Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA)
1 primary work
Book 18
"The Wheel of Fortune" describes the rapid and traumatic change experienced by a small community of kampung dwellers living in the centre of Jakarta. Between the 1930s and the 1980s, a market garden on the edge of Batavia was transformed into a shanty town, and finally into multi-storey flats. The book tells of the changes affecting the lives of this self-contained community, and how the kampung dwellers found themselves caught in a vacuum: having lost a community and gained no access to the modern city. Students of urban anthropology, development studies and Asian studies will welcome this book for providing many insights into the plight of the urban poor in the Third World.