Commuters’ Health Certificate as Social Control during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In Indonesia, a regulation on large-scale social restrictions (“Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar” or PSBB) restricted citizens’ activities in the cultural, social, and economic sectors. These large-scale social restrictions also impact Jakarta’s activities from the commuting communities of Central Java, the Yogyakarta Special Region, and East Java Provinces. As a result, these commuters have become accustomed to travelling back to their hometowns every Friday afternoon. On Sundays, they return to Jakarta and arrive in Jakarta on Monday mornings to go to work. This activity is often referred to as “Pulang Jumat Kembali Ahad” (PJKA) or Going Home Every Friday Evening and Returning on Sunday. This paper then aims to examine the experience of PJKA actors during the crisis from the lens of document theory. The function of a health certificate free of COVID-19 is examined similarly to the function of a passport as a condition for entering the country. A sheet of health certificate free of COVID-19 is a derivative of the presidential regulation and the minister of transportation regulation, impacting documentality characteristics.