Poline Bala

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Research Director at University of Malaysia, Sarawak

Using seven themes of adaptability strategies drawn from existing literature, this study examines the strategies for adaptation among the Bajau community in Lok Nunuk to cope with the impacts of climate change in the area. Questionnaires were distributed to 60 household heads, and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. The four obvio...

This article analyzes the generational politics of smartphones in the Malaysian state of Sarawak in the context of Bornean history and contemporary Sarawakian political economy. We respond to a global north bias in the standing literature on smartphone media and suggest approaches to improve representation of global south perspectives. Concretely,...

Traditional rice agroecosystems face socioeconomic, political, technical and environmental challenges that are resulting in changes in the traditional land use and management system and its contributions to indigenous farmers. This study explored the contributions made by swidden and wet rice agroecosystems in a traditional rice cultivation landsca...

Traditional rice agroecosystems face socioeconomic, political, technical and environmental challenges that are resulting in changes in the traditional land use and management system and its contributions to indigenous farmers. This study explored the contributions made by swidden and wet rice agroecosystems in a traditional rice cultivation landsca...

Background Rice field agroecosystems produce food for more than half of the world’s population and deliver important services supporting farmers’ livelihoods. However, traditional rice field agroecosystems are facing a variety of problems, including pests or markets that are hard to access. This research explored indigenous farmers’ perceptions of...

Drawing on anthropological observations, this paper throws its focus on the Nyegol community in Upper Bengoh, Sarawak, to examine how and what did the community do to negotiate and adapt to the disruptions as a result of COVID-19. In a world changed by COVID-19, the importance of understanding community resilience to health security has garnered th...

Scientific research involving remote rural communities is often plagued by a lack of understanding of what constitutes indigenous knowledge. That is, indigenous perspectives, models of representation, and their ways of knowing. Through a long-standing community-university partnership in working with remote and rural communities in the Borneo Malays...

The introduction of social distancing as a measure to slow the spread of disease related to COVID-19, has led to ongoing debate about its disruptive effects around the world. There is a wide variation in the response and the use of the measures to encounter the pandemic. Drawing on cultural analysis this paper aims to explicate the socio-cultural r...

ABSTRACT This paper examines the role of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) as a booster of employment opportunities in Sarawak, highlighting the importance of TVET as a catalyst that promotes individuals’ chances to gain employment, with the ultimate goal of improving their socioeconomic living conditions and overall developme...

The ability of the communities to controlling heritage has been questioned and analyzed in a broader perspective of socio-cultural cohesion and power. However, a research gap exists regarding the capabilities developed by the indigenous communities to collectively empower them-selves by appropriating external resources, such as research and develop...

This paper attempts to throw light on the concept of ‘othering’ previously framed through the prism of identity politics. As COVID-19 continues to ravage our economy and social life, we turn to looking at two contested sites of the highland national borders and the urban cities to understand how the ‘othering' idea manifests itself right when the p...

Gathering to celebrate festivals is a common socio-cultural practice amongst Sarawak’s diverse groups. For untold years, individuals, households, villages and at times the entire communities get together to observe their various religious, cultural and community festivals. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic period, the practice of gathering to c...

Based on a community engaged research for community development by a team of multidisciplinarian researchers from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS). Known as the Telecentre Programme for Orang Asli (TPOA) the initiative is to introduce information communication technologies (ICTs) for bridging the digital divide between urban and rural communiti...

Over the last decades, researchers and development practitioners have been experimenting with models, frameworks and devises to meet the needs of diverse users of information communication technologies. Turning to an ICT‐based community development known as the Telecentre Programme amongst Orang Asli, an indigenous people groups in Peninsular Malay...

The introduction of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to remote and isolatedindigenous communities in the forested interior of Borneo has generated desirable development benefitsfor them as well as revealing the processes of community engagement that were necessary for bringingthem about. Associated learning has also highlighted asp...

The Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak, Malaysia and the Kerayan Highlands of Kalimantan, Indonesia areculturally contiguous areas separated by the Apad Wat mountain range, consisting of a number ofvillages that are related ethnically, linguistically, and through marriage. Though now separated by apolitical boundary, locals have always traversed this bor...

This paper describes our experience in introducing information and communication technologies (ICTs) to a remote and isolated rural community of Bario in Sarawak. The project is called e-Bario. One of the major aims of the project is to narrow the gap of digital divide between urban and rural people in Sarawak. Specifically, the project aims to ach...

The eBario pilot project has demonstrated a people-centred approach in providing ICTs to an isolated rural community in Bario, Sarawak, Malaysia. By engaging the community prior, during, and after the deployment of ICTs, Bario now has access to telephones and the Internet, and are applying ICTs to enhance their livelihood. The project has been ackn...

Building capacity at the local level is an aspect we cannot afford to overlook in an effort to build a knowledge society through the means of Information Communication Technologies. It is important to ensure clever applications of technology for social and human development in communities. But, before this can happen, it is important to identify ex...

How did the Penan of Sarawak, East Malaysia stop their nomadic life and become settled farmers and retain their identity as Penan? This article presents the memories of settled Kelabit and the neighbouring Penan of a time when they were reluctant to meet one another, when the Penan were nomadic. Their lifestyles were very different: the Penan were...

MOOCs have cultured a knowledge exchange phenomenon at a global scale making its strong presence in developing countries to pursue certain development goals, particularly to serve the rural indigenous communities. The current MOOC model, however tends to be inhibitive when it comes to integrating the complex realities of the under-served communitie...

Abstract: This paper presented the telecentre implementation for the Orang Asli villages in remote rural areas under the Telecentre Program for Orang Asli (TPOA). TPOA telecentre architecture aims to assist the achievement of a rural community sustainable telecentre through innovation and strategic adoption of ICT technology. Lessons learned from o...

This chapter highlights the value and limitations of participative development employed in the implementation of an ICT-based research and development project in the Kelabit Highlands of Central Borneo. The first section describes the reasons for e-Bario project and why participative development, with a strong emphasis on the anthropological method...

In order to make sense of contemporary and ongoing anthropological and sociological research activities at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) it is important to highlight different levels of factors that have shaped and influenced the sort of research agendas and activities carried out by members of the faculty (an...

Multiple factors may contribute to poverty among Orang Asli , namely, traditional, consumption oriented ways of crop cultivation which depend largely on family labour, inconsistent returns of cash cropping, the presence of middle traders which prevent s their direct access to market, lack of transportation network and information, lack of access to...

The chapter examines why and how the Kelabit, a people of Central Borneo, engaged with information and communication technologies through the electronic Bario (e-Bario) development initiative. It explores the ways that aspects of Kelabit society and history provided the context for implementation of the project, and constituted a rationale for atti...

Explorations of design, use, and reuse of information technology in diverse historical and cultural contexts. This book explores alternative cultural encounters with and around information technologies. These encounters are alternative because they counter dominant, Western-oriented notions of media consumption; they include media practices as form...

Bario Community Radio went on air in October 2011. Its intended public is the Kelabit people who are living within the 25-kilometer radius from the broadcast facility located at e-Bario telecentre. The station is administered by a manager who also serves as the broadcast journalist and radio announcer. He is assisted by two other broadcasters. The...

This chapter highlights the value and limitations of participative development employed in the implementation of an ICT-based research and development project in the Kelabit Highlands of Central Borneo. The first section describes the reasons for e-Bario project and why participative development, with a strong emphasis on the anthropological method...

Using electronic-Bario (e-Bario) project in the Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak in East Malaysia, this chapter explores how the introduction of information communication technologies (ICT) as developmental tools have been mediated and reconfigured by webs of social relations and the intricate interplay of social, political and cultural conditions spec...

Four features in this news letter they are: (1) Digital Romania: Broadband for All Romanians? Not Yet! (2) The eBario Project: A Rural ICT Internet Access Initiative in Malaysia. (3) Telecommunications Engineering and the Bologna Declaration in Spain.(4) Highlights from ONDM 2009 in Germany.

