This presentation examines the positive and fast change created by Kalijawi, a community-based organisation formed by women who live in informal settlements in Yogyakarta, Indonesia since its creation in 2012. These women (and their families) are ‘deprived’ (Marcuse, 2009) and marginalised citizens who live in urban areas prone to floods that lack basic services and secure land tenure. Kalijawi has successfully developed advocacy strategies to become more visible in the discussion on the city they want to live in and practices to influence change through effective collaborative and participatory work. Being a female group, they challenge the male-dominated Indonesian governance structure. Their work contributes to a more inclusive city (SDG11) and to localise the New Urban Agenda emphasising the need to consider a continuum of land rights and the importance of creating local knowledge through community profiles, community mapping and poverty assessments. However, their bottom-up approach requires support and collaboration from the government, which is a challenging process of forging mutual understandings. Kalijawi is a new urban actor, whose practices navigate a difficult interaction between ‘invited’ and ‘invented spaces of action’ (Miraftab, 2017) contributing to ‘insurgent planning’ (Holston, 1998; Miraftab, 2009; Friedmann, 2011).

Grassroots practices towards an inclusive city: female-driven change in informal settlements in Indonesia

Research Seminar

7 March 2019, 12-1pm

UQ St Lucia (Building 35, Room 519)

Speaker: Sonia Roitman, UQ|UP