Care for the common good : local inclusion within the Integrated Water Resource Management framework in the Winongo River in Yogyakarta

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Care for the common good:

Local inclusion within the Integrated Water Resource

Management framework in the Winongo River in

Yogyakarta

MSc Thesis

International Development Studies Graduate School of Social Sciences

University of Amsterdam Supervisor: Gerben Nooteboom Second reader: Courtney Vegelin

June 2019 By

Roosje van Driest 10737685

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4 5.5 Limitations ...28 5.5.1 Trustworthiness ...28 5.5.2 Authenticity ...28 5.6 Ethical considerations ...29 5.7 Conceptual scheme ...29 5.8 Data analysis ...30 6.Governance...32 6.1 Indonesian politics ...32 6.2 Water Governance ...32 6.3 Waste governance ...35 6.4 Concluding remarks ...36

7. Perspectives from below ...37

7.2 Perceptions of river and waste ...37

7.2.1 River in everyday life’s ...37

7.2.3 Exclusion in waste management services ...39

7.3 Community participation ...40

7.3.1 Public participation in official programs ...41

7.3.2. Public participation in local context ...42

7.3.3 Environment and tourism ...43

7.3.4 Environmental problem solving discourse ...46

7.5 Concluding remarks ...47

8. Grassroots organizations ...48

8.1 Indicating active organizations ...48

8.2 Bridging the gap ...49

8.2.1 Advocacy ...50

8.2.2 Education ...51

8.3 Challenges ...52

8.4 Concluding remarks ...53

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9.1 Governance frameworks...54

9.1.1 Insufficient model ...55

9.1.2 From IWRM towards polycentric governance ...57

Recommendations ...58

9.2 Perspectives from below – locals and grassroots organizations-...59

9.2.1 Participation ...60

9.3 A new way forward: sustainable river tourism...63

9.3.1 Trade-offs ...65

10. Conclusion ...67

102 Recommendations for further research ...68

Literature ... 69

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Abstract

Due to economic and population growth municipal solid waste in Asia is expected to more than double by 2025. Waste water discharge and solid waste disposal in rivers lead to severe river pollution, as is happening in the Winongo River in the Special Province of Yogyakarta. In line with Indonesia’s political shift from a highly centralized to a decentralized government, the country has adopted the Integrated Water Resources Management framework. This framework requires local stakeholders to be active in water planning and management, with particular attention for local communities to participate in the lowest levels. Up till now, approaches to water are largely dominated by engineers and natural scientists, and environmental issues in urban context have received little attention in social and cultural studies. This study recognizes the socio-political character of the integrated issues of household waste and river management, and focusses how local river inhabitants operate in Winongo River governance and to what extent the participatory approaches contribute to sustainable river conservation. The study adheres to qualitative research methods such as in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, (participatory) observations and text analysis in order to give an in-depth analysis of the actual participation of river inhabitants in water management. It criticizes the current waste and water frameworks for being too centralized, establishing sectoral and geographical fragmentation and being exclusive for low-income communities. A discourse analysis which focusses on the

perspective and discursive practices of river inhabitants assesses why and how they participate in waste and river management. The interplay between the governance models and the local practices are influenced by each other, particularly because of the advocacy and the educational support of environmental grassroots organizations. The study shows that river issues are interconnected with social, political and economic factors. These factors are responsible for the emergence of a new environmental discourse, in which local river inhabitants combine river conservation with economic growth through the creation of tourism areas. Whereas

participatory approaches are highly valued within academic literature and

policy-implementation, this study critically assesses the implementation of ‘participatory approaches’ within governance models. It furthermore uses the critical theory of political ecology to show the inherent unequal power dimensions in all levels of river management.

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Acknowledgements

First, I would like to thank my supervisor Gerben Nooteboom for his valuable guidance

throughout the process of writing this thesis. I would also like to thank Courtney Vegelin for her time and in the final stage of this research process. Furthermore, I am very thankful for

professor Pande Made Kurtanegara, being my local supervisor in Yogyakarta and providing me with useful knowledge and contacts throughout my fieldwork. He teamed me up with

anthropology student Dian, whom I would like to thank sincerely for being a good research companion and a great friend at the same time. I do not know where I would have been in Yogyakarta without the coincidental meeting with Wisnu. Special thanks to him for providing me with extended knowledge in the field of river governance, and becoming a special friend for life. Furthermore I would like to thank Hanny, Unch Unch, Ama, Didi, Emily, Nadine, Dicky, Redi and Raha for the Bahasa classes, the laughter, the support, and the fun trips. Life in Yogyakarta would not have been the same without your presence! Last but not least, a special thanks goes out to all the residents of Manding village, who took care of me as if I was their own daughter while living there and helped me tremendously during my fieldwork.

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List of figures

Figure 1 Villagers of Manding (Source: Roosje van Driest) ... 7

Figure 2 Dryzek (1990) discourse model (Source: Dryzek, 1990) ... 9

Figure 3Winongo River. (Source: Manticode.id) ...20

Figure 4 Water quality index. (source: Journal of the civil engineering forum) ...22

Figure 5: River kampong in the city-area. (Source: Dicky Setyawan Wicaksono)...24

Figure 6: Example of housing in Bantul. More space and separate houses along the river (Source: Dicky Setyawan Wicaksono) ...25

Figure 7: IWRM framework (Source GWP) ...33

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List of Abbreviations

ADB Asian Development Bank

AKSY Association of Yogyakarta River Governance DLH Municipal Office of Environment of Yogyakarta

FKWA Forum Kommunikasi Winongo Asri - Communication Forum for the Winongo River

GWP Global Water Partnership

IDR Indonesian Rupiah (Indonesian currency) IWRM Integrated Water Resource Management M3K Re-settlement Program

NGO Non-Governmental Organization PKK The Family Welfare Movement RBMA River Basin Management Agency

RT Rukun Tentangga – Village administration (under RW) RW Rukun Warga – Village administration

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1.

Introduction

Population growth, urbanization and industrial growth lead to a transformations in urban and environmental landscapes. Due to these social, economic and demographic shifts, municipal waste in Asia is expected to more than double by 2025 (Fukuda et al., 2018: 841). Particularly urban areas are facing severe solid waste problems and need urgent solutions to contain the issue. Currently, much of the household waste ends up in river basins which lead to extreme water quality degradation and health problems, as is happening in the Winongo River in the Special Province of Yogyakarta.

Yogyakarta alone generates 240 tons of waste per day, of which 14 percent is plastic waste (Fukuda et al., 2018: 842). Although the exact amount of waste ending up in the rivers is unknown, the Municipal Office of Environment in Yogyakarta (DLH) sees a connection between the rise in municipal waste and the pollution levels that have significantly increased in the last couple of years in the four rivers that flow through the city - the Code, Winongo, Gajah Wong and Manunggal river. As a result, the polluted water kills water species, fosters diseases and clogs hydroelectric turbines (Galadima et al., 2011: 593).

