Faraway home: Toward resilient Sumbanese Rumah Adat

Abstract

‘Home is where the heart is’. This famous phrase connotes the notion of ‘home’ in relation to a dearest person in someone’s life. Thus, home does not require any building, even if a house always does (Rykwert in Robert, 2000). However, in Weelewo village, West Sumba, the meaning of home is attached to a particular house, known as Rumah Adat, and the specific place where it grounds. At the same time, the house itself represents another place and time. The paper conducted an empirical qualitative research to identify places considered as home and reveal the meaning of (personal and social) home in relation to the (physical) house. In the end, the paper concluded that it is precisely this paradox and its complex meaning of home in Sumbanese culture which indirectly builds resiliency against development and globalization.