Silenced Forest: Erasure of Non-Human Life in Government Discourse on IKN

Famala Eka Sanhadi Rahayu(1*), Muhammad Hasyim(2), Muhammad Bahri Arifin(3)


(1) Mulawarman University
(2) Hasanuddin University
(3) Mulawarman University
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract


The relocation of Indonesian capital city from Jakarta to East Kalimantan raises a controversy in which the government needs to spread information about IKN to avoid misunderstanding through their official website. The way the government depict IKN and how it is related to the environmental awareness is suitable to be investigated further. Therefore, the researchers aim to investigate how non-human entities are linguistically omitted or marginalized in official discourse about IKN. Utilizing ecolinguistics within an ecological discourse analysis (EDA) framework, the study analyzes 34 articles from the official IKN website, covering discourse  from 2019 to 2025.  Results reveal three  erasure categories—void, mask, and trace—that systematically obscure or marginalize the non-human life. Such linguistic strategies significantly influence public perception, reinforcing anthropocentric narratives and potentially weakening ecological consciousness. The findings highlight the necessity for more vivid ecological representations to foster genuine environmental sustainability


Keywords


erasure, non-human life, IKN, ecolinguistics

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