Phenomenology in adaptation planning : an empirical study of flood-affected people in Kampung Muara Baru Jakarta

225 Pages·2018·6.71 MB·English

by  Simarmata

Hendricus Andy Simarmata
Phenomenology
in Adaptation
Planning
An Empirical Study of Flood-aff ected
People in Kampung Muara Baru Jakarta
Phenomenology in Adaptation Planning
Hendricus Andy Simarmata
Phenomenology in
Adaptation Planning
An Empirical Study of Flood-affected People
in Kampung Muara Baru Jakarta
Hendricus Andy Simarmata
University of Indonesia
Jakarta, Indonesia
ISBN 978-981-10-5495-2 ISBN 978-981-10-5496-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-5496-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017947043
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To my parent and brothers, wife, daughter,
and son
Foreword
This is a book for professionals, scholars, and general audiences who are passionate
about the phenomenology of flood risks and adaptation planning in Indonesia. This
book is a rewritten dissertation that assesses local practices of living with and man-
aging regularly and—due to climatically induced sea level rise—increasingly
occurring flood events in Jakarta. The author, Mr. Simarmata, here pays particular
attention to the way locals perceive and make sense of the regularly occurring floods
and based on these sense-making processes design their coping and adaptation strat-
egies that for many entail the decision to not only find ways of living with the floods
but in addition making use of them for livelihood provision. It is this local “planning
knowledge” as Simarmata calls it that stands at the center of his interest in reducing
the gap between formal urban planning processes, Simarmata’s area of professional
expertise before returning to the university, and planning through everyday
practice.
Mr. Simarmata identifies this discrepancy between city-level planning and local
planning as the point of departure of his research by stating: “At the city level, the
plan is to control the floods; at the community level, the plan is to live with them”
(p. v). Both types of planning come with advantages and disadvantages. While the
aim to control the floods understands the floods as potential serious threats that are
likely to not only increase in occurrence but also in force, the aim to live with them
understands their positive, life-bearing, economic and sociocultural potential. The
former takes a long-term perspective, preparing for the potential worst; the latter
allows a nearly playful, but possibly short-sighted, approach to seeing the beauty in
floods for everyday life, inherently acknowledging that any form of adaptation plan-
ning is—as social constructivist thoughts on innovation development have taught
us—always about simultaneously developing and implementing a plan and building
a society. Simarmata assigns this discrepancy to different planning methods, differ-
ent planning interests, and varying sources of knowledge.
For studying these in detail, he takes a phenomenological approach drawing on
Alfred Schütz’s concept of the lifeworld (Chap. 2), thus contributing to phenomeno-
logically inspired planning theory (including discussions on self-reflective action in
planning). Chapter 3 outlines assessment on the discrepancy between city-level
vii
viii Foreword
government (formal) planning with a clear focus on climate proofing and the neigh-
borhood (kampung)-level everyday experiential planning, followed by a discussion
on the kampung (neighborhood) as location for local-level flood management
(Chap. 4). In this chapter and based on his data, Simarmata then unfolds his assess-
ment of the role of individuals’ lifeworlds in local-level, everyday flood manage-
ment. He explicitly argues that the lived experience accumulated in individuals’
lifeworlds acts as a crucial source for practical planning knowledge, yet also clearly
delineates the “zone of planning” and thus the spatial (territory and scale) as well as
temporal (long−/short-term) reach of the adaptation planning. Given the poor of
Kampung Muara Baru, one of the poorest and most affected areas in Jakarta, can
actively make use of these lived experiences, Simarmata argues that they are not
necessarily to be considered vulnerable. But instead, the poor have to be indeed
understood as independent, self-organized, and self-reflected agents (Chap. 5). The
intersubjectively shared meaning processes into which the local planning processes
are embedded in and of which they are a result of have assured strong ownership in
the local adaptation planning and implementation. That does not make it fit long-
term climate change scenarios for the region, but it assures immediate local fit and
applicability within the current context. The enforcement and institutionalization
(Chap. 6) of the local, orally communicated, adaptation plan is assured through a
range of local institutions, such as kerja bakti (joint voluntary work), arisan (social
gatherings), and pengajian (regular Muslim prayers). Hendricus Simarmata here
empirically assesses the socially constructed character—along the lines of Peter
Berger and Thomas Luckmann—of everyday, local-level (informal) planning, from
meaning construction to rule and role formation, as well as to the institutionaliza-
tion and reification of the developed adaptation plan and practices. Local-level gov-
ernance and change adaptation mechanisms are here assessed by documenting the
intricate local patterns of self-organization—routinized, institutionalized forms of
social organization with the aim to live with, rather than prevent or move away
from, floods. Thus, Simarmata understands to shed a different light on floods and
enable the reader to see floods through the eyes of the inhabitants of Kampung
Muara Baru—as a hassle, yes, but also as an opportunity to achieve additional earn-
ings. Yet, rather than romanticizing floods altogether, Simarmata also understands
the limited character of this local-level adaptation planning. While it fits local reali-
ties and is literally owned by the people themselves, implementation rates are high,
making it possible to live with the floods—as long as these do not exceed given
degrees of force and height. Protection against higher/stronger floods nevertheless
continues to remain with the authorities of Jakarta, exceeding the planning scope of
the kampung.
