Cultural Pathology and Social Resilience of Urban Communities: Reading the Fate of Street Female Artists

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-513-3_18How to use a DOI?

Keywords

cultural pathology; social resilience; street women artists; urban society; cultural sociology

Abstract

The phenomenon of female street artists in Indonesia’s big cities represents a paradox between freedom of expression and social degradation. On the one hand, urban public spaces seem to offer an arena of openness for creativity and cultural expression; On the other hand, it is also a site of structural inequality, moral stigma, and symbolic violence experienced by cultural actors who are in the marginalized layer. This article explores the phenomenon by applying the concept of cultural pathology, which refers to a social condition where urban value systems fail to uphold moral cohesion and social unity. Additionally, it examines the social resilience demonstrated through the survival tactics and cultural resistance employed by women street artists. With a qualitative-ethnographic approach, this study explores the experiences of women street artists in urban spaces as a form of articulation between structural poverty, gender exclusion, and urban symbolic economy. The findings of the study suggest that in the midst of the pathologies of urban culture that normalize exclusion, women street artists practice forms of social resilience through informal solidarity, performative transformation, and the creation of new meanings about space, bodies, and dignity. Thus, this article expands the understanding of urban marginality and cultural resilience in the context of Southeast Asian cities that continue to experience tensions between modernity and humanity.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Didik Sukriono
AU  - Andhika Yudha Pratama
AU  - Dini Putri Ratna Meritasari
AU  - Renita Dwi Setiyaningsih
AU  - Ade Rio Pratama
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/23
TI  - Cultural Pathology and Social Resilience of Urban Communities: Reading the Fate of Street Female Artists
BT  - Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Humanities and Social Science (ICHSS 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 195
EP  - 208
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-513-3_18
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-513-3_18
ID  - Sukriono2025
ER  -