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Surabaya Kampung and Distorted Communication
- Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Volume 25, Number 2, October 2010
- pp. 213-233
- Article
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In 2002, kampung communities on the Kali Wonokromo riverbank were forcibly evicted and their kampungs cleared on the declared grounds of flood mitigation. The clearance, however, coincided with a programme of re-imagining the city as a green and waterfront global city. These events led other riverbank kampungs into a new (and "un-Indonesian") form of coalition of resistance which, moreover, adopted its own strategies of re-imagining. There was, in effect, a "distortion" of communication on both sides of the conflict. The subsequent events have thrown some light on aspects of Jürgen Habermas's notions of manipulation and distorted communication.