addition, the
participant quota restrictions were made to facilitate
the participants in listening and understanding the
explanations given by the speakers in each area of
the visits. The average number of participants who
want to participate could not be certainly known
because of quota limitation system. Seeing the
interest of the people who enthusiastically wanted to
follow the activities of Laku Lampah, a founder of
Laku Lampah launched a new activity called
Soerakarta Walking Tour.
While Laku Lampah regularly held an activity
once a month, the Soerakarta Walking Tour was
designed for organizing activities once a week This
is to facilitate the people who wanted to participate
in Laku Lampah activities. Soerakarta Walking Tour
is held in every Saturday starting from 09.00 until
finish. Activities in Soerakarta Walking Tour are
made as minimalist as can be.
In the activities of Laku Lampah, participants are
usually required to pay some money and given
facilities in the form of a short handbook, mineral
water and lunch. Unlike the Soerakarta Walking
Tour, here the participants pay as much as they
could. However, the facilities are only the material
given directly when the activity is done.
3.2 Innovation in Every Activity
In one year, there are 12 activities in Laku Lampah.
Ordinarily within a year, the community organized
two Dolan Bareng activities, 1 activity for Gowes
Bareng, and 9 other activities for Blusukan Solo. All
the activities organized by Laku Lampah community
basically have the core activities in the form of
street-walking and introducing historic sites and
buildings of cultural heritage in the area where the
events are held. To avoid a series of activities that
seem monotonous, community organizers packed
activities into a fun event. Various innovations were
created by the community committee so that the
activities of every month would not be the same.
Innovation was brought by bringing certain themes
and creating a collaboration event with other
communities in Solo. This is certainly adapted to the
chosen theme. For example, in the Blusukan in
Laweyan, this community collaborated with a new
community to introduce traditional Javanese games.
Cooperation had also been arranged with the club of
Putra Putri Solo to travel using Solo City’s tour
transportation and tour agendas to historical tourism
and cultural heritage objects in Solo. Collaboration
with artists incorporated in the cultural record had
also been done. In this collaboration, a show that
tells a few pieces of history stories that exist in Solo
was shown.
With innovations being increasingly attractive in
every series of activities created, Laku Lampah
Community is expected to increase public interest to
learn the history and culture that exist in Solo.
3.3 Social Media as a Promotion Tool
Currently, the development of the digital world is
considered as a very promising media campaign.
With the rapid growth of social media, the reach of
communication among communities becomes easier.
Seeing these opportunities, Laku Lampah
Community utilizes social media as a means of
promotion to introduce more historical and cultural
heritage existing in Solo.
Social media is also used as a means to introduce
Laku Lampah to the public. By using Instagram,
blog, YouTube, and Facebook, the promotion to
introduce the community and all kinds of activities
held by this community becomes easier. With the
ease of people accessing and finding out about this
community through social media, it becomes an
ICPS 2018 - 2nd International Conference Postgraduate School
890
advantage to attract the interest of participants in
following the activities of Laku Lampah.
Communities will not work if they have only one
or two individuals. A community will run and
survive if there are a lot of individuals who manage
it. The existence of Laku Lampah community is
inseparable from the cooperation of the organizers to
develop the activities that constitute the community
activities. With activities being held by the
community, individuals would be attracted to
participate. Increasing individual interest to
participate in every activity of the community, then
the greater the responsibility of community
administrators in the development of their activities
so that the community Laku Lampah itself grows.
The development of Laku Lampah Community will
run indisputably with the role of participating
individuals within the community. It takes a strong
encouragement to develop the existence of the
community because survival alone is not enough.
Laku Lampah community is engaged in history and
cultural heritage. It requires intense communication
and meetings, which create a close relationship
among individuals within Laku Lampah community
to work together in developing the existence of the
community itself.
Agents in Laku Lampah are members and
participants of this community. Those involved in
this community will certainly have close ties and
relationships with each other. This is certainly the
most important key in maintaining the existence of
Laku Lampah community. Agencies have an
important role. Without them, they cannot develop
their existence in society. Basically, members and
participants of Laku Lampah community have
different life backgrounds. This is very influential on
the way they look and think. There will be many
obstacles faced from the diversity of ways of view
and their thinking, but on the other hand, these
differences will also act as the supporting factors
which can form solidarity among them so as to
develop the existence of Laku Lampah Community.
It is important to create solidarity among
members who have different ways of thinking. To
unite them and not to cause conflict, it is necessary
to see the management of Laku Lampah community
as an agency. The agency here controls how the
actions of the agents to form a structure that is none
other than Laku Lampah Community. The
relationship of agents and structures affect the
development of the structure itself. The existence of
solidarity among agents form an intensive
relationship that is in the form of mutual
relationships among members of Laku Lampah
community in each activity. From this, raising rules
and norms as the development of the structure
within Laku Lampah is necessary. If the individual
activities done by the Laku Lampah become more
solid, then it can be said the agent strengthens the
action and makes members identify more with their
roles in the structure. Given a harmonious
relationship among agents, agencies and structures
will reinforce the duality of existing structures. With
good cooperation between members, participants
and administrators will encourage the development
of Laku Lampah community as a growing
community.
4 CONCLUSION
To further develop its existence as a group of people
interested in history and cultural heritage, Laku
Lampah community is required to always innovate
in every activity that it organizes. In addition, to be
better known in society, Laku Lampah community is
also required to follow the development of
technology as a means of promoting itself. Based on
the research that has been done by the researchers,
the development of Laku Lampah community as a
place of cultural heritage interest focuses on three
aspects. The first is New Activity. Laku Lampah
community created a new program called Soerakarta
Walking Tour to facilitate people who have not been
able to participate in community activities of Laku
Lampah. The second is Innovation in Every
activity. To avoid series of activities that seem
monotonous, community organizers packed
activities into a fun event. Innovation was arranged
by bringing certain themes and creating a
collaboration event with other communities in Solo.
The third is Social Media as a Promotion Tool.
Laku Lampah utilized social media as a means of
promotion to introduce more historical and cultural
heritage that exist in Solo.
Social media was also used as a means to
introduce the Laku Lampah Community to the
public. By using Instagram, blog, YouTube, and
Facebook, promotion efforts to introduce the
community and all kinds of activities held this
community became easier.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The researcher would like to thank Prof. Dr. RB.
Soemanto, MA and Dr. Supriyadi SN. SU for the
The Development of Laku Lampah Community Existence as a Place of Historical Interested Members in Surakarta
891
guidance and time for being thesis counselors. The
writers would likte to thank the Laku Lampah
Community, who had helped a lot in this study.
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