The presented analysis is based on a unique wealth of empirical data, ranging
from spatial data presented in maps to visual as well as substantial qualitative eth-
nographic and interview data collected by the author himself through the employ-
ment of a diverse range of different methods during altogether 12 months of
empirical field research in Kampung Muara Baru. Conceptually, the assessment of
local lifeworlds and their role in adaptation planning offers an innovative and so far
underrepresented approach to change adaptation. It adds a local-level planning
Foreword ix
perspective, embedded into everyday life circumstances of the urban poor, to con-
ventional approaches to flood management, largely focusing on technical climate
change adaptation scenarios and models. Thus, and with the aim to assure that his
phenomenologically inspired qualitative, ethnographic analysis is able to communi-
cate with the largely more technocratic, managerial approaches to change adapta-
tion, Simarmata, toward the end of his thesis, brings his findings together in what he
himself describes as a locally embedded adaptation planning model. He states:
“This model connects the lifeworld, reflective practices and institutionalization to
an integrated planning cycle. This planning model not only addresses the problems
that have been defined by the local people, but also increases their ownership of the
planning product” (p. 165). While the use of the notion “model” can be debated
here, Simarmata’s work contributes an important and often neglected perspective to
ongoing debates on change adaptation (urban) planning by shedding rich empirical
light on the intricate patterns of self-organization as well as the discrepancies but
also potential linkage points between local-level urban planning and city-level
urban planning. The reflection on what this means in detail for Schütz’s lifeworld
concept, its empirical applicability and analytical usefulness, especially also in the
Indonesian context, unfortunately is less developed in the thesis. Yet, these concep-
tual weaknesses, just as the challenges in the use of the English language, are out-
balanced by the empirical wealth and analysis thereof. Furthermore, the degree of
interdisciplinary integration (methodologically and conceptually) found in this
book in quality substantially exceeds levels usually demanded of and found in PhD
theses. It is here that Mr. Simarmata shows a high level of disciplinary understand-
ing of rather applied/managerial urban planning processes for climate change adap-
tation as well as processes of meaning construction and patterns of social
organization and governance enabling him to integrate the different disciplinary as
well as epistemological approaches into an interdisciplinary perspective and analy-
sis. I therefore recommend this book to be read by anyone who has interests in
phenomenology of planning, adaptation to climate change, and disaster risk reduc-
tion, especially in the Southeast Asian region.
Professor of Sociology of Knowledge Anna-Katharina Hornidge
Head of Department of Social Science
Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT)
Bremen, Germany
25 April 2017
Preface
Phenomenology in planning can be understood as an aspect of philosophy studying
into the experience of arranging a plan. It concerned with people’s understanding of
planning practices. Adaptation to environmental change is the longest practice that
has ever been performed by humankind. It always evolves and thus will transform
planning knowledge from generation to generation. This book presents the narra-
tives of how flood-affected people in Kampung Jakarta use and inter-share their
experiential knowledge to arrange adaptation planning. Inspired by the flood story
of Kampung Muara Baru (KMB) Jakarta and lack of empirical evidence of people-
based approach, this book offers a new model of people-centered adaptation
planning.
