The foodscape of the urban poor in Jakarta: street food affordances, sharing networks, and individual trajectories

In Jakarta’s poor kampungs, out-of-home purchase of ready-to-eat products from street vendors, the lack of home cooking and public eating produce a foodscape where the boundaries between the home and the public space seem blurred. The aim of this paper is to define those boundaries in accordance with the cultural, social and economic context by analyzing how street food practices shape and produce the space. Following an ethnographic and qualitative approach, and a representative quantitative survey we described and measured individual and collective food practices in relationship with the uses and perceptions of space. The study shows that eating practices in the kampung depend mainly on street foods as home-cooking practices decrease. But still, the dynamic spatial display of the food system and the communalization of the public areas generate sharing networks that go beyond the household toward the community formed by eaters, street vendors, neighbors and family. The preference for traditional cuisine and the familiar environment of the vicinity in which this food model is rooted enlarge the concept of “homemade” and redefine the roles and dimensions of “out-of-home” food practices.