Earlier this year, I published a new article in Critical Asian Studies, titled “Subterranean infrastructures in a sinking city: the politics of visibility in Jakarta”. The essay looks at the politics of flood infrastructure in Jakarta, and explores in particular the relationship between visibility and invisibility, and above-ground and below-ground interventions. Jakarta is well known for it’s annual flooding, and flood events have been devastating in recent years. Most recently, the New Years floods of 2020 brought flash floods through the central city and took the lives of more than 60 people.
One of Jakarta’s most challenging environmental problems - of which there are no shortage - is land subsidence.
Land subsidence, primarily caused by excessive groundwater extraction, damages infrastructure and buildings, and contributes to worsened flood events and tidal inundation. Yet, while land subsidence was first identified as an issue in 1989, groundwater extraction has only recently been regulated. My essay asks why land subsidence remained unaddressed for so long.
Scholarship in infrastructure studies has tended to categorize infrastructure as either hyper-visible by design, or invisible until breakdown. My essay extends theoretical engagements with infrastructure by examining how visibility, aesthetics, and materiality shape urban flood risk governance in Jakarta. I show how spectacular, visible forms of infrastructures generate public and political attention, while below ground, hidden and invisible infrastructures are overlooked and politically unpopular to address. This has resulted in city authorities prioritizing the implementation of large-scale infrastructural interventions (sea walls, canal systems, river normalization) to reduce the impacts of flooding instead of addressing land subsidence.
You can read the article here, or email me directly for a PDF at emmacolven@ou.edu.