Hybrid food narratives and emerging rural influencers: Rethinking sago-based culinary heritage in village tourism
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
This study explores how sago-based local food is constructed as a narrative within rural tourism and how local actors contribute to shaping these narratives in Rutong Village, Ambon, Indonesia. Adopting a qualitative case study approach, data were collected through in-depth interviews, participant observation, digital content analysis, and supporting document analysis involving approximately 15–25 participants, including local food producers, community members, tourism actors, and visitors where available. The findings indicate that sago-based foods, such as sinoli and sago noodles, function as cultural resources associated with tradition, collective memory, local identity, and ecological knowledge. As tourism develops, these foods are increasingly incorporated into visitor experiences through storytelling, participation, and social interaction. The findings also indicate that food narratives are constructed through a combination of face-to-face communication and limited digital engagement. Local food producers and community members contribute to this process through cultural knowledge, social relationships, and direct interaction with visitors. The study conceptualizes this pattern as a hybrid food narrative, highlighting the coexistence of digital and non-digital communication in an emerging rural tourism context.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
References
Apriyanto, Y., Md Sharif, M. S., Mohd Shahril, A., Ishak, N., & Hashim, N. F. (2024). Exploring the concept of Indonesia traditional food sustainability. Journal of Tourism, Hospitality and Culinary Arts, 16(1), 351–377. https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/97726/
Banks, D. A. (2022). The attention economy of authentic cities: How cities behave like influencers. European Planning Studies, 30(1), 195–209. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2021.1882947
Batyrbek, A., & Chisbiyah, L. A. (2025). Exploring the role of traditional food in developing tourism in Kazakhstan. Journal of Tourism, Culinary, and Entrepreneurship (JTCE), 5(1), 51–71. https://doi.org/10.37715/jtce.v5i1.5616
Beneito-Montagut, R. (2022). Digital and non-digital: Researching digital practices as trans-situated activities in everyday later life. In U. Flick (Ed.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research design. SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781036243371.n51
Daryana, A. P., & Waluyo, B. D. (2025). Integrating digital technology and local wisdom in smart ecotourism: A community-based approach in Brastagi. Journal of Tourism, Culinary, and Entrepreneurship (JTCE), 5(2), 355–370. https://doi.org/10.37715/jtce.v5i2.5734
Dawson, S. L., Sarachchandra, K. S. H., & Kannangara, S. D. P. P. (2023). Promoting food tourism through digital media with special reference to Sri Lanka as a tourist destination. Journal of Business and Technology, 7(2), 100–123. https://doi.org/10.4038/jbt.v7i2.116
Dorta-Preen, J. M., & Santana-Talavera, A. (2025). Shaping places together: The role of social media influencers in the digital co-creation of destination image. Urban Science, 9(7), Article 262. https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci9070262
Franzidis, A., Seaman, A. N., & Abee, M. (2023). Online food marketplaces & the fetishization of local: The case for narratology. Digital Geography and Society, 4, Article 100048. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diggeo.2022.100048
Firman, A. (2025). The interrelations among tourism industry, social media, and technological innovation: A systematic review approach. Journal of Tourism, Culinary, and Entrepreneurship (JTCE), 5(1), 133–147. https://doi.org/10.37715/jtce.v5i1.5468
Gago, M. (2025). The power of storytelling: How to create narratives that move audiences to action. Journal of Brand Strategy, 14(1), 6–17. https://doi.org/10.69554/YRHL3067
Gaspar, M. C. de M. P., Garcia, A. M., & Larrea-Killinger, C. (2020). How would you define healthy food? Social representations of Brazilian, French and Spanish dietitians and young laywomen. Appetite, 153, Article 104728. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2020.104728
