If you are to follow the path of River Code in Yogyakarta and then navigate your way under the Gondolayu Bridge you will come to Kampung Code, a riverbank settlement in Yogyakarta made up of brightly painted houses and murals. This settlement has had a turbulent history. In 1983, the then squatter settlement had been earmarked for eviction and it was through the intervention of Romo Mangun[1], a late priest and architect, that the settlement was saved. Supported by student activists Romo Mangun went on hunger strike to protest the removal of the settlement and used subsequent media coverage to showcase the lives of those living in the settlement (Guinness 2009, p.219). In 1992, he was awarded the Aga Khan award for his upgrading project and design work in kampung Code improving many of the homes. The status of this settlement is now somewhat secure, and the bright houses have been felt as a colourful addition to the city for a while now. However, the threat of evictions has not disappeared from Java. Although there was an attempt by the Sultan of Yogyakarta to reclaim all riverbank land in 2015 (Guinness 2020, p.428). In the same year Jakarta saw violent clashes between the police and residents of ‘illegally’ built homes along the Ciliwung River.
My PhD research, postponed due to Covid-19, was aimed at trying to understand how those living in places like Kampung Code have found ways of navigating precarity and engaging with the state from the margins, as well as investigating how this has changed since Indonesia’s transition to an electoral democracy and its embarking on a massive decentralisation program. Although Indonesia has undergone a dramatic transformation since the famous intervention to save Kampung Code, questions of evictions and interaction with the state have not disappeared for those living in poor urban Java.
Precarity has become identified as a motivator in large scale social and political shifts, not only by social scientists but also by popular commentators. Consider how common it is to see or hear arguments that populist movements such as Brexit or the election of Trump has roots in a working-class population who consider themselves left behind by an uncaring elite. These analyses often suggest that precarity is an imposed situation on populations abandoned by the state. The consequence of this is the reading of precarity as funnelling political responses towards populists. Guy Standing’s The Precariat (2016) for example, argues that precarity has led to the sharpening of divisions within society often manifesting in the villainisation of migrants. Many analyses of precarity in the global north have an understanding that the state has withdrawn from its regulatory capacity to allow for the market to restructure employment relations, these authors also typically theorise state activity and processes in a declining involvement in the provision of social services.
In the global south, analysis of precarity takes on a markedly different analytical framework often focusing on those working in the informal sector or living in large informal settlements. In Indonesia precarity has been cited as motivation for a variety of political and social phenomena. Economic precarity for the middle classes during the Asian financial crisis in 1998, and Suharto’s response to it, is routinely identified as a key reason, or accelerator, for the collapse of authoritarianism. However, it is also cited as a motivator for anti-democratic behaviour. Democracy in Indonesia (Power and Warburton 2020) identifies the re-emergence of populism in Indonesia’s electoral politics running along a well-established pluralist-Islamist division. Mudhoffir (2020) argues that the combination of economic precarity and the absence of a class-based politics in Indonesia has helped funnel discontented lower middle-class Indonesians towards populist Islamist movements, such as Aksi Bela Islam (defending Islam action) the protest movement that called for the then governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (more commonly known as Ahok) to be punished for alleged blasphemy.
I am interested in understanding precarity differently, namely from the point of view of those who navigate precarity from a position of being subject to long-term structural violence. Precarity is a situation that groups, and individuals find ways of negotiating. It is neither something to be celebrated nor totalising in its oppressiveness. Precariousness in my use of the word here can be thought of as being characterised by uncertainty and insecurity in multiple ways for those in Indonesia’s kampung, not only with regards to employment but also evictions and floods. My use of precarity is not defined by middle-class anxieties around declining incomes but instead focuses on groups whose histories have always featured some form of precarity. Rather than identifying it as a causal factor for populism or a consequence of the retreating role of the state in the economy, I am interested in how existing structures are repurposed and used by those who live in precarious situations. Taking Butler’s account as definitional support for my understanding outlined above, I analyse how poor urban spaces, often referred to as kampung in Java, have long been sites of precarity despite the ongoing presence of the state.
[1] Romo Mangun means Father Mangun, Yusuf Bilyarta Mangunwijaya was his full name.
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