Activists’ heterodoxic beliefs in fostering urban environmental education in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

It has been widely recognized that environmental activists’ agency is shaped by their knowledge, childhood upbringing, exposure to environmental campaigns and projects. Deploying the sociological concept of “heterodoxy”, this study aims to explore young activists’ counter-beliefs against the dominant discourse of neoliberal urban development, which intrinsically motivated them to develop alternative environmental education for primary school students in Bandung City, Indonesia. By employing in-depth interviews that focus on significant life experiences, the present study reveals that activists’ nonconforming beliefs were formed through their childhood experiences with nature, their objections to today’s environmentally-unfriendly development, and the failure of formal education to foster children’s interest in the environment. From the activists’ point of view, the development of Bandung City in Indonesia has become more neoliberal, with less regard for environmental conservation.

KEYWORDS:

• Heterodoxic beliefs
• heterodoxy
• orthodoxy
• Bandung City
• young activists
• Sahabat Kota

Acknowledgement

I thank all reviewers who have provided constructive feedback and comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author received no grants for the process of writing this article.

Notes on contributors

Meredian Alam

Meredian Alam is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Universiti Brunei Darussalam. His research interests are on youth-based environmentalism in Southeast Asia, gender construction in family, global youthculture, politics of climate change in Southeast Asia, and the use of social media platforms