Sophie Webber (University of Sydney), 'Flood protection as adaptation labour in Jakarta, Indonesia'

Abstract: In response to recent devastating flood events and in anticipation of intensifying future catastrophes, local, provincial and national governments have undertaken large scale infrastructural transformations in Jakarta, Indonesia. These longstanding flood protection plans and works encompass new seawalls, dams, reservoirs, polders, pump systems and flood protection canals that weave throughout, and well beyond, the city. These massive infrastructures have attracted much scholarly attention, excavating their colonial and developmentalist imaginaries and expertise, the financial mechanisms on which they depend, and the forms of dispossession they require. However, there has been markedly less research focused on the work of building, operating and maintaining flood protection infrastructures in the dynamic socioecological urban system. This presentation draws on fieldwork observing and interviewing Jakarta’s ‘Blue Troops’, who labour to constantly maintain the flow of water throughout the city. We show the different forms and conditions of this work, and how it varies through the city and the seasons. The Blue Troops negotiate ‘Standard Operating Procedures’ and other formal planning systems alongside their own flexible and embodied knowledge and practice, and in doing so maintain and reproduce flood infrastructures. We argue that adaptation labour and its bodily wasting is an essential, but dangerously overlooked, component of climate urbanism.