River as collaboration hub: how does praxis-based communication build collective agency for environmental movement?

The increasing complexity of environmental issues today requires highly adaptive and contextual adaptation and mitigation strategies. A transformative approach to environmental communication is urgently needed to build community resilience. This study examines how praxis-based communication nurtures collective agency in the Tukad Bindu Community environmental movement in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. Employing a qualitative case study approach, this research analyzed the transformation of a polluted urban river corridor into an eco-cultural learning site through collective community governance. Drawing on Freire’s concept of praxis and Harris’s DNA framework, this study explores how dialogic communication and multistakeholder collaboration activate diversity, networks, and agency to enable community-led environmental governance. The findings reveal that the community’s capacity to narrate change, encourage participation, and incorporate spirituality into everyday practices is as vital as ecological restoration. The movement’s equity-oriented interpretation of Tri Hita Karana underpins a hybrid governance model that aligns customary, governmental, academic, and civil society actors toward socioecological resilience. This case illustrates how culturally grounded participatory environmental communication can generate collective agency and serve as a paradigm for community-based ecological stewardship in the Global South.