Assembling Nusantara

Nusantara is confirmed as the new capital of Indonesia. The government plans to inaugurate the national capital in East Kalimantan in 2024. Currently, the establishment progress phase focuses on the preparation for the new city to be a readily liveable place. With the relocation, there are groups of people who will move to Nusantara, once this national capital is inaugurated. There are significant numbers of civil servants currently working and living in Jakarta and surrounding areas. A possible issue that raises concerns is culture shock among these groups of people who were forcibly relocated due to their status and duties as government officials. Many studies show that most plans of relocating or moving the national capital occur in several countries, including Indonesia, mostly focused on aspects of physical development planning such as infrastructure and urban design. There are yet sufficient studies discussing the impact of relocating the national capital on its human resources. These impacts in our opinion concern the quality or mental readiness of its human resources. This article examines the importance of managing culture shock that will arise because of the transfer or relocation of Indonesia’s national city to Nusantara, to prevent mental health problems. By using a literature study, the discussion about the potential for culture shock is descriptive. In conclusion, culture shock is something that can happen to civil servants who were transferred to Nusantara. It is important for that civil servants to prepare themselves before heading to Nusantara. Having as much as possible information about the lifestyle in Nusantara was suggested. During the adjustment phase, it's better for them also to deal with any emotions or frustrations that are present through journaling, movement, or talking with a friend/family or therapist if really needed.

The relocation of the capital city is nothing new. There have been many countries doing it in the past for various reasons that differ from one country to another. Indonesia is planning to relocate its capital city from Jakarta to Nusantara. This new capital city will be built with the city's best concepts. From the aspect of space and structure, Nusantara has shown clear goals regarding how it will be built. However, there is still an issue regarding the new capital city's identity. The slogan “A World City for All” echoes without explanation. In this globalization era, world cities look similar with no distinctive features. This paper tries to answer this identity problem related to spatial and structural aspects. The results show that Nusantara does not yet have a clear national or global identity which forms the basis of the physical development of the city. In this case, I suggest that cosmopolitanism is an ideal identity for Nusantara. While this identity is still in line with global developments, it maintains the characteristics of a city which lately tends to have something in common because of its desire to remain connected with the global world.

The background of the following dialogue with Tim Bunnell is my (Ivan Kurniawan Nasution’s) curiosity about his longstanding research and writing on futurity. His interest in cities and urban futures led him to examine Indonesia's new capital, Nusantara as an exercise in future-making. This included revisiting his work on Putrajaya—itself once presented as a model Southeast Asian city of the future—in ways that provide valuable learning points for this book on Assembling Nusantara. In a presentation on Nusantara, Tim Bunnell noted that for Indonesian elites and urban designers, Nusantara is loaded with imaginings of environmental possibility in being “designed according to nature”. The city is purported to have a restorative dimension in relation to already degrading sites and is ultimately presented as “The model for forest-inspired cities elsewhere in Indonesia.” At the same time, the project has attracted substantive environmental critique concerning potentially adverse transformation both in situ and in terms of wider spill over geographies. Both proponents and opponents of the projects have referenced other existing cities as points of persuasion or “truth spots” (Gieryn, Truth-spots: how places make people believe, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2018). In this conversation, Tim Bunnell considers the discursive politics of Nusantara and hopeful possibilities for the project in the face of the many red flags raised by the mode of its development and implementation.

The moving of Indonesia's capital city aims to maintain a balance in population and economic growth between the islands of Java and Outside Java. It is important to analyse the existence of local ethnicity in relation to the development of the new capital city (IKN), Nusantara, in the issue of ethnic identity, weak access to land resources, and their lack of involvement in developing the new capital. The novelty of this article positions the existence and participation of local ethnic identities amid the onslaught of new urbanites from various ethnicities in building a new capital city. The results of the research show that there has been the social exclusion of the local population over their customary lands as a result of the massive development of the mining industry and the conversion of agricultural land into oil palm plantations. And, the participation of the local population in the development of the Archipelago's IKN is still low because there is no involvement of the local population in consultations for making IKN policies. This paper aims to (1) reconstruct local ethnic identity and (2) involve their participation and open access to City Resources. This research is qualitative, with data taken from various IKN development plan documents, journals, and media coverage, as well as from in-depth interviews with relevant sources. Data analysis was carried out in an analytical descriptive manner.

