Indonesian Women’s Struggle Towards Transformation: A Case from ‘Rusunawa’ Community

Abstract

This article discusses roles of women in struggling transformation within their community. As one of governmental policies in 2015 about eradication of slum areas under BasukiTjahajaPurnama (‘Ahok’) as previous governor of Jakarta, many flats were built and provided to those who became the target of that program. It’s called ‘Rusunawa’—low cost simple flat. Researchers choose ‘Rusunawa’ Pulogebang (the first flat located on East Jakarta) as the locus of research. Unfortunately, there are new social problems emerge. One of them is adaptation matter: changing habits from previous location to new situation. Crashed by new system—such as paying room regularly every month meanwhile having no permanent job/work yet—occurs seriously impact until now. Besides that, losing home also keep them traumatic. In such situation, not all people can change their way of life rapidly till some women—driven by awareness—striving for changing the community decisively by various sustainable efforts. Therefore, this qualitative research will analyze the three main ideas in Feminist Standpoint Theory: knowledge, experience and power relation. Intrinsic case study is used to get in-depth inquiry. Also, researchers conduct as participant observers and in-depth interviewers towards key informants and community itself. Finally, based on critical paradigm, the results show that those women succeed to lead the community towards social transformation in health, education, economic, and leadership fields.

Women as Opinion Leaders within Community (A Model of Feminism Perspective)

“…Transformative efforts-through various breakthrough and creative movements-had been initiated and conducted by the other informant while living in the rusunawa environment. Adapted from previous research from Girsang (2018), below are summaries done by the informants: Living in a new environment, all informants struggled for change structure, change relations, and gain recognition. As an opinion leader, the informants put immense sacrifices to the community's needs.…”

Cartography of Southern Feminisms: Contributions of decolonial feminisms and community feminisms

“…In their article, Lasmery Girsang et al (2018) discuss the results of qualitative research on women’s struggles for transformation in the community of Rusunawa, Indonesia. Taking as their analytical framework knowledge, experience and power relations, three substantive ideas from the theory of the feminist point of view, the authors analyse the transformations taking place in health, education, economics and leadership.…”