Undoing ruination in Jakarta: the gendered remaking of life on a wasted landscape

This intervention shares images and stories from the women evictees in Jakarta who collectively give voice to the psychic, physical, and material injuries inflicted by state dispossession in the city. Engaging Ann Laura Stoler's (2013) language to expose the politics of ruination and preservation, we illustrate the gendered nature of the remaking of life on the most wasted of urban landscapes. The focus of this piece is Kampung Akuarium, a neighborhood violently evicted in April 2016 as part of a broader evictions regime in Jakarta under the governorship of Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, popularly known as Ahok. In the aftermath, Kampung Akuarium became the most restive of Jakarta's landscapes as residents returned to make claims for justice and compensation, and to remake their lives directly on the rubble of their old homes in defiance of the city government. Flanked by the preserved warehouses of the VOC, the ruined neighbourhood ultimately became a site where colonial histories, state- and capital-inflicted expropriation and ruination, and gendered forms of injury and struggle all found material modes of expression alongside one another.     

‘Free the dragon’ versus ‘Becoming Betawi’: Chinese identity in contemporary Jakarta 1

The Chinese in Indonesia suffered considerable discrimination particularly during Suharto's rule (1967–1998). They were considered a foreign threat that needed to be kept under state control. Since the end of Suharto's regime and as a result of liberalisasi, demokratisasi and desentralisasi a revival of Chinese identity has set in, initiating a public discourse on the compatability of Chinese and Indonesian identity. This discourse refers to different categories of identification which are connected with specific conceptualizations concerning the interrelatedness of indigeneity, ethnicity and nationalism in Indonesia and Jakarta in particular.     

From ‘global city’ to ‘city of crisis': Jakarta metropolitan region under economic turmoil

By mid-1990s the development of Jakarta Metropolitan Region (JMR) appeared to be heading towards global city status. However, the current economic crisis has largely squeezed the JMR economy which in turn rapidly increased unemployment and poverty incidence in the region. Meanwhile, the capacity of local government to provide urban public service and infrastructure largely declined as the city revenues decreased substantially. The near future of JMR will depend on how soon the economic crisis ends and whether political situation can stabilize, but for now urban poverty becomes the most pronounced issue in JMR development and planning.