JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 1 SESS: 11 OUTPUT: Tue Jul 10 17:02:41 2012
/v2451/blackwell/journals/ciso_v24_i2/ciso_1072
Making Security Work for the Majority: Reflections on Two
Districts in Jakarta
ABDOUMALIQ SIMONE
Goldsmiths College, University of London
ACHMAD UZAIR FAUZAN
Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Abstract
Global urban theory has placed increased emphasis on the ways in which residents
from different walks of life have created heterogeneous spaces, livelihoods and politi-
cal sensibilities. Much of this analysis deals with the importance of discernible forms
of belonging, organization, and identity as the tools through which relationships
among residents and spaces are managed and secured. For residents of mixed
income, mixed use areas of the urban cores of megacities in the so-called Global
South, securing livelihoods have also depended upon sensibilities and practices that
open up multiple venues of collaboration among distinct backgrounds, capacities,
and interests. They have relied upon intricate local political and social practices that
that foster more diffuse and uncertain intersections—where time, effort, money, and
affiliation are “untied” from their usual social anchors. Taking the phenomena of
sporadic explosions of violence in Tanah Tinggi and the everyday piecing together of
“nationhood” in Kramat Sentiong—two neighboring districts in central Jakarta—the
article explores ways in which it is possible for localities to sustain a plurality of
livelihoods and initiatives.
Part One: The ruses and fixes of urban security
I
n the now prolific literature on megacities in the so-called Global
South, much attention is placed on the growing middle class and the
intractable problems of the urban poor. But knowledge of the “in-
between” remains limited—of what is perhaps the “majority” of urban
residents. This majority includes a wide range of professions, workers,
livelihoods and ways of life. It includes police, nurses, teachers, drivers,
storekeepers, secretaries, salespersons, factory workers, artisans, market-
ers, technicians, journeymen—to list a few.
Urban theorists such as Ananya Roy (2009, 2011), Jennifer Rob-
inson (2002, 2006, 2011), Colin MacFarlane (2007, 2011) and Ash
Amin (2006) have incisively pointed out the need to better understand
the ways in which cities in the South were actually developed. How did
cities come to encompass so many different realities and times? These
are cities that have spawned new infrastructures and lifestyles at rapid
speeds and yet retain significant areas of both incremental improve-
ments over time and impoverishment. A substantial literature on “post-
City & Society, Vol. 24, Issue 2, pp. 129–149, ISSN 0893-0465, eISSN 1548-744X. © 2012 by the American
Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-744X.2012.01072.x.
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