Torch light in the city: Auto/Ethnographic Studies of Urban Kampung Community in Depok City, West Java1 Hestu Prahara Department of Anthropology, University of Indonesia “Di kamar ini aku dilahirkan, di bale bambu buah tangan bapakku. Di rumah ini aku dibesar- kan, dibelai mesra lentik jari ibuku. Nama dusunku Ujung Aspal Pondokgede. Rimbun dan anggun, ramah senyum penghuni dusunku. Sampai saat tanah moyangku tersentuh sebuah rencana demi serakahnya kota. Terlihat murung wajah pribumi… Angkuh tembok pabrik berdiri. Satu persatu sahabat pergi dan takkan pernah kembali” “In this room I was born, in a bamboo bed made by my father’s hands. In this house I was raised, caressed tenderly by my mother’s hands. Ujung Aspal Pondokgede is the name of my village. She is lush and graceful with friendly smile from the villagers. Until then my ancestor’s land was touched by the greedy plan of the city. The people’s faces look wistful… Factory wall arrogantly stood. One by one best friends leave and will never come back” (Iwan Fals, Ujung Aspal Pondokgede) Background The economic growth and socio-spatial trans- an important role as a buffer zone for the nucleus. formation in Kota Depok cannot be separated Demographically speaking, there is a tendency of from the growth of the capital city of Indonesia, increasing population in JABODETABEK area DKI Jakarta. Sunarya (2004) described Kota from time to time. From the total of Indonesian Depok as Kota Baru (new city) of which its socio- population, 3 percent live in satellite cities of economic transformations is strongly related to Jakarta area in 1961, increased by 6 percent in the development of greater Jakarta metropolitan. 2000 (Tim Faperta, 2004). In Kota Depok, the Thus Depok is a part of the greater Jakarta metro- number of its population is increasing from time politan, together with other satellite cities such as to time as well. It had about 805.542 inhabitants Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi. This metropolitan in 1999 which rapidly increased to 1.898.570 concept of the city development is well-known as inhabitants in 2012 (BPS Kota Depok, 2013). His- JABODETABEK in which the satellite cities play torically, this rapid augmentation of population 1 This monograph elaborates the anthropological discussion of place attachment among the residents of urban kampung neighborhood in one of Jakarta’s peripheral cities, Kota Depok. Within the socio-economic transformation in the cities and also alteration of physical landscape, the local residents who live in kampung neighborhood experience the feeling of ‘uprootedness’ but at the same time create place attachment through the act of incorporation. In this regard, kampung as a socio-spatial entity is discerned as potentiality within perpetual urban transformation. In particular, this monograph looks at the ways in which the production of place attachment constitutes a process mediated by practices related to social memories, kinship and ritual. Ethnographic data that I present in this monograph are gained through my ethnographic fieldwork during September 2011—Oktober 2012 among kampung residents in Kampung Bojong Pondokcina, Depok City, West Java. Since I (as researcher) am also part of the community that I study in this research, this monograph can be regarded as auto-ethnographic study in which in some part I also integrate self-narratives that place myself within the social context that I study. 40 ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA.No. 2 2015 is accelerated by the network of transportations From time to time, the number of the services and infrastructure and the existence of public housing trades in economic sector keeps growing. Based provided by the national government within the on an official report of Kota Depok’s govern- satellite area. In 1974, the first public housing ment, in 1999 the city has about 5 hotels, 49 tra- project was built in Kota Depok under the na- ditional restaurants, 47 fast food restaurants, 15 tional company of housing or Perusahan Umum traditional markets, 17 supermarkets, 4 shopping Perumahan Nasional/Perumnas (Public company malls and 2.847 groceries. This number remains of national housing). This public housing project growing until today—especially for property provided by the national government, however, business such as ‘fancy’ dormitories for students was intended to solve the increased population in and apartments—concentrated in a certain part the center by providing the middle class workers of the area. In Beji, the tertiary sector (trade and in Jakarta with an affordable housing. With the services industries) with various undocumented network of transportations infrastructure which informal economic activities have flourished, enabled them to commute from and to the city’s concentrated mainly along the primary road center, this public housing seemed appealing. called Margonda Raya that connects the city to The development of the public housing in DKI Jakarta. Kota Depok was also followed by the other forms The government of Kota Depok attributes to of housing provided by the