Clara Siagian - Rusunawa and the State

While Jakarta's eviction politics have often dominated headlines and grassroots campaigns, the experiences of those who have been relocated to rusunawa (social housing) complexes have remained largely invisible. Yet these families reveal how Indonesia's vision of urban modernity is being literally built into the architecture of everyday life, changing the ways people connect with each other and build their lives. In this episode of Talking Indonesia, host Tito Ambyo explores these tensions with guest Dr Clara Siagian, whose ethnographic research uncovers how social housing design enforces specific values of respectability on the urban poor - from banning certain cooking methods to restructuring family life itself. Clara Siagian did her PhD at the Australian National University and is senior researcher at the Center on Child Protection and Wellbeing at Universitas Indonesia as well as a postgraduate researcher at the University College London. Her research examines urban governance, childhood policy, and development through the perspectives of marginalised populations. In 2025, the Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Tito Ambyo from RMIT, Dr Elisabeth Kramer from the University of New South Wales, Dr. Jacqui Baker from Murdoch University and Dr Jemma Purdey from the Australia-Indonesia Centre.

You can listen to Clara Siagian - Rusunawa and the State online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Clara Siagian - Rusunawa and the State is an episode from Talking Indonesia by Talking Indonesia.

This episode is 00:45:41 long.

This episode was published on Sep 1, 2025.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Talking Indonesia when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.