Activists’ heterodoxic beliefs in fostering urban environmental education in Indonesia

Abstract

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.