Dissecting the elements of collective action to pursue tenure security in Jakarta urban kampung

The prevalence of eviction in informal settlement has been a significant housing issue in many growing cities, including kampung in Jakarta. Urban kampung suffered from lack of tenure due to complexity of land system in Indonesia over the years. This led to urban kampung becoming vulnerable to eviction under the pretext of urban development, for example, river normalisation. Whereas, living in kampung is important livelihood strategy for urban poor to survive in unaffordable city. Therefore, tenure security is a pressing issue for kampung dwellers. The struggle to improve tenure security has been carried out by urban poor networks in several urban kampung. It reached critical point when they managed to establish political contract with governor candidate, followed by formation of cooperative in each kampung for collective action. This research aims to explain the significance and role of collective action through cooperative in influencing the structure of tenure security of urban kampung, using Kampung Kunir, Jakarta, as study case. This research applies qualitative approach to understand the meaning of relationship between the formation of cooperative, collective action, and tenure security in the context of post-evicted urban kampung. To enable triangulation, both primary and secondary data collection are used. Primary data was collected through semi-structured interviews with stakeholders, Focus Group Discussion with dwellers, and observation in Kampung Kunir. Meanwhile, secondary data was drawn from government website and stakeholders’ archives. The research finding suggests that collective action organised by cooperative contributes in changing, but not necessarily guaranteed, tenure security in urban kampung. The formation of cooperative facilitates the implementation of collective action that engages with socio-political structure. However, kampung dwellers’ capability to govern themselves only led to cooperative involvement in the struggle concerning Kunir and did not result in their involvement in cityscale issue engagement of urban kampung. Collective action contributes to change de jure and de facto security, whereas perceived security is largely constructed by dwellers’ awareness of de jure security. It might be suggested that urban poor who have experienced eviction and possess legal knowledge will ground their perceived security based on legal certainty. De jure security in Kampung Kunir is based on the agreement established between cooperative and the government, meanwhile, de facto security is still relying on external acknowledgement. Therefore, although strategies used in collective action succeeded in realising Kampung Kunir redevelopment and bringing some improvement to tenure security, the dwellers still have a long journey to achieve meaningful tenure security gain in the future.