Civil servants are expected to relocate to the new capital city (IKN) in 2024. However, little is known about what the public wants and expects from IKN development. We contend that a city that can accommodate citizen needs will entice people to visit and inhibit the city. This study attempted to gather citizen perspectives on an ideal capital city. We chose a photovoice method to express how citizens view abstract concepts used in IKN physically materialised in their daily reality, also their needs and hopes for the project. Participants are members of the general public looking for effective solutions to the problems they face in their daily lives as city dwellers. Data was gathered online and coded using the key terms of a “smart city” concept. This paper gathered insights from citizens about an ideal concept of a smart city. And the insights can be used to transform IKN into a smart and inclusive city from the everyday perspective of city dwellers. Policymakers can use the findings to develop one of IKN’s main principles: an inclusive city.

The development of the new national capital city (IKN), Nusantara, has faced and will confront multiple issues. Communication from the government to the public generated both positive and negative feedback, and some even became a hoax issues. To overcome and reduce potential conflicts, a communication plan is required to distribute information about the growth of the national capital to the public, one of which is based on the public's perspective. Laswell and Schramm's model became a reference for examining the government's communication with the public via online questionnaires. The communication indicators are then mapped and analyzed using the strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat (SWOT) framework. Communication strategies based on public viewpoints can aid in the process of obtaining community awareness, comprehension, and actual reactions to engage in the development of Nusantara, the national capital.

The Indonesian government considers that relocating the capital city can promote equitable distribution of growth and save Jakarta from the urban socio-ecological crisis. However, this optimism is challenged by various potential risks, paradoxes and other side effects looming behind the massive infrastructure development and expansion of the new capital city area. This study offers a critical insight into the potential for land and natural resource conflicts overshadowing the development of the new capital city (IKN). We use a qualitative approach and critical agrarian studies’ perspective to focus our analysis on identifying the various forces of exclusion (regulation, market, legitimacy, coercion) that work in the peri-urbanisation process of the development of IKN, as well as local community resistance. In this study, we seek to provide new insights into the dynamics and various socio-ecological issues overshadowing the IKN development as a basis for formulating alternative policies and plans sensitive to the socio-ecological context, dynamics and local aspirations.

East Kalimantan is an important tropical rainforest ecosystem area that functions as the lungs of the world. In reality, natural resource extraction has continued since the colonial era to the present and has caused both ecological and social crises with the death of 41 children in abandoned mining pits. The determination of East Kalimantan as the location of new capital has logical consequences for development that triggers an increase in natural resource extraction. This paper will answer how to read the policy of development of the a new capital called Nusantara (IKN) through the ecological and social crises in East Kalimantan. The socio-legal research method is used to examine policies with a social and legal approach. The results showed that the IKN development policy did not answer the problem of the ecological crisis faced by East Kalimantan, but instead create a new pattern of extraction that would worsen the ecological crisis. The decision to build a new capital shows the failure of policymakers  to read East Kalimantan as the heart of Borneo, and the reality of the continuous extraction of natural resources, as to the ecological crisis that occurs. The development of IKN will force sustainable extraction that makes local communities victims in the economic, social, and environmental aspects. What is needed is ecological restoration, not a new capital.

Constructed in the 1950s, Brazil’s planned capital city Brasília offers manifold insights and lessons. Predeceasing Nusantara’s construction by 66 years, the rationale was similar. From its beginning, the city was designed for geopolitical reasons, as a means for developing the periphery and as a symbolic departure into modernity. Oriented at European modernism, the city was planned and constructed in only 4 years according to the principles of the Athens Charter. The result was not only an impressive landmark of modernity but also a city without urbanity. Soon, satellite towns developed, characterised by informal dynamics and fragmentation. Today’s metropolitan region reflects Brazil’s society: fragmented and uneven. Based on decades of field research in Brasília this paper aims to provide insights into the city’s historical urban development from a geographic perspective and lessons learned. In doing so, it reveals drawbacks, achievements as well as (un)intended consequences of this centennial project.

We, Lilis Mulyani, Ivan Kurniawan Nasution, and Mochamad Felani Budi Hartanto, researchers from PRMB (Research Centre for Society and Culture) BRIN (National Research and Innovation Agency), approached Professor Mohammed Ali Berawi of the Nusantara Capital City Authority for a dialogue in his office at Mandiri Tower, Jakarta. About half a year ago, Prof. Berawi was inaugurated as the Deputy for Green and Digital Transformation. His bright track record in academia and various achievements has made him one of the World’s Top 2% Scientists, and he obtained a professorship at Universitas Indonesia at a young age. His expertise in civil engineering, especially value engineering, has delivered prestigious infrastructure projects, such as the Public Railways and Stormwater Infrastructure (PRASTI) Tunnel and a Sunda Strait bridge construction. This experience is considered crucial in assembling the new capital city, Nusantara. In this dialogue, Ali Berawi talks about various transformations in the Nusantara project that are crucial in overcoming the friction between aspirations and reality.

