The Role of Islam and Christianity in Public Space. Perspectives from Indonesia and Germany

This paper aims to explore how academia can engage with the everyday interreligious and ecological practices of local communities. These practices are intended to tackle the structural causes of religious discrimination and environmental degradation, such as inadequate regulations on extractive development, industrial pollution, and market-driven consumerism. Engaging with existing studies on everyday religious environmentalism, and relying on firsthand and organizational experience from community-based participatory research conducted in Indonesia, this paper will 1) showcase the everyday critical religious environmental practices carried out by Muslim, Christian, and other religious community members, and 2) the challenges they encounter and the opportunities available to them when addressing structural practices of religious favoritism and ecologically harmful politics. In conclusion, this paper will argue that academia, particularly in the field of religious studies, is vital and can significantly contribute to promoting community involvement and structural reforms to create a resilient framework that supports interreligious and ecological justice.