Intimate dispossession
Forced relocation and the gendered reorganization of social reproduction in Jakarta
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24215413 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Clara Siagian (0000-0002-4413-1446, Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-18 |
| Publication date | 2026-09-26 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Gender Place & Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0966-369X • E-ISSN: 1360-0524 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0966369x.2026.2736509 |
| OpenAlex | W7214442029 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 43 |
Slum clearance remains a central feature of state-led urban development across rapidly urbanising contexts in the Global South, yet its consequences for everyday life remain unevenly understood. Drawing on social reproduction theory and the concept of depletion, this paper examines the gendered consequences of forced relocation from informal settlement (kampungs) to social housing (rusunawa) in Jakarta, Indonesia. Based on ethnographic findings that center women’s experiences, it demonstrates that forced relocation depletes women by dismantling the socio-spatial infrastructure of care in kampungs that sustains social reproduction in informal settlements. Three mechanisms through which this depletion operates are identified: the accumulation of debt and dispossession; disruption to quotidian practices; and physical and mental exhaustion. I argue that these mechanisms constitute a gendered, intimate, quiet, and embodied form of dispossession, as women disproportionately bear the multifaceted costs of adjusting to social housing that renders domestic and care work more time-intensive, more precarious, and more isolating. This analysis foregrounds homes and women’s bodies as additional sites of extraction that are routinely overlooked in dominant accounts of urban restructuring. These dynamics suggest that contemporary urban transformation in Southern cities is underpinned not only by the reconfiguration of land and infrastructure, but also by the systematic reorganization of social reproduction.
Care work · debt accumulation · depletion · dispossession · forced relocation · Gender · Informal settlements · Jakarta · kampung · Rusunawa · slum clearance · social housing · Social reproduction · urban restructuring · women's employment · Latin American Urban Studies · Urban and Rural Development Challenges · Urban Planning and Governance
Rule By Aesthetics
Geographies of Forced Eviction
Back Door Java
Adversarial Linkages
Un Making Public Housing Towers
Depletion
Undoing ruination in Jakarta
Urban evictions, public housing and the gendered rationalisation of kampung life in Jakarta
Resistance and reproduction
Unmaking home, undoing mothers
The risk of impoverishment in urban development-induced displacement and resettlement in Ahmedabad
Standpoint Theory as a Methodology for the Study of Power Relations
Monitoring Urban Displacement
Urban Geography Plenary Lecture—on Intersections, Anticipations, and Provisional Publics
Housing
Formal land rights versus informal land rights
Depleted by Debt
Dispossession and the Depletion of Social Reproduction
Social Reproduction and the Housing Question
The Politics of the Evicted
Social Reproduction Theory,” Social Reproduction, and Household Production
On-edge in the impasse
Manila’s metropolitan landscape of gentrification
Vagabond Capitalism and the Necessity of Social Reproduction
The Whole World Is Watching
Bodies as urban infrastructure
Geopolitics of Home
From Kampungs to Condos? Contested accumulations through displacement in Jakarta
Everyday resilience, reworking, and resistance in North Jakarta's kampungs
Slumdog Cities
Unravelled Homes
Accumulation by Forced Removal
Capturing the City
People as Infrastructure
Understanding Homelessness in Neoliberal City
Beauty as control in the new Saigon
Intimate Evictability
| Highly cited | No |
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