Sosialisasi, Street Vendors and Citizenship in Yogyakarta

Abstract

In 2006 and 2007, Pethikbumi (Pedagang Klithikan Mangkubumi), a group of street traders1 slated to be relocated to a newly renovated marketplace in Yogyakarta City, Indonesia, argued in government meetings and in the newspaper that the relocation plan was not clear (kurang jelas). The Kedaulatan Rakyat newspaper reported that 'the leader of Pethikbumi, Akbar, said the concept developed by the municipal government regarding the relocation was not transparent (tidak transparan), especially with money…. "I also have asked for a detailed relocation concept but I haven't been given it,' said Akbar."2 In the months leading up to the relocation deadline of November 2007, Pethikbumi publically critiqued the municipal government's lack of proper sosialisasi (socialization) regarding its plans to relocate hundreds of traders to a marketplace through letters to the government, newspaper articles and public and private meetings. Proposed by then-mayor of Yogyakarta City, Herry Zudianto, the klithikan (second-hand trader) relocation would move street vendors from three locations in the city to a renovated former animal marketplace, Kuncen. The traders would gain clear legal status and be empowered to develop their businesses.3 The new marketplace was also pegged to become a tourist attraction because it would bring together in one location a variety of traders selling secondhand and antique merchandise (Pethikbumi meeting, personal communication, January 16, 2006). With this plan, the municipal government of Yogyakarta intended to follow the example of the mayor of Solo (now governor of Jakarta), Joko Widodo, who had 'successfully' relocated klithikan traders in

Informality and citizenship: the everyday state in Indonesia

“…In particular, the informal nature of state-citizen interaction helps interpret the observation that a rights-based discourse is relatively absent in Indonesia (e.g. Gibbings 2016). Berenschot, Hanani, and Sambodho (2018), Jakimow (2018) as well as Hearman (2018) note, for example, that citizens often frame their claims in terms of needs and social obligations rather than in terms of rights.…”

The future in the past: colonial modernity as urban heritage in contemporary Indonesia

“…In Indonesia, sosialisasi is a key term that has long played a role in efforts to remove the urban poor and other undesirables from certain urban spaces. In the words of Gibbings (2017), whose ethnography of street vendor removals in Yogyakarta is an excellent resource on the subject, sosialisasi is typically understood by city authorities as 'a process in which the government (or another top-down institution) teaches/persuades another group (generally a less powerful or more 'ignorant' group) to follow a prescribed viewpoint/set of behaviors' (98).…”