Goodman, M. K., & Jaworska, S. (2020). Mapping digital foodscapes: Digital food influencers and the grammars of good food. Geoforum, 117, 183–193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.09.020
Harvey, G. (2021). Field research and participant observation. In S. Engler & M. Stausberg (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of research methods in the study of religion (2nd ed., pp. 273–299). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003222491-20
Hjalager, A.-M. (2022). Digital food and the innovation of gastronomic tourism. Journal of Gastronomy and Tourism, 7(1), 35–49. https://doi.org/10.3727/216929722X16354101932186
Hoaihongthong, S., & Tuamsuk, K. (2024). Integration of local cultural knowledge in the community products design and development. Journal of Ecohumanism, 3(6), 1285–1300. https://doi.org/10.62754/joe.v3i6.4101
Ingrassia, M., Bellia, C., Giurdanella, C., Columba, P., & Chironi, S. (2022). Digital influencers, food and tourism—A new model of open innovation for businesses in the Ho.Re.Ca. sector. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, 8(1), Article 50. https://doi.org/10.3390/joitmc8010050
Jain, V., Belk, R. W., Ambika, A., & Pathak-Shelat, M. (2021). Narrative selves in the digital world: An empirical investigation. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 20(2), 368–380. https://doi.org/10.1002/cb.1869
Kapelari, S., Alexopoulos, G., Moussouri, T., Sagmeister, K. J., & Stampfer, F. (2020). Food heritage makes a difference: The importance of cultural knowledge for improving education for sustainable food choices. Sustainability, 12(4), Article 1509. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12041509
Kent, R. (2021). Digital food tracking: Combining traditional and digital ethnographic methods to identify the influence of social media sharing of health and foods upon users’ everyday lives. In J. Leer & S. Krogager (Eds.), Research methods in digital food studies (pp. 143–163). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003010845-15
Lowery, B., Dagevos, J., Chuenpagdee, R., & Vodden, K. (2020). Storytelling for sustainable development in rural communities: An alternative approach. Sustainable Development, 28(6), 1813–1826. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2124
Lupton, D. (2020). Understanding digital food cultures. In D. Lupton & Z. Feldman (Eds.), Digital food cultures (pp. 1–16). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429402135-1
Makkar, M., Farrelly, F., & Athwal, N. (2024). Co-creating cultural heterotopic spaces in Airbnb. Journal of Business Research, 173, Article 114491. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.114491
Mapes, G. (2020). Marketing elite authenticity: Tradition and terroir in artisanal food discourse. Discourse, Context & Media, 34, Article 100328. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2019.100328
Mariani, I., & Ciancia, M. (2023). Design for narrative change: A pedagogical model for interactive digital narratives. International Journal of Art & Design Education, 42(3), 384–401. https://doi.org/10.1111/jade.12468
Mkono, M. (2011). The othering of food in touristic eatertainment: A netnography. Tourist Studies, 11(3), 253–270. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468797611431502
Nafarin, L., & Oktavio, A. (2021). Scarcity marketing to perceived uniqueness and desirability users of the food delivery service Indonesia application. Jurnal Aplikasi Manajemen, 19(3), 483–494. https://doi.org/10.21776/ub.jam.2021.019.03.03
Nomishan, T. S., Oloidi, A. J., & Aliyu, B. (2024). Exploring gastronomy brands as value-based motivations for cultural and heritage tourism in Nigeria. Journal of Tourism, Culinary, and Entrepreneurship (JTCE), 4(1), 17–32. https://doi.org/10.37715/jtce.v4i1.4195
Oratmangun, D., Widaningsih, T. T., & Murtiningsih, B. S. E. (2025). Sustainable ecotourism communication framework based on social and cultural capital to build community engagement in ecotourism practices Rutong Tourism Village, Indonesia. Journal of Environmental Management and Tourism, 16(2), 186–200. https://doi.org/10.14505/jemt.v16.2(78).08
Priyadharma, S. (2024). “Periphery-centric” approach as a tactic for everyday digital in- and exclusion of Indonesian villages. Media and Communication, 12, Article 8162. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.8162
