Anxiety of North Penajam Paser’s Society towards the Capital City Relocation in Indonesia: Psychological Analysis

Abstract

This article scrutinizes the responses of people who lives in North Penajam Paser about the relocation of capital city. The relocation of the capital city of Indonesia from Jakarta to North Penajam Paser has been set in stone and will be followed by rapid socio-cultural changes. There is an issue that makes the majority of the Penajam community, especially around the Core Zone of Central Government, feel anxious because they concern about being marginalized and the threat of cultural erosion by the development of the national capital, such as cultural sites, so that it can trigger social conflict. This study asks: 1) What is the response of the North Penajam Paser people in relation to the relocation of national capital 2) Why relocating the capital city to East Kalimantan can trigger anxiety to the local people? These are some of the questions that are discussed in this study to gain a better understanding of how the North Penajam Paser people who lives around the state capital area respond to the problems in the discourse of relocating the state capital city.