Citizens that reside along the rivers play an important role in the current river pollution, mainly because of waste discharges and solid waste disposal (Fukuda et al., 2018: 843). According to Kumorotomo et al., (1995: 4) this is imputable to a lack of infrastructure for solid waste, collection services, and sanitation systems. The (local) government in Yogyakarta lacks the capability to provide sufficient services in terms of basic urban infrastructure (Arum et al. 2006: 66). There are existing regulations, however, marginalized groups often cannot reach the existing services (ibid.). Furthermore, the study of Fukuda et al. (2018) shows that only fifty percent of the population recognizes that waste separation will reduce environmental pollution (ibid: 843.).

In the last decade, Indonesia had made a political shift from a highly military and centralized state towards a decentralized and democratic state. Local governments and municipalities are now partly responsible to provide and manage public services, such as river and waste

management. In this research, I will refer to the river as a common good, as the Winongo River is shared and beneficial for all members of a the community (Argandona, 1998: 1094),

furthermore adhering to the belief of Ostrom in which societal individuals are also willing to share the responsibility for the care of the natural resources (Ostrom 2010: 642). In line with this shift, the country has adopted an internationally used Integrated Water Resource

Management framework (IWRM) to strengthen the capacity to plan, monitor and manage water resources, using a decentralized management design. IWRM is an integrated model that takes into account social equity, economic efficiency and environmental sustainability, that imposes the state, various stakeholders and society to be active in water management practices. In combination with the implementation of the 7/2004 Water Resource Law, Indonesia has made a big transformation in water governance, in which it gives more space to local stakeholders and society to be integrated in river management.

As river pollution is a direct consequence of the rise in household waste that ends up in the river, this thesis aims to analyze if IWRM is a sufficient framework to integrate these issues and establish solutions to prevent further pollution in the Winongo River. The thesis thereby

particularly focusses on the fifth pillar of IWRM, which requires public participation in every stage of water management. Much of the household waste littering happens at the local level, which makes it interesting to assess if local inclusion and the engagement of river kampong

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inhabitants in river management contributes to river developments and conservation. It aims to answer the following question: How do local actors and grassroots organizations operate in river governance in Yogyakarta, and does the Integrated Water Resource Management framework contribute to local participation leading to sustainable river conservation?

The thesis adheres to Zwarteveen et al. (2017) conceptualization of water governance, that distinguishes the distributions of water, voice and authority, and knowledge and expertise to assess the socio-political nature of rivers in urban contexts. The focus is on the participation of local river kampong inhabitants, yet, this can only be analyzed in the broader context in which the government and other grassroots organizations are also taken into account. The managerial model of IWRM provides good building blocks for a decentralized and democratic form of river governance. However, using the theory of political ecology to assess the underlying power hierarchies reveals that the interests of various groups are prioritized over others. It also shows that sectoral and geographic fragmentation are effectuated because of failures in the IWRM framework, which then effect the distributions of water, voice and authority, and knowledge and expertise in the Winongo River.

As this thesis focusses on local inclusion, a discourse analysis of the perspectives and practices of the local river kampong inhabitants is carried out. According to Hajer & Versteeg (2005: 165), a discourse analysis reveals the social, political, and economic dimensions that affect people’s share in environmental practices, which subsequently influences the range of both policy options and outcomes. This discourse analysis showed a transformation in river practices, in which local citizens integrate environmental and economic practices in the creation of tourism destinations along the river. This fits in the environmental problem solving discourse, proposed by Dryzek (1990), in which people carry out environmental developments within the given neo-liberal structure.

Furthermore, the study discusses the role of environmental grassroots organizations within river management, and their contribution in engaging local communities within Winongo River management. Their advocacy and education have strengthened the position of the local river inhabitants in the political realm. Whereas their contribution is considered very positive by both the government and the local communities, their role questions the right implementation of IWRM. Therefore, this thesis discusses the option to shift towards a polycentric model within water governance, in which multiple autonomous centers of decision-making are operating, but have ‘’special-purpose governance units that cut across jurisdictions’’(Carlisle and Gruby, 2017). All in all, this thesis seeks to gain bottom-up, in-depth knowledge about the ways in which local river inhabitants operate in Winongo River governance, and how and if this results to

sustainable river conservation. It analyzes the interplay between governance models and people on the ground (and their everyday lives), thereby applying literature that engages the social, economic, political and environmental dimensions within the field of water governance.

1.1 Relevance

Literature on river management in the context of Yogyakarta often solely entail engineering practices. The same account for general waste management literature, in which most studies adhere to quantitative research, for example within research about how much money people are willing to spend on changes in waste management provisions (Caplan et al., 2002; Fukuda et al., 2018). This study integrates the issues of waste and river in an urban context with a

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qualitative research method that includes social and cultural aspects of the urban environment. Urban anthropology has rarely focused on the environment, in which particularly urban pollution and environmental degradation in developing countries are studied on a micro-level (Jaffe and Dür, 2010: 1). This study, instead, shifts away from the technocratic and technological perspectives on river pollution, but focusses on the cultural and social aspects in which local citizens play a crucial role in understanding the reasons of why rivers are facing severe river pollution and how this can be improved within the local context. It focusses on the cultural meanings that people assign to the river with a discourse analysis, showing that people have lost their connection to the river because of modernization and development in which people do not anymore depend on rives. The local understandings then get connected to governance models, in which this study recognizes that these two shape and re-shape each other.

Academically, it contributes to knowledge about the implementation of IWRM, a framework that is relatively new in developing countries. Again, this model is analyzed against the background of local participation, that reveals extents of inclusion and exclusion for certain groups in the socio-political urban landscapes. The integrations of both ‘river and waste’, and ‘governance models and local participation’ can furthermore politically contribute in urban planning and environmental development in cities – thus in the creation of new policies that better integrate participatory methods on the lowest level possible.

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2. Research question

The environmental, social and political relevance of this issues lead to the formulation of the following research question. Dividing this main question into sub-questions helps to

systematically answer this main question and to expose underlying dimensions. How do local actors and grassroots organizations operate in river governance in

Yogyakarta, and does the Integrated Water Resource Management framework contribute to local participation leading to sustainable river conservation?

2.1 Sub-questions

1. What is Indonesia’s current governance framework in regard to river and waste management?

2. What are the perspectives and (discursive) practices of the local Winongo River dwellers and grassroots organizations on waste and river issues?

3. How do the main actors -the government, grassroots organizations, and society- collaborate with each other? What are the challenges?

4. Which improvements in water governance in the Winongo River will lead to a better integration of local participation that ultimately leads to sustainable river conservation?

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2.

