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Gambling with the State: Land Titles and Personhood Rights among the Urban Poor in Indonesia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2015

Lilis MULYANI
Lilis MULYANI*
Affiliation:
Researcher, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI)
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Abstract

Due to the pressures of urbanization, the urban poor often find themselves trapped in illegal settlements and informal employment. As housing is not affordable and formal employment is inaccessible to them because of their lack of education and skills, they live a precarious existence with insecure land tenure and employment. Discriminated against by the state on the grounds of their illegal status, the urban poor are unable to establish their identity and personhood rights as urban citizens, and so cannot access basic rights such as health care and social security. This article is based on fieldwork in Surakarta in Indonesia which studied the impact of a land-titling programme in an area previously characterized by informal tenure. It finds that the legitimation provided by land titles had a significant impact upon the lives of the residents, enabling them to access other personhood rights.

Keywords

urban poorSurakartastate recognitionland titling
Type
State and Personhood in Southeast Asia
Information
Asian Journal of Law and Society , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , November 2015 , pp. 285 - 300
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press and KoGuan Law School, Shanghai Jiao Tong University 

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Footnotes

*

Lilis Mulyani is a researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), with main research interests on agrarian reform, land governance, and human rights in Indonesia. I sincerely thank David Engel, Lynette J. Chua, and Charlotte Kelly, whose comments and proposed revisions have helped me improve this article. I would also like to thank Daniel Goh, who provided very useful references, and all the participants of the “Researching State and Personhood: Law and Society in Southeast Asia” conference held on 15–16 December 2014 at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore, for their insightful discussion.

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