One of the most impressive thing to do when it comes to doing a field study is that you get to know more about the field, meeting new people and getting their insights of how things work out for them. One of the people I was interviewing for my study let me know about this event in Jakarta, and I was very excited to check it out. The backgrounds of the participants are very interesting – they don’t just exclusively came from environmentalist background, but also actors that brought different issues. This shows that climate crisis could have a negative impact on many aspects of people’s live, not just the general and abstract idea we usually heard when people are campaigning against the earth’s destruction.
Sanggar Seroja came to this protest to represent the transgender community in Indonesia as one of the most affected community by climate crisis. They told me that on the event of natural disaster, they often face discrimination when getting help, as they are generally disliked by the disaster relief committee. They were losing their jobs as street musician when the rainy weather changes into monsoon, even sometimes they are being accused as the cause of those disaster, as it is considered sinful to be one of them. In this protest, they came to raise the awareness about how affected they are by climate change, stating in their brochure that ”The transgender community drowns first on the event of climate crisis”. I personally found it very touching, as it is not easy to live in a place where people don’t support them, yet they also felt the direct impact of climate crisis.
Well, my last week in Jakarta was spent on a more exciting note. I was invited to the National Day celebration for the Nordic Embassies in Jakarta. The Embassies have a joint celebration every year and I was lucky enough to be invited by my contacts. It was fun to see some parts of Sweden in Indonesia again.
Now I’m moving on to Bali to do the next part of my study. Very excited – not only is Bali very beautiful, peaceful and it would be amazing to live there for a month, but the dynamics of the environmental NGOs in Bali are something I am curious to learn more about.
To close this post off, have a look at all these food in a Padang Restaurant, one of the most famous traditional restaurant from Indonesia. They have a unique way of presenting their food, people who wants to try the food can open the foil and eat it. Would you try it, or have you tried it? Let me know!