Juxtapositions in Jakarta: How Flood Interventions Reinforce and Challenge Urban Divides
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Juxtapositions in Jakarta: How Flood Interventions Reinforce and Challenge Urban Divides Roanne van Voorst 1 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract This paper traces the interplay of spatially, socially and legally juxtaposed differences between different groups of Indonesia’s residents: (1) a group of riverbank settlers in Jakarta, (2) political decision-makers and urban planners that evict this particular riverbank settlement and (3) a group of Jakartan academics, architects and journalists that got involved in these interventions. The dynamics between and within these groups are examined through a case study in a riverbank settlement, where inhabitants are not only at risk of regular flooding but also of evictions. The analysis combines the notion of juxtapositions with a ‘revelatory approach’ towards disaster. The notion of juxtapositions makes clear how urban divides are shaped, and how they, in turn, produce ideas and practices of citizenship in Jakarta. The revelatory approach to disasters helps to show that floods can function as an accelerator to both reinforce and challenge these juxtapositions, thus also changing citizenship ideas and practices. The analysis reveals on the one hand that floods and interventions deepen socio-economic inequalities in an already highly unequal city. However, on the other hand, they also trigger collective mobilisation of evictees as well as unprecedented cooperation between this particular group of riverbank settlers and more resourceful members of Jakarta’s wider society. This eventually results in successful contestation of evictions through court and other claims to citizenship. Keywords Jakarta . City-making . Urban flooding . Eviction . Citizenship
Introduction: Juxtapositions in and a Revelatory Lens on Jakarta This paper aims to contribute to the theorising of urban citizenship in the global South by drawing attention to the everyday politics of citizenship struggles and city-making practices of unregistered, poor riverbank settlers in Jakarta. These slum dwellers are * Roanne van Voorst [email protected]
1
International Institute for Social Studies, Erasmus University, The Hague, The Netherlands
R. van Voorst
threatened by a dual risk: regular flooding, and the threat of evictions—the latter are commonly presented by policymakers as flood interventions. The article offers a description of the power struggles that exist in Jakarta, by exploring a case in which different types of urban divides—called juxtapositions— are sometimes reinforced, and other times challenged, blurred or penetrated. In order to shed light on these dynamics, the article traces the practices of different groups of Jakartan residents that are, all for different reasons, involved in the issues of flooding and evictions. These groups are (1) riverbank settlers threatened by both floods and flood responses (evictions), (2) policymakers that develop and implement interventions around these issues and (3) a fragmented group of more resourceful inhabitants of Jakarta that seek to support riverbank settle
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