FLOODING AND THE POLITICS OF PROPERTY RIGHTS IN JAKARTA

FLOODING AND THE POLITICS OF PROPERTY RIGHTS IN JAKARTA


Dr. GAVIN SHATKIN, Professor, School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs & the School of Architecture,
Northeastern University, USA

November 13, 2020 - 8:10 p.m. – 9:10 p.m. EST
Keynote Presentation - YIF Conference “Stemming the Tides: Indonesia in the Age of Climate Catastrophe
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Thuy Linh NguyenCoastal megacities across Asia have experienced devastating floods in recent years, and studies project dramatic increases in populations prone to potential permanent inundation in future decades. This emerging reality of a shift in the relationship between water and urban settlements is driving the recalibration of power relations around a range of issues, including longstanding contestations over infrastructure delivery, housing, land rights and political representation. Flood mitigation efforts have played out in debates over displacement and eviction, and distributional concerns about the costs and benefits of these initiatives. This talk explores the implications of emergent discourses of flood risk for urban politics in Jakarta by examining contestations over the property rights status of kampung settlements that have emerged with a series of evictions of communities due to flood mitigation initiatives. Based on an analysis of court and policy documents and interviews with key actors, the lecture will argue that the eviction push has highlighted the deeply contested question of the customary property rights claims of kampungs that provide shelter for a majority of Jakarta residents.  This debate pits two contending discourses against each other—one defending the state’s right to unilaterally define the legitimacy of uses of urban space, and to summarily rewrite or abrogate its own laws and regulations in the name of risk mitigation, and another that argues for recognition of historically established claims, and for state accountability to its own laws and regulations.  The lecture will argue that this debate over customary property rights is likely to continue to define urban politics as Jakarta wrestles with the implications of growing flood risk.


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