Floods increase the vulnerability of the residents of flood-prone areas and affect
their everyday lives. Minimizing the impact of floods requires an adaptation plan,
especially at the community level. Moreover, cities and communities need a syner-
gized response plan. A study based strictly on technical science would not deter-
mine the essential meaning of adaptation planning as experienced by a vulnerable
people. The planning knowledge of adaptation that is generated by the flood experi-
ences of the urban poor—the most vulnerable group—must be disclosed. We need
to know more about the “lived experiences” of people’s adaptation to floods and the
meanings that these people ascribe to their everyday lives. Therefore, only a people-
centered approach can ascertain how the urban poor adapt to the floods.
Drawing on Schütz’s concept of lifeworld and 12 months of fieldwork in
Kampung Muara Baru (KMB) Jakarta, this book offers an in-depth investigation on
how individuals use their lifeworld as a basis for practicing and institutionalizing
their community’s planning for adaptation. I begin with the context and locus of the
adaptation planning studied in the present research, and I formulate two sub-
questions: What kind of planning institutions is constituted in Jakarta? How does
KMB represent the interplay between poor residents and regular floods? I then
focus on the adaptation practices of the KMB people, especially their perceptions of
their own flood-related vulnerability. Second, I identify the meaning of adaptation
planning, and I examine the institutionalization and reification of the adaptation
plan. I apply the lifeworld analysis to examine the concepts of vulnerability,
xi
xii Preface
adaptation, and planning. In addition to examining the secondary data, I collected
primary data in the forms of participant observations, in-depth and semi-structured
interviews, group interviews, historical transects, and focus group discussions. It is
expected to provide a better understanding of the appropriateness of the lifeworld
concept in planning practices and to extend the horizon of phenomenology in
planning.
This study found that more than one kind of adaptation planning addressed
flooding in Jakarta. At the city level, the plan was to control the floods; at the com-
munity level, the plan was to live with them. This divergence was caused by discrete
departure points, different planning methods, and varying sources of knowledge. It
thus interfered with the institutionalization of planning because the divergent worlds
of city and kampung were not connected. The results showed that, as an agglomera-
tion of kampungs, Jakarta should understand the relationship between floods and
the urban poor within the kampungs. Even though KMB had the greatest flood risk
and is the poorest settlement in the Penjaringan subdistrict, the recurrent floods do
not discourage migration into and the spread of housing in KMB. Instead, flood
incidents have become major inundation events because of KMB’s high-density
settlement and poor drainage system.
Based on the in-depth analysis of the lifeworld of the people affected by flooding
in KMB, I found that the poor who lived in the flood-prone area were not always
vulnerable. Lived experience is an important factor that makes a significant differ-
ence between the vulnerable and the adapters. Lived experience is a source of the
practical knowledge that is useful in planning. The structure of the lifeworld delin-
eated the zone of planning operations and adaptation practices and thus resulted in
short-term perspectives, neighborhood scaling, and problem-solving orientation,
rather than long-term, citywide scaling and visionary planning. The KMB people do
not plan to stop or to mitigate the floods but to adjust their houses and surroundings
to reduce the consequences of flooding and develop an evacuation pathway based
on their lived experiences. Thus, their adaptation planning is locally embedded.
Because the intersubjectively shared meaning process has produced locally
embedded planning, the findings showed a strong ownership of adaptation plan-
ning. The KMB people embodied the plan through the self-interpretation and self-
reflection of what their predecessors and others had shared. Subsequently, they
discussed the substance of the planning in order to make deliberate decision about
the course of a series of social events, such as kerja bakti (working together in vol-
untary services), arisan (regular social gatherings), and pengajian (routine Muslim
praying), and casual events, such as warung (small shop) talks and alley chats.
Therefore, they arrived at a verbal plan that was never written. They preferred listen-
ing to reading and talking to writing. Even though the plan consisted of loose-fitting
regulations without clear penalties for violations, they teased and made fun of those
who did not accomplish their tasks or broke the oral agreement.
Based on the lifeworld analysis of flood-related vulnerability, adaptation, and
planning as the embodiment of a people-centered approach, I created a model of
locally embedded adaptation planning. This six-step protocol consists of identifying
the adapters, compiling precedents, revealing and assessing the locally situated