Land Occupation, Re-occupation, and Housing Cooperative: Commune Formation by Jakarta’s Urban Poor

Abstract

This article highlights the tension between direct actions and electoral politics to explain the formation of an urban poor settlement, often referred to as a kampungkota, an emerging term for settlements beyond the modern, planned part, in North Jakarta, Indonesia. The authors interpret kampungkota as a commune and unpack the process of commune formation with reference to the experience of Kampung Akuarium into three different yet interconnected parts. The first is direct action through land occupation by the urban poor in the 1980s. The second is direct re-occupation after the 2016 eviction and the joining-up of the settlers with a wider urban poor organization (the commune of communes). The third is the rebuilding and legalization of the commune, which is collectively managed through a housing cooperative, facilitated by a political contract in the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election.