Theoretical framework

This chapter discusses the main theories that have served as a framework to collect data, and to further analyze this collected data. The theories get interrelated with each other in the

discussion. The conceptualization of the first theory, water governance, will serve as a framework throughout the whole thesis to indicate the ‘’political choices as to where water should flow; about the norms, rules and laws on which such choices should be based; about who is best able or qualified to decide about this; and about the kind of societal future such choices support’’ (Zwarteveen et al., 2017: 1). Because water governance gets carried out by the state, river communities and grassroots organizations, that together create participatory spaces, the next concept that gets discussed is ‘participation’. The extent of participation gets affected by social, economic and political dimensions in which the river dwellers live, and therefore, this study performs a discourse analysis. The created spaces are formed by forms of co-governance, in which there is a shared responsibility for the care for common goods. The theory of

polycentric governance overlaps with IWRM, but takes one step further in democratic river governance, and will later be used to propose a shift in current water governance in Yogyakarta. Lastly, the theory of political ecology critically assesses the models to reveal the present power hierarchies in all levels of governance.

3.1 Water Governance

Approaches to water has changed from viewing it as purely ‘natural’, often researched by engineers and natural scientists, towards an understanding of the deeply political nature of water. The integration of the social-ecological perspective allows for a new viewpoint of how water management decisions affect environmental outcomes (Groenfeldt and Schmidt. 2013: 14), as water is interconnected to the questions about ‘access to, and the allocation of, a contested and scare resource’ (Molle, 2008: 62). This approach includes the often contested realities of the various users and stakeholders in water basins, and furthermore reflects how socio-political structures ‘shape the way resources are used and the way benefits, costs, and risks are distributed’ (ibid.: 63).

In Yogyakarta, discursive power struggles impact its rivers. The government, grassroots organizations and local citizens, that are operating in the IWRM framework, all have their part in influencing the ecology, aesthetics and management of the river. To further analyze this social-ecology integration, Zwarteveen et al. (2017:1) identify three distributions –of water, voice and authority, and expertise- ‘as the empirical anchor and entry point of the

conceptualization of water governance’. This multidisciplinary approach links the technicalities of water to the asserted meaning and behavioral practices of water governance, and will serve as a direction to analyze the current river practices in the Winongo River within the IWRM framework.

2.2.1 Distribution of water

First of all, the distribution of water is not just naturally, but affected by laws and norms that justify patterns in access to water or water services, which can have negative consequences for one group, and positive outcomes for the other group (ibid: 4). The allocation of the Winongo River to different government territories shows how institutional structures affect water quality and management.

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2.2.2 Distribution of voice and authority

Decisions about the distribution of water thus inevitably lead to the question of who has control over these practices. In the field of water governance there are numerous social actors present that all have different perspectives, interests and backgrounds. Mapping and interrogating distributions of voice and authority display various actors and how these represent power hierarchies, as well as the inclusion or exclusion of various groups within water access or water management. While official political actors are often embedded in existing water policies, new actors can have big influence, and analyzing these dynamics can be highly important to reveal where and how water flows.

2.2.3 Distribution of knowledge and expertise

The former forms of distribution are highly interrelated to the questions of knowing and forms of expertise within water management. In this, taking into account the relationship between knowledge and power is important: ‘’It helps unearth how unequal social relations may become normalized through the use of particular categories or normative frames, and how unequal distributions of knowledge and expertise are part of broader structures of social and economic dominance’’ (ibid.: 7).

3.2 Participation

Many countries are experimenting with new democratic models that widen the political space for the public and local stakeholders, enabling them to play a bigger role in decision-making and governance practices (Cornwall and Coelho, 2007: 1). Historically, the institutional government structure of Indonesia has given space to local participation in the form of administrative units in the kampongs, called RT and RW groups. Within the kampongs, local citizens were able to manage with social welfare, community infrastructure and economic problems (Sullivan, 1986: 67). Dutch and Japanese colonial rule used the self-governing villages in their vertical system to control and count the population in urban and rural areas (Newberry, 2007). The underlying structure of these administrative units goes further into a more social and economic approach, where the kampong inhabitants adhere to a philosophy called gotong royong, which relates to a sort of mutual assistance and helping each other. The concept is derived from the Javanese term ngotong –people who lift or carry objects together-, and implies how in Java reciprocal and cooperative relationships are important to maintain (Beard, 2004). Scholars (Sullivan, 1992; Tanja Li, 1999) argue that these arenas, in which participation is encouraged, are in fact imposed by the government. The local population has embedded this social and communal behavior, which is then often ‘used’ to ‘control and develop [the] populace’ (Walker, 2001: 9). In the kampongs in Indonesia, participation and self-governance, governed by the RT and RW groups –which are managed by regular citizens- are to a certain extent already present. In this research, the participatory approaches and engagement of citizens goes further than these defined administrative spaces. Instead, it analyzes if local inclusion is rightly implemented across state levels and sectors, as is proposed in the IWRM framework. In this framework, water development and management is based on a participatory approach, requiring to involve users, planners and policy makers at all levels (GWP, 2000). Local citizens on the lowest level possible should be able to engage in the decision making, planning and implementation of water projects (ibid.). This is in line with Reed’s comprehension of the concept, in which he defines

participation as ‘’a process where individual, group and organizations choose to take an active role in making decisions that affect them’’ (Reed, 2008: 2418).

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Particularly in environmental issues, which are characterized as complex due to the magnitude and the encompassment of multiple stakeholders, but also because of the interrelation with social, political and economic dimensions, the involvement of local voices, and local knowledge is crucial to enhance the sustainability of the project (Ackerman, 2003; Stewart and Sinclair, 2007; Reed, 2008). This involves sharing of information, and involving the community at an early stage of decision making (Momtaz and Gladstone, 2008), which could enhance social relations between different groups (Richards et al., 2004). However, there are some difficulties with implementing participatory approaches within environmental governance. Sharing information does not immediately ensure the active influence and involvement of local actors, because of the discursive power hierarchies and the contested interests. Therefore, a platform in which all stakeholders from different levels come together to present their different ideals and goals with transparency and good communication, is crucial (O’Fairceallaigh, 2009).

3.3 Discourse and governmentality

When analyzing the current waste and river practices, and the extent of participation in Yogyakarta, it is important to take into account the perceptions of these issues by various stakeholders. A discourse analysis contributes to a better understanding of the discursive practices of these stakeholders, in which the nature-human interactions, and the affected distributions of water, become apparent.

Hajer and Versteeg (2005) relate to the Foucauldian conception of discourse that is structured along four objectives. First, discourses are productive since they actively shape reality (ibid.: 164), and thus truth. Secondly, power is not merely a top-down activity, but can be seen as ‘web of forced relations made up of local centers of power around which specific discourses,

strategies of power and techniques for the appropriation of knowledge cluster’ (Foucault 1998, pp. 92-93). Thirdly, discourses can both enable and disable people in their everyday lives (Hajer and Versteeg, 2005: 165). The fourth line of thought relates to Foucault’s notion of

governmentality in which power is not merely exercised by the state, but also includes the active participation of individuals in their own governance.

