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Evictions, Public Housing, and the Rationalisation of Kampung Life in Jakarta

Tilley, Lisa; Elias, Juanita; Rethel, Lena

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Authors

Juanita Elias

Lena Rethel



Abstract

The dispossession of urban communities across class and racial lines is a global phenomenon linked to the expansion of international investment in the development of ‘exemplary’ city space. However, city evictions are also historically informed and gendered processes which are continuous with past colonial and postcolonial urban rationalisation projects. Drawing on testimonies of women evictees in Jakarta, as well as interviews with public housing managers, this article details the gendered nature of the rationalisation of urban life in the context of a contemporary evictions regime. We argue that the rationalisation of urban space serves to sharpen the gender order by placing material constraints on women's roles, limiting their economic activities and defining them as hygiene-responsible housewives. Further, and in turn, the limited provision of ‘rusunawa’ public housing, which we show to be a gendered spatial and social transition informed by state doctrine on the family, provides the state with justification for dispossession itself. Finally, women's everyday acts of refusal and resistance show not only that kampung forms of social life continue to be preserved in Jakarta, but also that rationalisation itself is a negotiated and contingent process.

Citation

Tilley, L., Elias, J., & Rethel, L. (2019). Evictions, Public Housing, and the Rationalisation of Kampung Life in Jakarta. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 60(1), 80-93. https://doi.org/10.1111/apv.12209

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Aug 19, 2018
Online Publication Date Mar 4, 2019
Publication Date Apr 1, 2019
Deposit Date Apr 7, 2022
Publicly Available Date Apr 7, 2022
Journal Asia Pacific Viewpoint
Print ISSN 1360-7456
Electronic ISSN 1467-8373
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 60
Issue 1
Pages 80-93
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/apv.12209
Publisher URL https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apv.12209

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