Learned Helplessness, Arsitektur Trauma, dan Penolakan Relokasi: Studi Kasus Permukiman Pinggir Rel Tanah Abang, Jakarta

Abstract

Since the 1960s, extremely poor communities have inhabited informal settlements along urban railway tracks, lacking proper sanitation and living under the constant threat of eviction. This reality raises a paradox, namely why residents adamantly refuse relocation to public housing (Rusun) and appear resigned to the trap of extreme poverty. This attitude is often misunderstood as legal defiance, when in fact residents are caught in deeply rooted structural repression. This qualitative case study combines library research with fieldwork through participant observation and in-depth interviews conducted at night, involving the local RT (neighborhood) head and a 66-year-old woman who has lived in the area for more than six decades; the data were analyzed thematically. The study reveals three findings. First, eviction trauma manifests as a trauma architecture, in which homes are built without nails so they can be easily dismantled and reassembled. Second, residents reject public housing to avoid the cognitive burden of monthly rent obligations that far exceed their income. Third, residents' fatalism culminates in a reproductive tragedy, in which a mother surrendered her twelfth newborn due to unaffordable delivery costs. Rent-based relocation merely displaces residents' suffering into concrete buildings; public policy must shift toward structural interventions that address both economic vulnerability and residents' trauma proportionately.

Keywords: learned helplessness; trauma architecture; marginal settlements; cognitive load; urban planning.