Hajer & Versteeg (2005) emphasize on the importance of a discourse analysis within environmental policies because it recognizes the construction of reality that is constantly invented and re-invented. It furthermore shows that discourses act as a broad collection of frameworks that shape the range of both policy options and outcomes and it takes into account the bias that are most probably present in policy making (ibid.: 168). A discourse analysis focusses on (a) social problems and power, (b) texts (facts, beliefs, events, identity construction, interpretation: can be policy document), (c) discursive practices (the rules, norms, behavior, speech, hierarchies), and (d) the broader social context. According to Fairclough (2013), it gives insight into how people frame problems and their claims, helps to understand the power positions around the problem, and reveals hidden motivations.

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illustrates that environmental discourses are often conflicting: ‘’Each discourse rests on assumptions, judgments, and contentions that provide the basic terms for analysis, debates,

agreements, and disagreements in the environmental area no less than elsewhere’’ (ibid.: 8). Therefore, he proposes a model that situates different

environmental discourses on a scale, with environmental radical discourses on the left spectrum, and reformist environmental discourses on the right spectrum. Furthermore, he distinguishes prosaic and imaginative environmental discourses. Prosaic discourses lack imagination, thereby accepting the current neo-liberal structures– meaning they want

environmental development within these structures. Imaginative discourses, instead, demand structural changes to ‘’dissolve the conflict between environmental and economic values that energizes the discourses of problem solving and limits’’ (Dryzek, 1990 cited in Tuler 1997: 66). Dryzek’s model will serve as an framework to analyze the discursive practices along the Winongo River, thereby understanding how ecological systems are created by human actions, while also being reflected in them. The environmental discourse in regard with the Winongo River are constantly invented and re-invented because of the interplay of the distributions of ‘ water, voice and authority, and expertise’ (Zwartveen et al.: 2017) that shape realities.

3.4 Polycentric Governance

Many scholars propose a new and improved institutional framework to avoid irreversible environmental damage. This requires sustainable development that demands structural change in global governance (Gupta, 2014). Within the governance paradigm, ‘good governance’ is known for the most ‘’honest, efficient and effective government apparatus’’ (Ackerman, 2003: 448). However, it often lacks the real inclusion of the ‘voices’ and, thereby participation of local actors (ibid.). This thesis will analyze the current governance frameworks in which local actors operate, in the management of water, a common pool resource. While the current governance models seem to adhere to a polycentric model, IWRM is rather static and enforces a centralized form of governance with good-formulated definitions but a lack of real guidance how to

implement this. In the last chapter, I will therefore opt for a shift for a more polycentric governance model, which has been formulated by Ostrom.

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Samuelson (1954) divided goods into two types in his classical essay. Firstly, he characterized private goods as both excludable (where an individual can be excluded from this private good unless he pays for it) and rivalrous (when an individual consumes the private good, another individual cannot consume this good anymore). Secondly, by public goods he meant that they are excludible (it is not possible to prevent others from consuming the good) and non-rivalrous (the consumption of one individual does not limit the consumption by others).

This division drew upon the notion that individuals are fully rational and that actors always aim to maximize expected utility (Ostrom 2010: 643). It furthermore existed in a discourse where the ‘State’ and the market were supposed to impose rules since society itself would fail to establish sufficient public goods, such as peace, security and water management (ibid.: 642). In 1977, Ostrom rejected Samuelson’s twofold idea of goods. She added a third type good, the shared and unregulated common-pool resources, such as air and water, ‘’that shares the attribute of subtractability with private goods and difficulty of exclusion with public goods’’ (Ostrom 2010: 644). With this theory, she also opposed Hardin’s (1968) theories about the Tragedy of the Commons that adheres to the idea that people will always strive for their own good and private property in order to protect the finite resources (ibid.).

Ostrom draws upon the concept of polycentricity, an idea introduced by the scholars Ostrom, Tiebout, and Warren in 1961, which aims to understand the activities of various public and private actors to produce and provide public services (Ostrom 2010: 642). Ostrom thus demonstrates a shift from a hierarchical and centralized form of governance towards a new institutional framework where care for common resources can be carried out by societal individuals based on relations of trust (ibid.: 642). It displays an interactive approach in which society and state both share a common responsibility for society.

Finger et al. (2006) argue that this form of ‘’co-governance’’ thus emphasizes on local

knowledge and voices to manage the common pool resources (ibid.: 7). Its effectiveness lies in the activity of bringing multiple stakeholders together and therefore creating organized forms of interaction, who subsequently undertake governing purposes.

Whereas co-governance and co-management are very much interrelated with the concept of polycentric governance, the latter concept displays a more nuanced understanding of the various governance outcomes within common-pool resources management. It recognizes the multiple needs and interests of actors and the ‘complexity of resources and governance systems at local, regional, national and global levels’ (Nagendra and Ostrom, 2012: 104). Subsequently, it takes a multi-sector, multi-actor and multi-level governance approach with social learning and negotiation processes with an understanding of the fluid and changing environment. (Ros-Tonen et al., 2014: 2997). The aim within this polycentric framework is eventually to bring the preferred solutions together to preserve the sustainability of social-ecological systems

(Nagendra and Ostrom, 2012: 104).

3.4 Political Ecology

Urban political ecology is a notion that perceives the city as an entity that is produced through socio-ecological processes that are always highly political. It derives from the general political ecology theory that ‘’examines the political dynamics surrounding the material and discursive struggles over the environment in the third world’’ (Bryant, 1998: 79). Whereas global

capitalism had the tendency to externalize nature, current literature has deepened the

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2006). Within urban studies the binary ruling of the city versus the environment disappeared, and instead increasingly recognizes ‘’that natural or ecological conditions and processes do not operate separately from social processes’’ (Swyngedouw 1999: 445). In fact, urbanization occurs because of socio-spatial relations that transforms ecological environment and remains a constant process of adjustment to sustain those relations (Heynen et al., 2006: 4). This all happens in the socio-political realm of social actors of different class, ethnics, race and gender who shape and construct their environment (ibid.).

This eventually shapes and reshapes urban landscapes and often creates uneven urban landscapes because of the inherent unequal power structures that are present in the

interconnected social, political and economic dimensions. Urban political ecology is primary interested in these inequalities and injustices, and aims to recognize how ecological

improvements can bring positive outcomes for one group but negative consequences for other groups. It thereby proposes to integrate an understanding of the ‘’capitalist political-economic system’’ (Harvey et al, 2006: 9). Within this study, the theory can be utilized when a historical examination of the polluted rivers and connection with the surrounding ‘poorer’ kampongs is given. It assesses the policies and practices that negatively affect individuals, groups and

communities based on race or ethnicity, which Mohai (2009) refers to as environmental racism. It therefore conflicts with the theory of Ostrom (2010) about an equal management of the common good, but will also be used to critically asses the current governance frameworks in Indonesia, as they fail to adequately take into account the ‘winners’ or ‘losers’ within socio-environmental governance practices. Political ecology critically exposes underlying power structures and struggles between different networks, which will be extremely useful in my analysis on the various waste and river management organizations.

