Cultural Diffusion, Adoption and Adaptation - Motifs and Patterns in Indonesian Textiles -

The objectives of the research are to explain the nature of cultural diffusion and its associated theoretical concepts, to review the nature of traditional Indonesian textiles and to focus particular attention on the origin, evolution and diffusion of motifs and patterns associated with the decoration of two important categories of Indonesian textiles: batiks and ikats. Cultural diffusion refers to the process by which cultural traits, material objects, ideas, inventions, innovations or patterns of behaviour are spread from one social or geographical context to another. Examining the decoration on traditional textiles produced across the Indonesian archipelago, certain motifs and patterns are shown to have been retained from ancient times, and others have been adopted from elsewhere. There is great cultural diversity across the archipelago and ample evidence of cultural diffusion.