DB7: Weaving Relational Heritage: Indigenous Storytelling and Lotud Ritual Futures (film screening and discussion)
Tracks
7
| Tuesday, December 1, 2026 |
| 10:45 AM - 12:45 PM |
| RH104 |
Paper / Session Submitter
Dr Yunci Cai
Associate Professor In Museum And Heritage Studies
University Of Leicester
Weaving Relational Heritage: Indigenous Storytelling and Lotud Ritual Futures (film screening and discussion)
Summary Abstract
This session screens a 42-minute documentary exploring the imminent risk of losing the sacred ritual poetry preserved by the four remaining Lotud high priestesses, whose oral traditions are threatened by language loss, religious conversion and sociocultural changes. The Lotud are an Indigenous community of 20,000 people, predominantly residing in Tuaran, Sabah, East Malaysia. Passed down orally by Lotud priestesses, the tradition preserves the community’s cosmology, creation myth, environmental ethics and moral values. Co-produced with the Sabah Seamex Association and Lotud communities, and funded by a British Council Connections Through Culture grant, the film is narrated in English, with interviews in Malay, Lotud and English, and subtitles in Malay and English. A facilitated discussion led by Dr Yunci Cai follows the screening, inviting the audience to consider how Indigenous storytelling, film and community collaboration can support relational approaches to safeguarding endangered ritual heritage, and what futures such traditions may hold.
Biographies
Cai Yunci is Associate Professor in Museum and Heritage Studies at the Museum Studies @ School of Heritage and Culture, University of Leicester (UK). She is a critical heritage and museum studies scholar, specialising in the cultural politics and museologies in and of Asia. She holds a PhD in Museum and Heritage Studies and a Master of Arts with Distinction in Museum Studies, both from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London and a First-Class Honours in Geography from the National University of Singapore. She is the author of Staging Indigenous Heritage: Instrumentalisation Brokerage and Representation in Malaysia (Routledge 2020) which explores the cultural politics of four Indigenous cultural villages in Malaysia; and the editor of The Museum in Asia (Routledge 2025) which is the first academic book to examine museums in Asia from a theoretical perspective informed by critical museology and heritage studies.