Community responses to displacement threats in flood prone areas. The case of Ciliwung River, Jakarta

This study deals with ‘displacement’, ‘resettlement’ and ‘resistance’ alongside the Ciliwung River by covering forced evictions in the city of Jakarta between 2013-2016 due to the realization of the Jakarta Urgent Flood Mitigation Project (JUFMP) and exploring the emergence of social movements in the affected communities. It positions itself in a critical situation, in which the current official plans and policies are questioned, and therefore, seeks to contribute to a better response towards environmental crisis-induced resettlement planning. Through a thorough understanding of the ‘sustainability’ concept, this study puts forward an even, equal, and just environmental process as a means of maintaining social cohesion of the city. It also shows how the crisis has been a pivotal moment of change and an opportunity for the city government of Jakarta to reformulate their policies, governance, and most importantly, relations with their citizens towards the co-production of a resilient city. Although many studies and initiatives in Jakarta emphasize soft infrastructure and community involvement in flood risk management, the city government still opts for top-down, engineering-dominated approaches through high-investment projects. While the environmental and economic needs to rehabilitate and capitalize parts of the city are enormous, the multitude of socio-economic problems indicate the government’s unpreparedness in tackling the complexity of these interactions in local contexts. A theoretical framework, combining literature on displacement (among others, Porteous & Smith, 2001), resettlement and resistance (Van Dyck & Broeck, 2013 on social innovation), is utilized as a micro-level analysis to analyze three case studies and demonstrate the dynamics of eviction and resettlement processes in each of them. Besides, a macro-level analysis is also applied to test the correlation of such processes with a wider political economy context (Moulaert et al., 2005) and the historical experiences of Jakarta’s urban development (for example, Yeoh, 2001 on postcolonial cities). Qualitative methods were employed to understand such a complex social phenomenon. Two affected neighborhoods were selected as primary case studies, they are Kampung Duri and Kampung Pulo in South Jakarta (1) which have endured eviction and resettlement, and Kampung Tongkol, Lodan, and Krapu in North Jakarta (2) which is facing eviction threats in the coming years and in which social innovation emerges. Additionally, an observation in one of newly-built rusunawa (rumah susun sewa or low-cost rental apartment) complexes were also conducted in order to gain a complete understanding of the relocation mechanism. Rusunawa Marunda in North Jakarta (3) was singled out as it accommodates the evictees from Kampung Tongkol and the surrounding areas. Despite their separated locations and different stages of situation, the combination of these three case studies shapes a complete story about the dynamics of eviction and resettlement processes since they are closely related to each other, especially in terms of socio-spatial struggles. The outcomes can broaden the perspectives of understanding a complex socio-spatial phenomenon through a more nuanced theoretical framework, emphasizing on the importance of integrating multiple approaches and methods to obtain more grounded narratives.