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4. Context

4.1 Yogyakarta

The Special Province of Yogyakarta is located on the flat areas at the foot of the Merapi Mountain in central Java, Indonesia. The area has around 3,594,290 inhabitants and has the second highest concentration of economic activity of whole Indonesia (Statistics of Indonesia, 2017). It has three main rivers, the Gajah Wong river in the east, the Code River in the center and the Winongo River in the west. While this study discusses various waste and river practices, it mainly focusses on the Winongo riverside area. The Winongo river has a length of 44

kilometers and is located in the West of Yogyakarta. It starts in the North named as Buntung, retrieves the name Winongo around Kyai Mojo, and eventually joints the Opak river in Bantul area, in the South of Yogyakarta. The river flows thus flows through three regencies of the Province of Yogyakarta; Sleman (in the North), Kota (Yogyakarta City) and Bantul (in the South).

FIGURE 3.WINONGO RIVER.SOURCE:HTTP://MANTICORE.ID/2012/03/REALTIME-GPS-TRACKER-FOR -JOGJA-RIVER-PROJECTS-2012-2-KALI-WINONGO/

4.2 The river dwellers

4.2.1 Historical

Rapid urbanization during the 1960s and 1970s led to dense settlements that were occupied by low income settlers along the riverside area. In these years, almost halve of Yogyakarta Province

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territory was covered by infertile agricultural ground (Mubyarto, 2002 cited in Yossi, 2006: 299). Extreme poverty and the increasing oil prices during the 1970s and 1980 motivated many peasants to migrate to the city. Due to the absence of city planning, people were able to occupy the riverside areas which resulted in uncontrollable growth of these settlements. Central and local policies directly and indirectly resulted in uncontrollable growth of these riverside settlements.

The centralized government implemented several policies which affected the growth of the riverside area. The keluarga Berencana (Family Planning Program) decreased the population growth, and infrastructural development allowed people to live outside the city (Yossi et al., 2006: 301). Although these policies decreased riverside population, the national government still saw the settlers as ‘’public enemy’’ (ibid.). Due to bureaucratic practices, the national government still ruled over the riverside areas. It imposed standardized river regulations that were too general and had therefore no effect on the riverside issues. Until the 1990s, the regional governments dependency on national government help and funding restricted sufficient riverside programs and city-planning (ibid.). Standardized river regulations were imposed on the riverbank areas, but had limited effect due to financial and social constraints (Yossi et al., 2006). The riverside upgrading programs were primarily focused on riverbank construction and sanitations programs, and failed to adequately integrate community involvement and environmental habitat awareness (ibid.). In the meanwhile, extreme deterioration of river water quality was occurring (ibid.). Investors and the government established hotels, supermarkets, restaurants and markets to be close to the river, resulting in more waste pollution and further water pollution (Baiquni, 2004). The decentralizations laws in the early 2000s led to more involvement of regional and local government agencies and created space for NGOs and grassroots organizations to participate in river developing programs. This has resulted in many programs concerning the previously mentioned issues such as wastewater disposal and sanitation programs. However, many projects still deal with sustainability issues, financial constraints, top-down management and difficulties in involving local actors to participate (Yossi et al., 2006).

Under the central government, river kampong upgrading started in 1991 with constructing walls along the riverbank. This happened shortly after regulation Article 16 No. 32, 1990 revised the sempadan area (the river distance to housing) from 25-50 meter to only 10-15 meter (Yossi et al., 2006). The riverside upgrading programs, however, were mostly carried out by top-down approaches from the municipal government by demands of the central

government. Only after 1991, the community development philosophy, that enhanced human development approaches, economic aspect approached and physical environmental approaches, was adopted. From then on, kampong improvement projects1_{included, besides retaining walls,}

also empowerment programs. Nonetheless, due to remaining remain top-down approaches and limited time and financial resources, the programs succeeded mostly in infrastructure, while empowerment aspects and the sustainability of the projects failed. Furthermore, the programs mainly focused on sanitation facilities and protection measures against flooding, and merely took into account environmental habitat awareness (Yossi et al., 305).

After implementing National Legislation No. 22/1999 and No.25/2000 of decentralization, local government was allowed to manage their own conservation and natural resources. This led to a shift in attention from just the Kali Code River to the rivers of Winongo and Gajah Wong.

1

4 Program Pembangunan Prasarana Kota Terpadu (Integrated Urban Infrastructure Development)

Program Peremajaan Lingkungan Perumahan Kota (Urban Environment and Settlement Rejuvenations Program) Program Penyehatan Lingkungan Permukiman (Healthy Environment and Settlement Developments Program)

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Furthermore, the attention of the programs now focused more on river environmental aspects, and included bigger involvement of the settlers within the implementation. The role of The Municipal Office of Environment (DLH) became bigger because of the coordination of several new bottom-up planning projects. At the same time, the budget for the environmental programs were increasing.

In short, since the 1970s several programs have been implemented to develop the riverside areas. Nonetheless, the result of these programs are far below expectations. A simplification of the riverside issues by government, NGO interventions and several riverside programs led to a failure in adequately implementing and integrating their implementations. Socio-economic aspects were often ignored in the program making, also not using the potential of the organizational aspects of the community (ibid.: 309). Furthermore, the riverside kampongs were treated as regular (non-riverside) kampongs, thus neglecting river conservation and better solid waste system networks. While the decentralization laws allowed settler involvement within kampong development, in reality this only happened during the implementation stage.

4.2.2 Environmental

FIGURE 4. WATER QUALITY INDEX. SOURCE:JOURNAL OF THE CIVIL ENGINEERING FORUM HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.22146/JCEF.41165

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Research by the University of Gadjah Wadah through Water Quality Index (WQIs) measurement in Yogyakarta shows that river pollution in the Winongo River varies significantly. WQI is designed based on local ecological conditions in Indonesia, using ‘’types of significant water quality parameters, specific water utilization targets, method to weigh the parameters of water quality, method of data transformation/standardization, method of sub-index aggregation, the number of water quality class, the type of water quality monitoring, determination of the number, and determination of water quality class’’ (Lumb et al., 2006 cited in Sarraswati et al., 2019: 48).The WQC has four water quality variables, with calculations which outcomes will fall between -1 and +1, where a negative deviation outcome indicates poor water quality, and a positive deviation sign good water quality (Sarraswati et al., 2019: 49).

