The emergency will last a long time: hyperabjection, slow violence, and the enduring politics of waste in Indonesia

Key findings from this study

• The authors argue that Indonesia's waste emergency reflects systemic socio-spatial inequality perpetuated through dominant ontological framings that obscure environmental injustice.
• The study demonstrates that waste management in Yogyakarta exemplifies slow violence, wherein structural neglect produces enduring harm concentrated in peripheral sacrifice zones.
• The researchers propose that waste be reconceptualized as a socio-ecological crisis demanding systemic political transformation beyond technical disposal solutions.

Overview

The article examines Indonesia's waste management crisis in Yogyakarta through the lens of hyperabjection and slow violence, focusing on the closure of Piyungan landfill. The research reveals how urban centers externalize waste problems to peripheral zones where informal workers handle massive volumes with minimal protection. This pattern reflects systemic socio-spatial inequality and environmental injustice obscured by dominant ontological and ideological frameworks among local government, media, and social actors.

Methods and approach

The study employs conceptual analysis drawing on Timothy Morton's hyperobject theory, Mikkel Krause Frantze and Jens Bjering's reconceptualization as hyperabjection, and Rob Nixon's framework of slow violence. The authors analyze how the 'garbage emergency' framing in Yogyakarta both emerges from and perpetuates structural conditions of neglect and disavowal. The approach traces the spatial and political dimensions of waste management practices and their differential impacts on peripheral communities.

Results

The authors demonstrate that Yogyakarta's waste management system concentrates both physical waste and social vulnerability in suburban sacrifice zones. The 'garbage emergency' designation obscures deeper systemic inequalities rather than addressing them. This framing reflects and reinforces neglect through dominant ideological structures that shape how local actors understand and respond to waste. The closure of Piyungan landfill exemplifies how disposal-focused approaches fail to contest underlying conditions producing hyperabjection.

Implications

Reconceptualizing waste as a socio-ecological crisis rather than a discrete disposal problem demands fundamental shifts in how policymakers and researchers approach urban environmental management. Techno-bureaucratic solutions alone cannot resolve structural inequalities embedded in waste systems. Recognition of hyperabjection illuminates how peripheral communities absorb the consequences of externalized waste while remaining absent from governance frameworks.

Scope and limitations

This summary is based on the study abstract and available metadata. It does not include a full analysis of the complete paper, supplementary materials, or underlying datasets unless explicitly stated. Findings should be interpreted in the context of the original publication.