Antara Reproduksi dan Resistensi: Ondel-Ondel Sebagai Seni Pertunjukan Alternatif di Ruang Publik Jakarta

Abstract

In Jakarta’s public spaces, street ondel-ondel are often viewed dichotomously: as heirs to Betawi culture that need to be preserved or as disturbers of public order. This binary view obscures the complexity of ondel-ondel’s daily practices—subaltern actors who are caught in the tension between reproducing official cultural symbols and facing the spatial marginalization they experience. Previous studies have tended to overlook these dynamics, failing to capture how these marginalized actors use culture as a survival strategy. This study aims to analyze the phenomenon of ondel-ondel in the context of reproduction and resistance in the urban social space of Jakarta. Through a critical ethnographic approach, this study finds that these actors on the sidewalks of Jakarta maintain the symbolic forms of Betawi culture (through masks, rhythmic movements, and ngibing) while transforming their meaning as a strategy to entertain and earn a living. This survival practice serves a dual function: as a means of achieving moral legitimacy on the sidewalk and as a form of non-verbal resistance to structural exclusion. Theoretically, this study enriches Giddens’ structuration theory and Spivak’s concept of subalternity by showing how subaltern agency reproduces and transforms power structures through legitimacy and resistance in Jakarta’s urban social space.