The 'unloved' metropolis: making future Jakarta

My research interests sit at the intersection of theorisations of urbanism, temporality and political citizenship. My project is designed to gain an understanding of how people negotiate future hopes and concerns as Jakarta prepares for the relocation of the capital from its current location. Within the framework of the upcoming capital move, the intent of my research is to explore the ways in which people articulate future trajectories in the context of a collective project in Jakarta's central district of Tanah Abang, which has a complex history of politics and multiculturalism. In exploring issues of urban life and transformation, I am to address three main issues that are entangled in the relocation scenario: (1) how residents orient themselves to the future, translating their hope into spatial transformations (2) how they articulate their identity within a transforming space, and (3) how they articulate their political citizenship as they engage with the state.

At the end of August 2019, the Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced with great fanfare the final decision to relocate the Indonesian administrative capital from Jakarta to East Kalimantan. The reasons for relocation are various and complex, but a shared opinion is that Jakarta is failing to sustain the burden of a capital city. In fact, the megalopolis suffers from severe environmental issues such as pollution, floods and sinking and overpopulation (Goh 2019). Newspapers, both local and international, frequently report Jakarta's issues, contributing to an often sensationalist image of a failed city (few examples BBC Indonesia 2019; Medcom.id 2019; Watts 2019). This negative representation is also shared by many inhabitants, so much so that Jakarta is broadly defined as the 'unloved' metropolis (Steinberg 2007: 356).