The ambiguous identity of Lumban Bulbul

Abstract

Lumban Bulbul Beach, located on the bank of Lake Toba, the North part of Balige City has transformed rapidly in the last 5 years from qualitative to quantitative values. The space of village for daily life with the use-value of living focused on family and agriculture and livestock, today has become commercial activities space with exchanged value. The government of Toba Samosir District intervenes the beach construction to show the progress of development. For decades, community planted bamboo along the beach as wind defenses and maintains fish life and farming, but today transformed into the recreational beach with food and beverages stalls of the community. The local wisdom is ignored and exploited for commercial purposes. The orientations of the houses gradually turn towards the beach for serving modern recreational life. The dualism of life occurs in the area is creating ambiguity, one side as the local community's daily life, and the other side to gain profit. The research conducted by quantitative method with the observation of space, activity, users, find the ambiguity of the house along the beach, between daily life space with use-value of the community for several generations, and modern commercial space along the beach with exchange-value.