Dr. Friederike Trotier
Assistant Professor in University of Passau (Germany) Critical Development Studies – Southeast Asia. She holds a PhD in Southeast Asian Studies and teaches and conducts research on urbanism, development and sport in Southeast Asia. She is the author of the monograph Nation, City, Arena: Sports Events, Nation Building and City Politics in Indonesia (2021, NIAS Press/NUS Press).
Email: Friederike.trotier@uni-passau.de
Tokyo, Paris and Los Angeles, all global cities with outstanding (sport) histories were appointed host cities for the Olympic Summer Games in 2020, 2024 and 2028 respectively. All three cities can already look back on milestone events of the Olympic Games. Overall, host cities usually fit into categories of mega, global or worlding cities. Having this in mind, the potential bid of Indonesia for the 2036 Games with its new capital Nusantara (Ibu Kota Nusantara, IKN) as host city stands out as unique. Even though at this point of time there are several candidates for 2036, the Indonesian case invites us to reflect on the interest of the largest Southeast Asian country in the Olympic Games and even more on the role of the host city of a sports mega-event. I will discuss the Indonesian hosting ambitions in the context of worlding practices, which entail speculative and future-oriented urban visions that bespeak political, economic and social ideas of a good future with the aim of being recognized in the world.
Compared to other world regions, Southeast Asia does not feature prominently in the Olympic Games. Nevertheless, sports events of different levels play an important role in the region, the Asian Games and the Southeast Asian Games in addition to the Olympic Games. Recently, Indonesia’s hosting of the 2018 Asian Games put the country on the sporting map and began to revive hosting ambitions of the 1960s when the archipelago state hosted the Asian Games and GANEFO as a challenge to the Olympic Games and international politics.
In 2019, the Indonesian President Joko Widodo (known as Jokowi) officially proposed to relocate the capital from Jakarta to Kalimantan. Although there are multiple reasons for moving the capital, the project of Ibu Kota Nusantara has been highly controversial due to the politization of the project, financial risks and the dangers of corruption, environmental degradation and neglect of indigenous rights. The bid for the 2036 Games followed a first but fruitless attempt of President Jokowi to make Jakarta host of the 2032 Games. During the Paris Olympics, an Indonesian delegation stressed the country’s hosting ambitions.
In the larger picture, putting forward a bid for a city-in-the-making can be described as worlding practice of speculative nature with different possible outcomes of success and failure. Successes could be based on the relative spacious freedom for (sporting) infrastructure compared to an already existing city. A city-in-process provides space – in the figurative as well as in the real sense – for urban experiment linking Olympic ideals with national and local needs and desires. In the history of the Olympic Games, the organizers have used the events to address urban development needs of the host cities in return for the extraordinary investment of resources, effort and time. These perceived needs were embedded in the existing urban spaces limiting the efforts for improvement to the given circumstances. Fewer existing structures in a city-in-process could thus mean a wider scope to follow ideas of sustainable, environmentally friendly and people-centered sports venues and other facilities. The cooperation with the IOC and the international attention as Olympic host city could increase the pressure on the government and organizers to follow high standards and transparency regulations.
In the Indonesian case, a grand design to make Nusantara a “sustainable, green and smart forest city” claims to spearhead urban (utopian) trends of eco-friendliness, resilience, green infrastructure, smart technology, high quality of life and social justice. The terminology certainly resonates with the Olympic Agenda 2020+5 with its emphasis on sustainable development, resilience, digitalization and solidarity and could be the base for a close cooperation between Indonesia and the IOC. To counter criticism, the Indonesian organizers could meet the new IOC requirement to use a maximum of existing and temporary venues with the argument that a new capital would need sports facilities for its citizens and different sports clubs. A convincing concept of a long-term use of the different venues in IKN and the province of East Kalimantan could become a competitive edge in the bidding process. The long life of several sports venues in Jakarta – the Bung Karno Stadium in particular – which had been built for the 1962 Asian Games and were renovated for the 2018 Asian Games could serve as reference point.
In spite of these opportunities, the Indonesian case also reveals the pitfalls of an Olympic host city in-the-making. As a worlding practice, the aspiration for the Olympic Games in Nusantara is highly speculative and unstable, which is even amplified by its situatedness in an already risky experiment of building a new capital. The risk of failure is most visible in the overtly ambitious master plan to make the city green, smart, livable and just at the same time. The pressure to have venues and facilities ready for the 2036 Games would increase the chances to fall short of the many targets. This links to the double financial burden of constructing IKN and covering the expenses for the Olympics Games at the same time. Olympic Games in Nusantara would certainly contribute to the new capital’s recognition in the world and would reflect urban aspirations, the highly speculative nature of IKN and the bidding, however, raises considerable doubts about Indonesia’s persuasive power with the IOC.