private sector. The the area along the primary road of Margonda transition of land use from agriculture to housing Raya ‘the fast growing area in services and and then the development of various commercial trade’ where the construction of offices and buildings were unavoidabe in certain parts of commercial buildings threaten densely populated Kota Depok. kampungs. As the result, an uneven competition The second trigger of the socio-economic occurs between the needed social space of urban transformation of Kota Depok is the relocation kampung community and commercial activities. of Universitas Indonesia to one if its sub-district Public space and open space where people could called Kecamatan Beji in 1987. This relocation interact are now disappeared and replaced by the was followed by huge migrations of students and commercial buildings. This is not to mention the university staffs to this area. The presence of social distinction and distancing created by the these newcomers has been perceived as income unplanned city’s development. This social dis- opportunity for the local inhabitants by renting tinction and distancing are explicitly marked in out parts of their house for students. Others also the spatial form within the urban kampung’s en- took the opportunity by opening small restau- vironment where the wealthy live separately from rants (warung), groceries, internet cafes and other the poor and are clustered in their own exclusive various services providing economic activities. housing estates. The city’s development marked Table 1 Transformation of land use in Kota Depok, 1974—2005. 1974 1982 1999 2005 Housing 20.00% 47.18% 54.76% 46.51% Industry 0.00% 1.56% 1.72% 1.73% Agriculture 64.23% 34.81% 23.23% 22.22% Other 15.77% 16.45% 20.29% 29.54% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% Source:Sunarya (2004) ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA No. 2 2015 41 Figure 1: Segregated environment in Kota Depok by the commercialization of space and social to the locals. About that situation, he blamed the distinction unavoidably has transformed the local dwellers who, in his opinion, were already existing social relations among urban kampung ‘poisoned’ by the new lifestyle of individualism community. Segregated environment threatened and— especially young generations—already the urban kampung community through the new forgot their kin roots. He described this situation lifestyle of individualism and the loosening of ties as mati obor (literally can be translated as ‘the of households and kins. dead of torchlight’) that expresses the situation Jellinek who observed urban poor community of loosening ties of kin groups and families as in Jakarta argues that “the loosening of ties be- the moral basis of communal life of urban kam- tween households that had once shared so much pung community. The dispersion of kin groups’ was one factor that led kampung dwellers to ques- residences and neighborhoods resulted by the tion the moral basis of their society” (1991:21). massive construction of commercial buildings This argument, however, reminds me of my en- within kampung environments is one factor that counter with one of my old friends Mustakim in brings the ‘degradation’ of communal life among the beginning of my field research in 2011. The urban kampung communities and threats them last time I saw him before that was in 2002 when with anonymity in their own homes. he took a job in Surabaya and lived there with his Related to the social changes in the process wife and little son for almost four years. He came of globalization, Castells (2000) argues about the back to his kampung in Pondokcina, Depok, after birth of a new society that he called “network losing his job in Surabaya, and started to make a society” where the transformative of spatial struc- new living in his own home. Many things have ture occurs. He argues that “the space of flows” changed in his kampung after he left for Sura- as a new form of space emerges and transformes baya in 2002; the first time he came back to his the “space of place” that is based on meaningful kampung, he felt that everything in his neighbor- physical proximity and its specific characteristics hood was not the same anymore. One thing that of localities. From this standpoint, I’m interested he noticed was that many of his neighbors and to explore the existence of space of place and its the people he knew have moved to other places local characteristics within the urban transfor- (some moved far from the main street and the mation of Kota Depok. When physical distance others moved to more peripheral areas far from within one community disappears, space is only the city center). When I met him in 2011 he told perceived as a locus for economic exchange me a story about how upset he was with the at- where its configuration is a manifestation of its titude of newcomers—mostly the students in his economic functions (Harvey, 1985), and under kampung that in his opinion have no respect at all the capitalistic system, the meaningful attach- 42 ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA.No.