As visible in figure 1, the river quality measured in the upstream of the Winongo River has a good water quality status, having 86% respectively 97% of good water, measured at various bridge points. In the midstream, the water quality decreases, and the four measuring points reveal all just below 50% of ‘good’ water quality. At the downstream, the water of the Winongo River is at its worst, having 0% respectively only 8% of good water quality. Due to the natural flowing of the river from the foot of the Merapi Mountain towards the sea, the pollution levels increase as the river flows more South. In the City of Yogyakarta, much of the industrial and household waste accumulates, whereas in the Southern Bantul area, Wastewater Treatment Installations, which are in very poor conditions, also have a polluting effect (Legates & Hudalah, 2014: 349).

Economic

Over the years, Yogyakarta has attracted many migrants to live on the overcrowded settlements along the three rivers in Yogyakarta. In much of the literature (Kumorotomo et al., 1995;

Setiawan, 2002) these areas are entitled as ‘slums’, however, I find the negative connotation of this term problematic and will use the low-income settlements to describe the riverside areas. The UN defines a slum as

‘’an area that combines, to various extents, the following characteristics (restricted to the physical and legal characteristics of the settlement and excluding the more difficult social dimensions): inadequate access to safe water, inadequate access to sanitation and other infrastructure, poor structural quality of housing, overcrowding, and insecure residential status’’ (UN-Habitat, 2003).

However, many low-income settlements do not totally adhere to these standards, as some (areas) do have access to sanitation but do also have an overcrowded residential status. Many settlements are heterogeneous and thus cannot be described by a standardized definition. Furthermore a slum is a relative concept, which Yelling (1986) describes as ‘’a term in the discourse of politics rather than science’’. Perspectives on city-areas vary according to ideology, social class, culture and economic position (Gilbert, 2007). Instead of the concept slum, this study thus adheres to the term ‘low-income settlements’, even though this can also be problematic since not all inhabitants of the researched riverside areas have low-income. Social

The river inhabitants live in the low-income settlements described as desa’s (villages) or kampongs. The Malay word kampong has been subject to various meanings through the last decades. Whereas is originally meant ‘’compound’’, in Javanese culture it can better be

understood as ‘’home community’’ (Sullivan, 1986: 63). Sullivan (1986: 71) emphasizes on the communal aspect of this urban area, which he describes as a ‘community’ where ‘’the mature system is a complex of economic and cultural practices, ideals, values, ethics and social

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family ties, community work projects, building and repairing of houses and agricultural production (Koentjarangrat 1982: 29). According to Sullivan (1986), inhabitants of the

kampongs function closely with their neighbors, where they share food, cash, clothing, tools etc. (ibid.:63). He furthermore emphasizes on the participatory aspects in the community, such as infrastructural improvements or cleanliness that requires continuous cooperation ‘’which reaffirms the interdependence of close neighbors and the general perception that the [kampong] itself is a communal organ’’ (ibid.: 78). In the Javanese tradition, the village and kampong, with a traditional, customary culture always had an image of a ‘’warm, supportive home community’’ on the inside, but with a ‘’parochial, closed, and slum-like’’ character from the outside (Newberry, 2007: 1301). Nevertheless, a kampong community cannot be seen as an egalitarian and homogeneous community. Instead, the area consists of a multiplicity of

interdependent social groups who are often held together by meaningful long-term relations (Newberry 2007; Sullivan 1992). Additionally, the public harmony within those neighborhoods are often a construction of state programs, instead of real communal cooperation and solidarity (Sullivan, 1992.:229). Spatially, the kampongs along the Winongo River differ significantly. In Kota, the settlements are very dense, and houses are built very close to each other and next to the river. In Bantul, the villages and kampongs are often more wide-spread, leaving much spaces between the houses and the rivers.

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FIGURE 6.EXAMPLE OF HOUSING IN BANTUL.MORE SPACE AND SEPARATE HOUSES ALONG THE RIVER. SOURCE:DICKY SETYAWAN WICAKSONO

Political

Besides the prescription of the kampong with a heterogeneous, but communal character, the kampong is also an administrative entity. The kampong has a long history of being viewed as an authentic Javanese village, being ‘’autonomous, egalitarian and cooperative’’ (Newberry, 2007: 1303). Under Dutch rule in 1912, the kampongs became identified as territorial-residential units with a more formal system that was deepened because of a growing population and population density (Sullivan 1986:67). Japanese rule subsequently introduced a new form of kampong government where the area was divided into small neighborhood blocks with its own chief, resulting in the still present RT2_/RW3_{group system that deals with social welfare,}

community infrastructure and economic problems (ibid.). In many kampongs, there is also an active housewives group, named the PKK4_{(The Family Welfare Movement). Whereas this group}

originally was established to provide small loans and trainings to support home industries like sewing to add some income to the household, the groups also participate in small governing processes in the village (Newberry, 2007). Nowadays, the RT and RW groups are often the most active groups in local community governance. They are responsible for the general welfare of the area, dealing with financial responsibilities, and remain contacts with higher government officials (ibid.). The (chief) leader of the village, is often a respected man –sometimes it is a woman- that has quite some influence in decision-making processes. In two of the kampongs I have visited for several times, this has led to some frictions between some local inhabitants and the, how they called it, the elitists. These two kampongs had similar cases, since the elitists would prioritize economic benefits above environmental conservation. This conflict will be further elaborated on in section 7.3.

2_{RT: Rukan tetangga, translated as harmonious neighbours} 3_{RW: Rukun warga, translated as harmonious citizens}

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5. Methodology

This chapter elaborates on the data collection methods and methodological considerations that were applied during the ten weeks of fieldwork in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

5.1 Unit of Analysis

The first unit of analysis is the current Indonesian governance structure in regard to water and waste. The IWRM framework and the waste management framework will be basis of this thesis, in which various actors operate. It focusses particularly on the local actors and local grassroots organizations that are active in the field of waste and water governance, reviewing their actual perspectives and practices within the objective of participatory management in the IWRM framework. Secondly, the study mainly focusses on the Winongo River in Yogyakarta, and its surrounding villages and kampongs.

5.2 Data Collection Methods

The aim of this study is to gain a better insight in the river and waste practices in the Winongo River in Yogyakarta Province, and how local actors operate in the existing governance models. To achieve this, the research has made use of four different qualitative research methods – qualitative in depth interviews, participants observation, focus groups and the collection and qualitative analysis of texts and documents. The variety of data collecting methods has led to a more nuanced understanding of the current perceptions, practices and interrelations of waste, pollution, river and management.

5.2.1 Interviews

Much of the data was collected by conducting twenty-three semi-structured in-depth interviews with several stakeholders. Twelve of the participants were members of grassroots

organizations, official institutions or leaders of the village. Eleven participants were local inhabitants of the riverside areas, varying in geographical area, age, gender and religion. The method of semi-structured interviews allows new directions and questions to arise during the interview, thus supporting participants to come up with own narratives and perceptions. To minimize the inconvenience of the participants, I always traveled to the location of their choosing, which was often at their office, homes, or university. The interviews with the local inhabitants were often spontaneously and located at their own kampong.