Pugra, I. W., Sutiarso, M. A., & Joaquin, C. J. (2025). The cultural significance of traditional foods in shaping Indonesian social identity: Challenges and preservation strategies. Journal of Language, Literature, Social and Cultural Studies, 3(1), 21–31. https://doi.org/10.58881/jllscs.v3i1.318
Rahman, A. F., Wardana, A. A., & Mufarrohah. (2025). Measuring community empowerment in the development of tourism village: Evidence from Batu City, Indonesia. Journal of Tourism, Culinary, and Entrepreneurship (JTCE), 5(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.37715/jtce.v5i1.5551
Rollo, M. F. (2025). Interconnected nature and people: Biosphere reserves and the power of memory and oral histories as biocultural heritage for a sustainable future. Sustainability, 17(9), Article 4030. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17094030
Salhuteru, I. F., Bhaskara, G. I., & Widowati, S. (2025). Local human resource capabilities in cultural preservation in Negeri Rutong, Maluku. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Sustainable Green Tourism Applied Science - Social Applied Science 2025 (ICOSTAS-SAS 2025) (pp. 760–768). Atlantis Press. https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-882-0_86
Scanlan, C. L. (2020). Preparing for the unanticipated: Challenges in conducting semi-structured, in-depth interviews. SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529719208
Schoch, K. (2020). Case study research. In G. J. Burkholder, K. A. Cox, L. M. Crawford, & J. H. Hitchcock (Eds.), Research design and methods: An applied guide for the scholar-practitioner (pp. 245–258). SAGE Publications.
Shrestha, S., Hester, J., Dhekne, A., Ramachandran, U., & Cabral, A. (2025). Bringing context to the underserved: Rethinking context-aware design to bridge the digital divide. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCAS/SIGCHI Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies (pp. 647–665). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3715335.3735497
Stake, R. E. (2005). Qualitative case studies. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 443–466). SAGE Publications.
Steinke, J., Schumann, C., Langan, S., Müller, A., Opola, F. O., Ortiz-Crespo, B., & van Etten, J. (2024). Fostering social inclusion in development-oriented digital food system interventions. Agricultural Systems, 215, Article 103882. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2024.103882
Sujatmiko, S., Huda, M. N., & Qoyimah, D. (2025). Integrated big data innovation in tourism management through the Pesona Karanganyar platform, Central Java. Journal of Tourism, Culinary, and Entrepreneurship (JTCE), 5(2), 319–336. https://doi.org/10.37715/jtce.v5i2.5687
Taylor, C., & Wei, Q. (2020). Storytelling and arts to facilitate community capacity building for urban planning and social work. Societies, 10(3), Article 64. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc10030064
Trisdayanti, N. P. E., Atmaja, I. M. P. D., & Hendrayana, M. (2026). Evaluation of the implementation of the HACCP system in the kitchen of Conrad Bali: A case study of food safety management in the hospitality industry. Journal of Tourism, Culinary, and Entrepreneurship (JTCE), 6(1), 80–92. https://doi.org/10.37715/jtce.v6i1.6361
Vitting-Seerup, S., & Matthiessen, L. E. (2026). Storytelling science for sustainability: Using storytelling to communicate the science of sustainable food systems. Environmental Communication, 20(2), 265–281. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2025.2493331
Wang, J., Su, M. M., Wang, M., & Zhang, M. (2026). Digital food narratives and rural influencer: Rethinking the local food in agricultural heritage tourism. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 32(3), 966–988. https://doi.org/10.1177/13567667261433192
Widjanarko, W., Lusiana, Y., Istiyanto, S. B., Novianti, W., & Evgenievna, L. N. (2024). Promoting local cuisine on social media: A strategic communication approach. Komunikator, 16(1), 53–66. https://doi.org/10.18196/jkm.20763
Wies, S., Bleier, A., & Edeling, A. (2023). Finding Goldilocks influencers: How follower count drives social media engagement. Journal of Marketing, 87(3), 383–405. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429221125131
Yeboah, R., & Ashie, D. (2024). Promotion of local food as tourism product in the Cape Coast Metropolis: An explorative research. Heliyon, 10(24), Article e40950. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e40950