Between joy, care, and risk in the sinking city: using photovoice to understand youth resilience in North Jakarta

Urban poor communities in North Jakarta, a rapidly sinking coastal area, negotiate environmental challenges and risks daily. Most residents in these kampungs are young people. Despite the direct experiences of youth with flooding, their perspectives are generally excluded by top-down interventions that aim to enhance their resilience. This produces a gap between residents’ lived realities and technocratic urban resilience frameworks. This study examines how resilience is understood and practiced in these settings through photovoice, which involves focus group discussions and narrative sharing with youth. Our research highlights the value of photovoice for capturing the ambiguities and messiness of lived experiences and performances of urban resilience and risk, with particular utility for researchers working with youth in vulnerable communities. Photovoice enabled us to explore how resilience is expressed through social ties, emotional responses, cultural practices, and a strong sense of place. Through visual storytelling and thematic analysis, our research expands understandings of youth resilience as an evolving, place-based concept that is embedded in everyday life. We call for more inclusive, place-based approaches to resilience that recognize how young people are already adapting, resisting, and shaping life at the edges of a sinking city.