Theoretical Implications

The theoretical implications of the results of this study in Lembang support the development in communication behaviour among arisan members on MAC plants as an important way to encourage self-determination (kemandirian) in health, healing and the growth of industries of herbal medicine using domestic natural materials and resources. Importantly, herbal medicine is relative cheap, culturally appropriate and the use of ethnomedicine generally causes little side effects. In Indonesia, the use of MAC plants has been passed down from generation to generation, to be used in health promotion, illness prevention and for treatment. Currently, in Indonesia, there are approximately 7,000 kinds of MAC plants. Developing TOGA will further improve the self-determination of a community in its efforts to overcome health problems. This in no way obviates its other aim which is to reduce the people’s dependence on chemical/ pharmaceutical medicines. Among the various advantages of TOGA are their contribution to the maintenance and improvement of health, the treatment of symptoms of

ailments and improvement in family nutrition. Priority should be given to those MAC plants which are frequently used as home remedies to treat the family and for medical treatment of an area overwhelmed by a illness. The added advantage that various MAC plants are also useful as cooking spices, vegetables or edible fruits and these attributes obviously improve the people’s health and well-being, should not be overlooked.

For the newly developing field of study of communication behaviour – specifically on local MAC plants - the results indicate that there is a pluralistic configuration of various communication systems operational in the Sunda Region of West Java, in which the indigenous system of information exchange and communication is not only operational in the rural communities, but also rather functional within local instititions, such as the arisan, specifically among women groups in the area. In this context, the envisaged integration between traditional and modern information and comunication systems will provide new ways of reaching members of local communities in the rural areas of the island. The important dual theoretical orientation of ideation and convergence, selected for this study in Lembang, which combines the diffusion of ways of thinking by means of social interaction in local communities with information-sharing, mutual understanding and mutual agreement as an imperative in any institution that eventually may introduce social change, has not only been confirmed by the study results, but also contributed to the deeper understanding of the communication process in the research area.. In addition, the distinction made between

indigenous, or local communication, largely operational in developing countries, and modern

or global communication, largely operational in Western countries has enabled the research to analyse the situation in Lembang as a dynamic process of interaction between global and local systems of communication in the area.

It is also hoped that the result of this study in Lembangwill also contribute to the growing body of knowledge by reconfirming that not only small-scale, often traditional communities with continued and unchallenged occupation of their environments over many generations have accumulated detailed and accurate traditional knowledge and wisdom about their ecosystems, but also that these communities have been shown to use their knowledge systems in their local institutions and associations as to be able to manage and conserve their MAC plants in a sustainable way. Therefore, the results also support the international ideas about global biocultural diversity which point out that human relationships with the environment at the community level constitute a highly complex and diverse process which requires deeper comparative documentation and analysis.

In this context, the recent attention for the social aspects of local institutions such as arisan paves the way for the development of a new strategy of integrating these local institutions into a kind of service centers at the community level, where in addition to the financial services, also other services, as envisaged recently by Slikkerveer (2007) in his concept of Integrated Microfinance Management (IMM) could help to reduce poverty in the rural areas of Indonesia, including helath, education and socialization.

The methodological implications of the results of this study include an affirmation of the success of the use and adaptation of a multivariate model of the communication on MAC plants behaviour on the basis of the development of the ‘ethnosystems approach’ to the study and analysis of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS), developed by the LEAD Programme of Leiden University (cf. Slikkerveer 1983, Leakey & Slikkerveer 1989, Slikkerveer & Dechering 1995, Slikkerveer 1999). The complementary qualitative and quantitative surveys in the sample communities in Lembang shows that the current, limited benefit of the existing research methods and techniques can be overcome by the implementation of the more emic- oriented, interactive ethnosystems research methodology. The quantitative approach permits

the exploration of documentation, analysis and understanding of the complex processes involved in communication on MAC plants behaviour which is under increasing outside pressure from globalisation in the study area and has also contributed to the predictive value of important determinants in the overall process which could lead to a reorientation towards alternative strategies to try to convey or reduce the ongoing biodiversity crisis in this part of the world.