Stopping the habit of killing rivers, the Struggle of the Karang Mumus River Lovers Community to Build River Friendly Cultural Practices in Samarinda, East Kalimantan Province, Indonesia

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Karang Mumus River is a very serious irony for the city of Samarinda, Indonesia. The river is the main source of drinking water and at the same time a giant garbage bin for the city's residents. The GMSS SKM (Gerakan Memungut Sehelai Sampah Sungai Karang Mumus/Karang Mumus River Garbage Movement), is a community that is trying to save it, by cleaning the river from garbage, educating residents by establishing the Karang Mumus River School and planting trees upstream along the riverbank. Social media accounts became important social capital in the beginning, were used for socialization and succeeded in mobilizing thousands of citizens from various circles. The movement became popular, many parties contributed assistance. But the phenomenal movement began to shrink greatly in the last two years, and was abandoned by some of its intellectual figures. This article analyzes how hard the GKM SS struggle to build river-friendly cultural practices in Samarinda. Bourdieu's concept of practice, field, habitus and modals; used to analyze how the strategy and struggle of the GKM SS saved this river. GKM SS has succeeded in collecting and converting various capitals to educate and mobilize the city's residents at the moment, but failed to make it a new habitus for them. They failed to build a suitable cultural capital that could be used to approach and mobilize the closest residents. On various occasions, this community activities seem alien and distant to the stakeholders of this river.