“Dreaming the Cities beyond the Seas: Anggraeni and Partners Participating in The Blue Urban Conference 2023”
As the seven-year BlueUrban research project came to an end, the research consortium team organized a conference in Salemba to mark their project ends. The BlueUrban research project is a project consortium under the Leibniz Centre for Marine Tropical Research (ZMT), Artec Sustainability Centre, University of Bremen, and the School of Strategic and Global Studies Universitas Indonesia. It was led by Dr. Rapti Siriwardane de-Zoysa and Dr. Johannes Herbeck as its Principal Investigator and Co-Principal Investigator. As a way to strengthen the collaboration, the conference was held in the building of the Institute for Advancing Science, Technology, and Humanity (IASTH) at the Universitas Indonesia Salemba Campus on the 11th to 13th of September, 2023.
Funded by the German Science Foundation under its Special Priority Programme (SPP) “Regional Sea Level Change and Society”, the project aims to study the plural ways coastal cities manage rising sea levels. Specifically, the project analyzed the concept of “Blue Urbanism”, a concept propagated by urban planner Timothy Beatley (2014) to promote blue-green infrastructures to urbanize the coastal fronts. Looking at cases in Archipelagic Southeast Asia, the project examines speculative infrastructures and diverse coastal governance across five coastal cities, namely Metro Manila, Singapore, Jakarta, Semarang, and Pekalongan.
Anggraeni and Partners had the honor of being invited to the conference as participants in the event. Anggraeni and Partners was invited due to its socio-legal expertise and insights on coastal and marine governance through its growing Ocean and Climate Research Division under its Legal Lab Team. Representing Anggraeni and Partners were Legal Lab’s Senior Researcher in Business and Human Rights, Fildza Nabila Avianti, and Legal Lab’s Research Analyst in Coastal Governance, Muhammad Soufi Cahya Gemilang. Before joining the firm as a research analyst at the Legal Lab, Gemilang had a long, fruitful collaboration with the BlueUrban team and is currently working on scientific papers with BlueUrban’s PI and Co-PI.
Participating in the conference were researchers, artists, community organizers, policy planners, and business leaders working on coastal or marine issues. Researchers mostly come from respectable institutions and universities, such as the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Newcastle University, Ateneo de Manila University, the National University of Singapore, and the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), among others. Despite its scientific nature, the conference also invited participants and speakers from non-research backgrounds, such as the Village Head of Api-api, the Urban Poor Consortium of Jakarta, the Society of Floating Solutions of Singapore, the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, PT Polymindo Permata, and others.
The conference served as a space for diverse voices in coastal governance that were important for socio-legal studies. There are three main takeaways from the conference for socio-legal studies in Indonesia. First is the limit of culture and legal frameworks for coastal infrastructural innovations. Many innovators proposed to build floating infrastructures to adapt to the rising sea level. However, cultural experiences of living in grounded houses and the Indonesian agrarian law, which has not regulated marine tenure, still present as the biggest challenges in implementing floating infrastructure innovations.
Second, the question of how the current legal frameworks address climate justice. Currently, coastal communities in urban spaces are experiencing spatial pressures resulting from the enclosures formed to fortify coastal spaces, such as sea walls and land submergence. Currently, the Agrarian Law of 1962 has not covered the case for submerged lands, and the new.
Presidential Regulation No. 52 2022 only covers 25% of the sales value of taxable objects out of submerged lands only in the case of turning it into public assets. This presents a challenge for legal and policymakers to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, specifically Goals 11 and 14.
Lastly, the question of methodology for socio-legal studies. The conference participants’ diverse backgrounds brought novel ways to inquire about social issues surrounding the conference’s themes. From studying the organic way of reclaiming practices to conducting research using sounds, these new methodologies will be beneficial for socio-legal researchers in innovating new ways to study lived legal phenomena.
Beyond a venue for networking, Anggraeni and Partners’ attendance at the conference also served as a space for knowledge exchange. Anggraeni and Partners gained substantial knowledge through the conference to advance its socio-legal studies and, at the same time, disseminate its research through discussions during the presentations. Invited and actively participated in the conference, Anggraeni and Partners has proved itself to be a legal firm that is capable of delivering scientific-based analysis and deserves your trust.
For further information, please contact:
WWW.AP-LAWSOLUTION.COM
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S.F. Anggraeni
Managing Partner
Fildza Nabila Avianti
Senior Research Associate Ocean Maritime
Muhammad Soufi Cahya Gemilang
Research Analyst in Ocean-Maritime and Climate