Greening the curriculum: language, power, and decolonial ecocriticism in Indonesian literature classrooms

This qualitative multi-site case study investigates how ecocriticism can function as a decolonial framework for literature education in Indonesia by examining the relationships among language, discourse, power, and environmental knowledge. The study analyses curriculum documents, textbooks, teaching modules, literary texts, classroom observations, student assignments, reflective discussions, and interviews with 27 undergraduate students across three Indonesian universities. Data were analysed through an integration of reflexive thematic analysis and three-dimensional critical discourse analysis. The findings reveal that literature education continues to reproduce colonial epistemic hierarchies through the privileging of Western literary traditions, the marginalisation of Indigenous ecological philosophies, and policy frameworks that promote environmental education without providing clear guidance for decolonial literary pedagogy. At the same time, students actively develop counter-discursive practices by reinterpreting Indonesian literary texts through locally grounded ecological perspectives, questioning dominant academic and citation conventions, and establishing alternative learning communities. These practices demonstrate that decolonial ecological knowledge is already emerging within higher education despite institutional constraints. The study advances decolonial ecocritical scholarship by showing how discourse shapes the production and legitimacy of environmental knowledge and by positioning Indigenous ecological philosophies as analytical frameworks rather than cultural illustrations. Methodologically, it demonstrates the value of integrating reflexive thematic analysis with critical discourse analysis for examining curriculum, pedagogy, and educational policy. A circular conceptual model is proposed to explain how policy, institutional practice, and student agency interact in processes of decolonial curricular transformation.