Part 1

• Between Islam Nusantara, Green Islam, and Pesantren Ekologi – responsive governance, religious ecology, and green-washing in Indonesia Patrick Keilbart Goethe University Frankfurt

  In 2024, Indonesia’s largest Islamic organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, accepted government offers to manage coal mining concessions, primarily to fund organizational programs, which sparked criticism regarding environmental impacts, lack of transparency, and religious green-washing but also concerning governance and policy making. The notion of “local wisdom” has entered debates in Indonesian academia and policy making, demanding the appreciation of local knowledge sources beyond reducing culture and tradition to folklore, mainly for touristic purposes. This creates ‘new geographies of imagination’ in the sense that local, cultural approaches and knowledge gain recognition and are involved in policy making processes in various fields, such as environmental conservation, disaster recovery, religious moderation, language teaching and education, and agriculture management. In this contribution, I reflect on current dynamics of integrating local ecological wisdom in political decision-making processes, focusing on Islamic ecological values, discourses, and strategies. Analyzing both government and pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) ecological policy, I argue that instead of integrating local knowledge in policy making, responsive governance in Indonesia rather substantiates an image of Green Islam that is not fully consistent with local realities.

• Tourism and Conservation: Negotiating Ecological Wisdom Sallatu Ashry University of Amsterdam

  As the profound impacts of climate change increasingly affect the livelihoods of coastal communities globally, particularly in Southeast Asia, it is essential to recognize the complex relationship between climate change and local perceptions, interactions, and engagements with the natural environment. This study, grounded in ethnographic research conducted in Wakatobi, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, delves into the processes through which ecological knowledge is constructed through everyday interactions with the marine environment by both local communities and diving industry stakeholders. This research posits that “ecological wisdom” should not be viewed as a static repository of knowledge but as a dynamic, lived experience continually negotiated and contested. It emerges from the intricate interplay of local livelihood practices, tourism development, and conservation initiatives. In Wakatobi, conceptions of marine health, resource utilization, and environmental stewardship arise at this nexus, highlighting how external economic pressures can distort indigenous understandings of nature and reshape human-sea relationships. The findings suggest that knowledge production is not synonymous with idealized portrayals of harmonious human-nature interactions. Instead, it is intrinsically linked to ongoing dialogues concerning marine resource governance and conservation strategies. This presentation aims to enrich the discourse on ecological policy and environmental transformations in Southeast Asia by providing nuanced ethnographic insights from Indonesia.

• Nusantara Philosophy as a Parasitic Imaginary of the Anthropocene Min Seong Kim Sanata Dharma University

  I begin with two claims regarding the contemporary moment in social theory and the humanities: (1) The positive valuation of ‘relationality’ (and similar notions) is the spontaneous ideology of the academia in the Anthropocene (understood here, following some posthumanists and decolonial pluriversalists, as signalling the end of the ‘world’ as imagined by Western-centric modernity); (2) Islands and archipelagos are the geographical correlates of that ideology (for, as Jacques Derrida remarked, ‘there are only islands’ after the demise of One World). What these conditions constitute is a propitious moment for Indonesian philosophers to ‘step onto the world stage’ and fulfil the dream that their Pancasilaist predecessors could not: to put Indonesian philosophy on the map of ‘respectable’ world philosophies. I argue, however, that Nusantara Philosophy—a discourse whose institutional/material condition of possibility is a philosophy faculty housed in a building that bears the name of a state ideologue best known for popularizing the idea of Pancasila as a national philosophy—faces the risk of becoming, firstly, the old state ideology/philosophy in new clothes, and secondly, a ‘parasitic imaginary’ of the Anthropocene. Parasitic, because its ‘charisma’ currently depends almost entirely on the broad contemporary popularity enjoyed by the terms and concepts Nusantara Philosophy mobilizes to present itself (‘relationality’, ‘entanglement’, etc.); imaginary, because it fails to release itself from an aspiration toward a sanitized, post-political wholeness, which can only be conceived by repressing or disavowing certain ‘intolerable’ realities, which may include Indonesia’s internal colonialism and anti-Papuan racism, the genealogy of ‘indigeneity’ in Indonesia, and anarchic and fugitive practices of the islandic Zomia. In short, the cost of putting Indonesian philosophy on the map of world philosophies via the institutionalization of Nusantara Philosophy is that of further advancing ‘apparatuses of capture’—one characterization of the state offered by Deleuze and Guattari—against the archipelago itself.

