Research on Humans and Nature in Indonesia (2019-2024)
Efforts to deal with environmental problems need not only technology but has to also consider how various stakeholders interpret ‘the world’ in various ways and have different interests. The Humans and Nature (HaN) research project seeks to explore how humans envision and tend to treat nature. This quantitative research has been carried out in various parts of the world, namely in Canada (2006), Europe (2011), and Vietnam (2018).
Starting in 2019, a Human and Nature research team is formed in Indonesia, consisting of researchers from Radboud University, Nijmegen, Center for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies (CRCS) at the Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), and the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (a consortium of UGM, Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University, and Duta Wacana Christian University). The research team is Frans Wijsen (Radboud University), Zainal Abidin Bagir (UGM, ICRS), Any Marsiyanti (ICRS), Samsul Maarif (CRCS, UGM) and Muhamad Yusuf (Faculty of Cultural Sciences, UGM), with ten local researchers in ten cities in Indonesia.
The researchers adjusted the original HaN scale, which is divided into four categories (humans as masters over nature, stewards of nature, partners with nature, or as participants in nature.), to the Indonesian context and added some open-ended questions. Preparations for the research started in 2019, and materialised early 2022 with a workshop attended by all the researchers in Yogyakarta. In the months that followed up to the end of August 2022, the researchers managed to get 1150 questionnaire informants, and more than 100 respondents for the more in-depth interview, in Aceh, Jambi, Samarinda, Kupang, Denpasar, Surabaya, Semarang, Yogyakarta, Bandung, and Jakarta. Based on the results of the pilot study (2020), the team of researchers published an article entitled "Humans and Nature: Does religion make a difference in Indonesia?" (Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 2023). More publications are planned after the ongoing, full analysis of the data is completed.
The research was presented in several places:
- On October 19, 2022, the provisional results of this research was presented at WINNER (Week of Indonesia-Netherlands Education and Research).
- The team also presented the research result at the “BANDUNG-BELGRADE-HAVANA” conference (November 7-13, 2022). Meanwhile,
- On March 1, 2024, Frans WIjsen presented the research at PPIM UIN Seminar Series "Humans, Nature, and God in Indonesia: Does Religion Matter?"
ICRS and CRCS expect that the research instrument that was designed specifically for Indonesia, as well as the data, will be utilized for further research in different areas of Indonesia. They welcome researchers to participate in the ongoing research and base their PhD dissertations or M.A. theses on it.