Drawing on experiences from the Bario Lakuh Digital Library project research experiment carried out by a group of researchers from the Centre of Excellence in Rural Informatics, UNIMAS, this paper highlight some of the issues with regards to the encounter between Intellectual Property and cultural property. In particular with issues of ownership as...

Using electronic-Bario (e-Bario) project in the Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak in East Malaysia, this chapter explores how the introduction of information communication technologies (ICT) as developmental tools have been mediated and reconfigured by webs of social relations and the intricate interplay of social, political and cultural conditions spec...

Using electronic-Bario (e-Bario) project in the Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak in East Malaysia, this chapter explores how the introduction of information communication technologies (ICT) as developmental tools have been mediated and reconfigured by webs of social relations and the intricate interplay of social, political and cultural conditions spec...

This chapter highlights an initiative by a group of researchers2 from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) to connect villagers in the remote and isolated village of Bario to Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), which include computers, telephones, the Internet, and VSATs. This project has eased the information flow in and out of Bario, a...

This chapter highlights an initiative by a group of researchers2 from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) to connect villagers in the remote and isolated village of Bario to Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), which include computers, telephones, the Internet, and VSATs. This project has eased the information flow in and out of Bario, a...

In the old days, Kelabit women used songs to pass information on significant events to the next generation. This was because most of them were illiterate and thus unable to document the information. These songs are called lakuh, and today only the women advanced in age sing the lakuh; the younger women are generally not interested. Thus, this proje...

In this paper, we highlight lessons learnt from our experience in the development of three software applications for two small remote communities in Sarawak, a state of Malaysia. These two communities have been provided access to information and communication technologies. The applications developed include a digital library employed to capture ora...

This chapter highlights an initiative by a group of researchers2 from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) to connect villagers in the remote and isolated village of Bario to Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), which include computers, telephones, the Internet, and VSATs. This project has eased the information flow in and out of Bario, a...

This chapter highlights an initiative by a group of researchers2 from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) to connect villagers in the remote and isolated village of Bario to Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), which include computers, telephones, the Internet, and VSATs. This project has eased the information flow in and out of Bario, a...

The eBario project was conceived as a research initiative that utilizes computers, telephones, and VSATs to connect villagers in the remote village of Bario to the Internet. The main objective of the research is to ascertain opportunities for remote communities to develop socially, culturally and economically from the deployment of information and...

Building capacity at the local level is an aspect we cannot afford to overlook in an effort to build a knowledge society through the means of Information Communication Technologies. It is important to ensure clever applications of technology for social and human development in communities. But, before this can happen, it is important to identify ex...

This article describes an action-research pilot project to provide opportunities for the remote Kelabit community in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, on the island of Borneo, to use information and communication technologies (ICTs) for sustainable human development. The project aims to establish a telecentre as a place for the community to use ICTs....

The aim of this study is to determine the awareness and usage of information technology (IT) in a rural community of Bario, Sarawak. The respondents of the study were 140 heads of households in Bario. A descriptive survey methodology was used to obtain data from the respondents. The findings showed that the majority of the respondents have heard ab...

Remarkable and rapid developments in communication and computing technologies in recent years offer exciting avenues for rural communities to move into the information age. Nonetheless, it is important to view rural communities not merely as passive consumers of information and knowledge, but also as contributors. As such, the focus is not on the t...

Community Informatics is an emerging discipline concerned with the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by communities, as opposed to their use by organisations and individuals. The spread of the Internet has brought ICTs to large numbers of people who have never used them before, particularly where community-based telecentres h...

The Malaysian government’s tenacious efforts to establish the Multimedia Supercorridor (MSC) and the Smart School as one of its flagship applications has raised a growing concern for those who may be sidelined from the Information Technology (IT) bandwagon, i.e. marginalised populations living in telecommunication-deprived rural areas. This paper r...