Temporal and Regular Place-making in Indonesian Kampung: Creating Urban Spaces that Enhance Local Empowerment

For almost a decade, there has been a grassroots movement in the country that adopts place-making in kampungs (Indonesian urban informal settlements) through cultural and contemporary art festivals. The common issues that have been faced by almost every kampung are to maintain their existence in the city where they tend to be excluded, marginalized, and demolished. Place-making has been held with the hopes of improving the aesthetic appeal of the kampungs, creating new opportunities for the residents to develop creative output relevant to their neighborhood and communities’ specialties, and strengthening the local identity to protect kampungs from the demolishment threat (Kustiawan et al. 2015; Lieshout 2014; Prasetyo and Iverson 2013). Although many pieces of research from a different part of the world have shown that "temporal" place-making through cultural and art festivals provides many social benefits to the individual and their communities, it seems to be unclear from the global South context. Consequently, uncertainties exist whether place-making brings positive impacts on social aspects of residents in the context of developing countries, particularly those who live in problematic areas such as urban informal settlement dwellers. It is indeed an area that has been little explored in the place-making literature (Lew 2017). Therefore, this study will contribute to understanding the implications of place-making towards the public life of informal settlers, particularly in Indonesia. The main purpose of this study was to examine the impacts of place-making on the local capacity in Indonesian kampung. The research was carried out using a concurrent mixed-methodology in two kampungs: Dago Pojok, Bandung and Bustaman, Semarang. Results from multiple regression analysis showed that place-making through regular "everyday life" and temporal "festivals" have significantly influenced local empowerment. While the qualitative findings further explained that place-making can promote local empowerment by encouraging youth's participation, increasing the organizational and mobilizational capacity of the local community, providing knowledge exchange, and broadening local community’s perspectives about their place and community. This study also demonstrated that different types of place-making bring a different kind of impact towards particular socio-economic groups. Therefore, to achieve a better quality of place-making, the enhancement of relational resources between different age and gender groups is necessary. Challenges on the viability of place-making in kampungs are noted as well, including the presence of local elite, a culture of indifference, and overdependence on particular actors. Finally, these findings raise important questions and suggestions for incorporating place-making into neighborhood planning efforts.