The interviews with the respondents that were active in grassroots organizations and official institutions revealed insights of their perceptions, goals, tools and methods in relation to water and waste, and brought clearance about current policies and relations with society and

government. The interviews with local inhabitants of the riverside area were more focused on their river and waste behavior, the connection they felt with the community, their feelings towards these aspects and of which programs they were aware off.

5.2.2 Focus groups

According to Liamputtong (2011: 4), the interaction that is present during focus group interviews is an unique feature that distinguishes this method from individual in-depth interviews. This research contains of two focus groups, where one was unfortunately prematurely cut-off due to another activity (see limitations). Nonetheless, the communal engagement of riverside inhabitants is a very important aspect within this research, and the shared experiences of multiple community members was very interesting to hear and observe. It is believed that focus group encourage participants to elaborate their point of view, and thereby directly responding on other’s answers and viewpoints. This can result in interesting

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conservations and data that had otherwise not being revealed. The first focus group had a duration of 25 minutes and was held with a group of young girls, varying in age from 14 to 25 years old. Due to the relaxing atmosphere in which they trusted each other, much information about their connection and issues with the river were shared. Everyday practices with and along the river were revealed, and gave understanding of the lost connection with the river. The second focus group had a duration of two hours, and was well prepared with snacks and tea. The housewives varied in age, but all knew each other from the village. Remarkable was that they, perhaps due to the relaxing vibe with snacks and tea and the cool evening breeze, opened up about their harmful waste practices, revealing how they still burn their trash (whereas they denied this earlier). Before the focus group started, I explained my function and purpose of the research, and asked for informed consent. All of the participants allowed me to record the interview on my phone.

5.2.3 Observations

In addition to the in-depth interviews and focus groups, observations were conducted in various river kampongs along the Winongo River in order to ‘’[…] record in as much detail as possible the behavior of participants with the aim of developing a narrative account of that behavior’’ (Bryman 2008: 257). Observations varied from attending several meetings with government officials, NGOs and community members, and walking around river kampongs to observe behavior. Observations enabled me to reveal practices and behavior, that have otherwise been unnoticed with just interviews or focus groups. I have seen various citizens contributing to river pollution themselves (throwing away their plastic), while they just claimed they were not to blame. Physically living in one of the kampongs for two weeks enabled me to get a much deeper understanding of community participation and relations, current waste practices and emotions and behavior among dwellers, that have otherwise been neglected in creating a narrative based on reality. However, observations can be biased and the researcher must be aware that short periods of time do give constraints in understanding social structures.

5.3.4 Qualitative analysis of texts and documents

Document analysis, such as newspapers, policy documents and other forms of media are important to get a broader understanding of the research are and its context. For this thesis, I have gathered various policy documents and news articles in regard with waste and river (management). These gave me a broader insight of the current debates, and allowed me to find new contacts for in the field. It has strengthened the credibility and transferability of the research, since the documents give voice and meaning around an assessment topic (Bowen, 2009).

5.4 Sampling

The key informants for the interviews were selected through purposive sampling. Bryman (2008: 485) illustrates that purposive sampling is recommended when the researcher makes use of in-depth interviews because this method enables him to select people that are relevant to the research question. In preparation of the fieldtrip, a list was made with possible contacts and grassroots organizations based on the research questions. This included around ten to twelve contacts, of which six of them were eventually relevant in the field. Once in Yogyakarta, more respondents were found through the method of snowball sampling. Snowball sampling is a method where the researcher makes use of the social contacts between individuals to recruit other participants that are relevant for the study (ibid.). The people involved in work around the Winongo River maintain close formal relations with each other since they organize occasional meetings and participate in different but interconnected Forums and what’s app groups. Snowball sampling was therefore relatively easy, and the participants were very willing

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to share their contacts, which resulted twelve interviews with respondents connected to institutions or organizations, and eleven respondents that were local river residents.

5.5 Limitations

The two general criteria of reliability and validity can be challenging within qualitative research. Therefore I make use of an alternative set of criteria proposed by Lincoln & Guba, and presented in Bryman (2008) that uses trustworthiness and authenticity to reflect on the used

methodology.

5.5.1 Trustworthiness

Credibility is the first sub-criterion in discussing trustworthiness, and assesses how close the research comes to reality. Various practices, such as transparency about the used research methods, triangulation and discussion of results of the in-depth interviews and observations with either my interpreter or research partner, ensure the credibility of this study. Nonetheless, certain activities did bring limitations within this research. Language barriers, which can result in different interpretations, even with the use of interpreters, can represent a distorted reality. This research includes a discourse analysis, in which language is very important. I have

conducted most of the Indonesian interviews with my research partner Dian, who is an anthropology bachelor student at the University of Gadjah Mada. While her English was

sufficient, I am aware that there have been some language barriers and mistakes in the process of translation and analyzation. Nonetheless, having a research partner also enabled me to discuss our findings and transcriptions, which then enhances the credibility. Furthermore, as a researcher it is important to be transparent about the findings. Due to bureaucratic practices, I have been unable to meet with government officials from the Municipal Office of Environment of Yogyakarta. This means I lack one direct perspective, which slightly influences the credibility of this research. However, as this research prime focus analyzes the management of local stakeholders and organizations, and the missing information is added with secondary data, I do not recall this an issue. Secondly, the extent to which the research can be replicated is called transferability. By applying thick description, and thus giving extensive context about the used methods, certain situations and events, and respondents backgrounds and practices, the findings of this research could hold again in the same context. However, the practices around waste and river management in the Winongo River are rapidly changing and developing. This also changes people’s mindsets and perspectives thus giving difficulties in replicating the exact research. Thirdly, dependability refers to the validation of the choices made during research, in which I must be transparent in how, why, and when I collected data. The transparency

document in the appendix enhances this criterion. Lastly, confirmability assesses objectivity. Qualitative research, however, is inevitably subject to subjective practices and beliefs. Reflexivity and transparency about this are therefore very important.

