Contesting Place in Tolikara

Riot in Tolikara (Photo: MTVN)

Tolikara riot has triggered many views and analysis from people. However, it is difficult to find viewpoint from human geography. Here we will go into it, people as human and Tolikara as their geography.

Symbolic landscape can become the focal point of conflict. There is interconnection between place, community, and identity, and how conflict over the development or representation of particular place is contested because of meanings conveyed about community identity.

Space and place are co-produced through many dimensions: race and class, urban and suburban, gender and sexuality, public and private, bodies and buildings. In Tolikara, the Christians are mostly native Papuans and the Muslims are mostly non-Papuan migrants. Native people feel they have more power on their land and there must be no landscape except theirs in the land. 

Jakarta’s Walking Dead

There was 27.9 million mudik (homeward bound) travelers during peak season-Idul Fitri, a 7 percent increase from previous year (Police Data, 2014).

People are the real threat now. -Rick

That is a quote from an American Popular TV Series, Walking Dead. This show told about people who awakens from a months-long coma to confront a new, apocalyptic world overrun by flesh-eating zombies. Zombies, mostly referred to in-universe as walkers, roamers, lurkers, geeks, or biters, are an antagonistic force that serve as the primary catalyst for the events within The Walking Dead universe. They serve as universal antagonists.

While in Jakarta, if we observe the activities during the rush hour, we will see people look like zombies. A commuter survey has revealed that 2.43 million commuters travel within, into and out of the city daily. Although Jakarta is home to 10.1 million people in the evening, the number of commuters boosts the capital’s population to 11.2 million people during the day (Central Statistics Agency, BPS-2015). Here it is, Jakarta’s Walking Dead.