Profile

I am an anthropologist by training and I am involved in research on community development and engagement. All of my work with the communities have been supporting and creating a structure for them to participate in circular economy by empowering them with skills and knowledge that are relevant for them to establish community-based enterprise or to enhance their knowledge on being an Indigenous entrepreneurs at the rural regions. For this purpose, I adopt participatory community-based action research and ethnographic study, particularly when I conduct social impact assessment before conducting the research and after the implementations of the projects.

My primary research focusing on community-driven development project that includes the applications of Indigenous knowledge as tools for the community livelihood development in the circular economy on community-based cultural and knowledge conservation by engaging the makers, artisans and women to actively participate in the projects. The most successful research and sustainable community engagement has been the development of the Indigenous knowledge of the traditional textile, the Iban pua kumbu that has led to a series of educational polysensory exhibition, the “Textile Tales of the Pua Kumbu since 2015. I am also an art curator, curating cultural exhibitions and based on the HIR (2013-2016), I created a community-based enterprise that promotes the traditional Iban Pua Kumbu internationally.

For more information please visit: https://umexpert.um.edu.my/welynejj.html