Several regions in Indonesia have strengths in maintaining their local culture and are characterised by strong religious influence, including West Sumatra, Yogyakarta, and Bali. These two aspects contribute to the region's distinctive characteristics—West Sumatra has Minang culture and Islam; Yogyakarta has Javanese culture and Islam; and Bali has Balinese culture and Hinduism. The three regions have similarities in emphasising a strong local culture while adapting to modern concepts such as super-hub, inclusive, safe, resilient, smart, and sustainable capital city development. In contrast, religious background adds heterogeneity in the three regions. Bali is important for its unique characteristics and can be an example of how a new region emerges while still protected by overlapping and inseparable customary and religious arrangements. Today, we can see how Bali revitalises its local culture to preserve the Balinese tradition and culture for the future. For this reason, we wish to discuss three things: first, what makes Bali a model for developing a new city? Second, how to develop strategies for a new sustainable city? And third, what lessons can be extrapolated from a small island with a cultural strength to strengthen social, cultural, and economic relations in a new capital city or Ibu Kota Negara (IKN) Nusantara in Kalimantan? Looking closely at the concept of Bali as a smart island, we hope to contribute ideas to the development of the nation's future capital city.

The new capital city of Indonesia (IKN) Nusantara, located in East Kalimantan, was declared a smart city. One of the important enablers in a smart city are smart people as users and innovators of smart technologies. For this purpose, the official new capital documents need to accommodate smart people governance. This study aimed to design smart people governance by applying the concept of knowledge management. Knowledge management has an advantage in managing information into knowledge, therefore very useful in developing smart people governance. The literature review method used in this study resulted in a knowledge management model, system, and contents that are aligned with the three IKN visions. The model designed is a combination of the Zack model (1996) and the Nonaka model (1991). A combination of electronics and the non-electronics system is proposed. The electronic systems involved the support of electronic devices, especially digital technology, whereas non-electronic systems utilised direct communication between individuals or groups, or traditional media. Meanwhile, the managed knowledge content was focused on ten smart technology competencies for smart people of the relocated capital inhabitants.

One Data Indonesia (SDI) is a government data management policy that aims to create quality data, which is easily accessible, and can be shared between Central and Regional Agencies. With the relocation of the Indonesian State Government Capital to the one Province of Kalimantan, the new National Capital (IKN) must be ready to synergize with the other government institutions of Indonesia. Through One Data Indonesia policy, all central government data can lead to the One Data Indonesia Portal as stated in Presidential Regulation no. 39 of 2019 concerning One Data Indonesian. This paper aimed to study the model of the data governance to support IKN in the One Data Indonesia Policy. The study used a descriptive qualitative approach with systematic literature review method. This study also discussed the data interoperability framework in the National One Data Policy. The results of this study are recommendations for the implementation of interoperability data governance in IKN based on the related Policy.

At the end of 2022, we, Prasetyo Adi Nugroho and Ade Angelia Yusniar Marbun, researchers from Pusat Riset Hukum (Research Center for Law) BRIN (National Research and Innovation Agency), contacted Rudy Soeprihadi Prawiradinata from the Indonesian Ministry of National Development Planning (PPN/BAPPENAS) for a dialogue in his office. In our past project on the new capital city (Buana et al. Buana MS, Listiningrum P, Nugroho PA, Marbun AAY (2022) The Nusantara capital city project: why development and human rights do not always mix. The J Law Dev Rev 16(1):1–22. 10.1515/ldr-2022-0063), we engaged BAPPENAS in focus group discussions (FGDs) and an in-depth interview to see the relocation as not just infrastructural relocation but entangled with the human rights and the livelihoods of the local indigenous people. This time, we are keen to explore how Nusantara planning is responding to the context. We wanted to clarify that with Pak (Mr) Rudy. However, in February 2023, Pak Rudy retired from Acting Deputy for Facilities and Infrastructure. Our request was forwarded to Ibu (Ms) Tri Dewi Virgiyanti, the Director of Housing and Residential Areas, to continue the dialogue process. Her expertise in Environmental Management and Development, particularly in planning, policymaking, budgeting, programme coordination, monitoring, and evaluation of housing programmes and national residential areas, would be valuable for this book chapter. Her experience is crucial in planning the new capital city, Nusantara. In this dialogue, Ibu Tri Dewi Virgiyanti responded to the key questions we asked in writing. Her responses focus on the Master Plan of Nusantara and its implementation in response to the surrounding world of the diversity of religious and cultural characteristics in Indonesia.

In the year 2045, Nusantara will become a modern city. The landmark of the city is the President of Indonesia’s office, picturing a huge national symbolic bird of Garuda embracing exquisitely designed buildings.