5.5.2 Authenticity

Authenticity relates to the wider social and political impact of the research (Bryman, 2008). The sub-criterion of fairness assesses if the research represent different viewpoints among members of the social setting, which was achieved by conducting 23 interviews with various stakeholders and actors. It therefore gives a thorough overview of the current practices that can be used by various stakeholders to improve or develop their policies or management. Secondly, ontological authenticity relates to the purpose of making the informants aware of their social position. By being completely transparent about my research purpose, and therefore aware of the social setting in which I observed and interviewed them, I gave the respondent agency to act within this setting. The focus group allowed space for the respondents for their own input and interpretation. Making agreements on presenting preliminary results of transcriptions of

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interviews also enabled respondents to play a bigger role in this research. This also refers to the third sub-criterion, educative authenticity, where my research did have some influence about some of the respondent’s environmental perspectives. Nonetheless, I always tried not to push my own environmental ideas up to them, as I wanted to remain my neutral position as a

researcher (even though it was hard sometimes when my respondents threw their trash on the ground or in the river right in front of me). Only after I established friendships with some of the villagers, I was able to motivate them to take up some more sustainable ideas within their tourism planning, such as making compost bins and art from plastic – thus empowering members to take steps necessary for engaging in action, referring to catalytic/tactical authenticity.

5.6 Ethical considerations

Within social science, ethical considerations play an important role. First of all, the researcher must ensure that actors voluntary participate in the research. When conducting interviews, I always informed the respondents about the research purpose and explained them about the concerns of anonymity. Perhaps because the topic of my research does not entail a lot of sensitive feelings, but all of my respondents (except for one) agreed on the use of their real name and name of the organization they worked for in this study. During multiple river walks, I have observed various people and their practices, whilst they were not aware of the research. Therefore, I will ensure their anonymity in this thesis. A researcher should furthermore consider the relations of trust that she is building with her respondents, thereby being

transparent about her research purpose and position. Due to unequal power relations that are often visibly exposed in developing countries between respondents and researchers, being clear about reciprocity is highly important. During the fieldwork, a few situations occurred where relationships were uneasy, as respondents asked explicitly for help or money. This made me aware of the unequal power dynamics as a Western researcher in a small and poor village in central Java.

5.7 Conceptual scheme

The conceptual scheme (see figure 7) shows the actors, theories and frameworks present in this study. This study adheres to the conceptualization of water governance in the Winongo River, defined as ‘’the practices or coordination and decision-making between different actors around contested water distributions’’ (Zwarteveen et al., 2017: 3). In this study, the main actors are the state, grassroots organizations and the river communities. The state imposes two governance frameworks – IWRM and waste framework – to create space for participation by river

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River communities only become active in these created spaces if the state provides an enabling environment, management tools and good institutional frameworks. Furthermore, the extent of participation gets influenced by political, economic and social factors. For example, the river inhabitants often live in economically vulnerable communities. This influences the capacity and willingness to participate in river management. Politically, the river communities indicated not to feel heard by the government, which also influences their participation. The gap between the state and the river communities is narrowed by the emergence of multiple environmental grassroots organizations. Their advocacy and education strengthened the position for river communities, and enabled the state to get a better understanding of river issues on the lower level. The dashed line on the right indicates the inherently political unequal power relationships on various levels between the state and river communities, in which the interests of some groups get prioritized over others, or where some policies have better outcomes for one group, and negative outcomes for other groups.

5.8 Data analysis

Qualitative data analysis is the process of examining data to give an understanding of the research objective by revealing themes and patterns. The collected data was analyzed using three main themes: waste, river and participation. These topics were aligned to the research questions and correspond with the theoretical framework discussed in chapter 2. The three main themes were further categorized into several sub-themes through coding. For example, the concept of waste was used to guide the data collection, after which I further classified the topics such as waste practices (burning, disposal), waste challenges, and waste perceptions. Coding and repeating extensive analyzation of data also revealed other big themes, such as community and urban development, which turned out to be highly interrelated with river and waste management.

FIGURE 7. CONCEPTUAL SCHEME (SOURCE:AUTHOR’S ELABORATION)

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The following chapters present and analyze the findings of the fieldwork that was conducted in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Chapter 6 discusses the governance frameworks of water and waste in the context of Indonesia and Yogyakarta, and analyzes the current government practices. Chapter 7 performs a discourse analysis on the current waste and river management issues and practices among river kampong inhabitants, and shows a new discourse which puts

environmental developments within the current neo-liberal structure. Chapter 8 discusses the environmental grassroots organizations, as they play an important role as bridging actors between society and government. Chapter 9 analyzes the empirical chapters, integrating the collected data with the theories introduced in the theoretical framework, as well as practical and policy recommendations for in the field. The last chapter will provide a discussion and conclusion, as well as further academic recommendations.

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6. Governance

This chapter discusses Indonesia’s government system. First, it will shortly discuss Indonesia’s government shift. This will clarify the developments in both water governance and waste governance, as decentralization and democratic laws have been widely implemented in various sectors. Furthermore, this chapter elaborates on the connection of water and waste, because the problem of river pollution partly arises from a bad implementation and integration of these (former) governance systems.

6.1 Indonesian politics

Indonesia has a long history of a strong and centralized governance. In the political years of Suharto’s presidency from 1968 until 1998, the country was led by a pro-government party with high bureaucratic and military interests (Beard, 2005: 22). This vertical bureaucratic structure limited space for a participating civil society to participate in political and social processes (Sullivan, 1992; Anderson, 2001). After the fall of President Suharto in 1998, Indonesia adopted many social reforms, a period named as the reformasi. In 2001, Indonesia implemented national decentralization laws that led to significant changes within its policies. With Law 22/1999 authority was given to lower levels of government, which weakened the dominating position of central government over local regions, districts and municipalities (Beard, 2004: 23). Law 25/1999 transferred financial resources to the lower levels of government, thus changing the fiscal relationship (ibid.). These laws led to a more marked-based economic system, and furthermore gave responsibilities to local government ‘’in areas such as health, education, public works, environment, communication, transport, agriculture, and infrastructure services’’ (Nasution, 2017: 1). However, many scholars (Nasution 2016; Anderson 2001; Beard 2004; Hadiz & Robinson 2013) argue that Indonesia’s decentralization is far from perfect in its implementation. Technical capabilities are insufficient, there are unstable presidential and military systems, and decision-making are bureaucratic and long procedures (ibid.). Hadiz and Robinson (2013) consider Indonesia still to be an authoritarian-capitalist state governed by a capitalist class, without real inclusion of civil society. The critiques on Indonesia’s current government system will later be integrated with the insufficiencies within the water governance framework.

6.2 Water Governance

The political shift from a former centralized state to a decentralized state also had influence on water governance, a resource under great pressure due to population growth, urbanization, and industrial growth (Fulazzaky, 2014: 2001). In the early 1990s, Indonesia slowly shifted towards a new water framework with more focus on the utilization of water resources, instead of mere development practices (ADB, 2016). In 2000, the country adopted the Integrated Water

Resources Management’ (IWRM) framework in the context of river basins. This framework was internationally introduced and formally conceptualized in Dublin in the early 1990s, and is defined by the Global Water Partnership (GWP) as

‘’a process, which promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources, in order to maximize the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems’’ (GWP/TAC, 2000).

Care for the common good : local inclusion within the Integrated Water Resource Management framework in the Winongo River in Yogyakarta