• The Moral Discourse Alongside The Deforestation in Indonesia Between 2014 and 2024 Abdul Rokhmat Sairah Sairah Universitas Gadjah Mada

  This study aims to reveal the moral discourse alongside the deforestation process in Indonesia between 2014 and 2024. Indonesia is one of the vital tropical rainforest regions for the sustainability of global vegetation. On the other hand, deforestation is inevitable in Indonesia. In 2025, forces major struck several regions in Indonesia, causing natural disasters like landslides and floods, suspected to be caused by deforestation and land conversion from forests to plantations. This process is inseparable from the behaviour of society and the policies of the Republic of Indonesia government. These behaviours and policies are certainly inseparable from the moral principles that underlie them. Understanding the moral principles behind human policies and behaviour in the deforestation process can help determine the future of human life, both in Indonesia specifically and in Southeast Asia in general. This study uses a discourse analysis approach and literature studies. Data were obtained from documents, including research reports, scientific journal articles, and textbooks relevant to the deforestation in Indonesia between 2014 and 2024, as well as moral views. The data obtained are interpreted qualitatively, coherently, synchronically-diachronically, inductively-deductively, through a strict logical framework. This research produces discursive arguments that underlie the deforestation process in Indonesia, including: developmentalism oriented towards development and economic growth versus eco-conservatism that prioritises sustainability and forest conservation. Eco-conservatism found in local ecological wisdom which is inherent in way of life of the indigenous peoples that construct Nusantara Philosophy.

Part 2

• Digital Ecocriticism in Indonesia: between Big Data, Ecological Wisdom, and Literature Arndt Graf Goethe University Frankfurt

  As Indonesia has more than 210 Million Internet users, with a smart phone penetration of more than 80 %, Big Data is a fast growing segment in Indonesia’s economy. Related approaches are increasingly also employed to better understand the connections between Big Data, Ecological Wisdom, and literary criticism. This emerging field of Digital Ecocriticism comprises for instance aspects such as Distant Reading in the field of ecological ethics, and archiving and analyzing of indigenous oral knowledge with the help of Big Data. Other aspects concern Climate Fiction (Cli-Fi) or Ecosophy, or the combination of narrative mapping (literary locations) with digital tools from human geography (such as GIS). In this contribution, I will compare responses generated by Artificial Intelligence with related academic research, as it is made available through projects from Digital Humanities, including the Malay Concordance Project (MCP) or the academic texts available via Garba Garuda.

• When Time is Heard: Acoustemology, Forest Worlds, and Epistemic Justice in Sumatra Alberta Prabarini Sokola Institute

  This study explores the ontology of space and time among the Indigenous Orang Rimba community in Jambi, Indonesia, through the lens of acoustemology. For the Orang Rimba, the rainforest soundscape is not merely a background, but a sensory marker that shapes non-linear temporality and constitutes a system of time. Using a participatory ethnographic methodology, this research documents how the sounds of nocturnal animals—such as the kelumbuoi bird, tekuyung dono, and ebut tebud—serve as the basis for ritual practices and the synchronization of daily activities, comparable to the role of the Owa Kelampiau’s calls in Dayak communities.
  Philosophically, this system represents a localized worldview that understands the ecosystem not as a commodity, but as an interdependent ontological network. This worldview distinguishes between Halom Nio (the tangible world) and Halom Dewo (the supernatural realm), as expressed in the customary proverb: “piado rimba, piado bungo; piado bungo, piado dewo” (no forest, no flowers; no flowers, no deities). However, the expansion of oil palm monoculture in Southeast Asia has created frontiers of existence that radically silence the forest soundscape and impose a linear, capitalist temporality. This disruption generates an ontological crisis: the loss of the Orang Rimba’s ability to “read” space, thereby undermining their relational economic practices.
  By adopting ecolistening as an ethical and participatory methodology, this study seeks to revalidate situated knowledge in order to restore disrupted eco-cultural connections. It argues that recognizing non-extractive economies and local sensory systems is not merely an act of cultural preservation, but a crucial intervention for epistemic justice and for the future of the planet amid the dominance of extractive monoculture logics.

• The afterlife of “sustainable art” in and from Southeast Asia Rath Amanda Goethe University of Frankfurt

  A side-phenomenon of critical curatorial, artistic and exhibitionary practices globally contains the dilemma of the environmental non-sustainability of so-called “sustainable art”. While ecology and the environment are key concepts that inform these practices, often the material left-behind of the artwork is being thrown away, posing question sof the relationship of performativity, matieriality and the ephemeral in these practices. Similarly, some of the key concepts contain aspects as “local knowledge”, agency of local communities etc., it occurs that travelling ideas and concept only temporarily have an impact on site. This contribution departs from perspectives and experiencess of Southeast Asian artists in these geopolitical, social, cultural, and local discursive scapes. In particular, I will discuss commissioned works, the question of the relationship of curatur, artist and the local community in which many such works were to be enacted. What is the “afterlife” of those travelling ideas, including their material dimensions?

Show Paper Abstracts

Abstract

Keywords

• Acoustemology
• Anthropocene
• Indigenous knowledge
• Indonesia
• Indonesia deforestation
• Nusantara philosophy
• archipelagic thinking
• big data
• conservation
• digital ecocriticism
• ecological relations
• ecological wisdom
• epistemic justice
• green Islam
• green-washing
• literature
• local wisdom
• moral discourse
• national philosophy
• post-foundational political thought
• responsive governance
• tourism