The Heterogeneity of Islam in Indonesia: Transformations of Youth Identities in Yogyakarta

The aim of this project is to document and analyze the heterogeneity of discourses and practices of Islam in Indonesia. The increasing internal differentiation is empirically studied by focussing on the transformation of youth identities in the university town of Yogyakarta, which is a good barometer of political tensions in the country. In view of demographic trends the youth in this most populous Islamic country in the world constitutes a majority of the society. Moreover, the students of the renowned Gadjah Mada University, among whom field research was conducted, are the future elite of the country, who will shape the dynamics of the region’s social, political and religious development. They constitute therefore an important object of study in their own right.

This project analyses the patterns of recruitment, belonging and identification of students to organisations representing different strands of Islam in order to understand the pluralisation of religious discourses, representations and practices among the younger generation. Since the mid 1990s processes of transnationalisation constitute an increasingly new dimension of this plurality and affect its forms of public expression as symbols, goods, images and ideologies travel rapidly across the globe. New technology and media use also allow students to participate in cross-border political alliances around globalized conflicts and to transnationalize local ones. The more textual oriented youth organisations build up stronger ties to the Middle East and forge an anti-Western identity, the more contextual groups orient themselves towards western values and ideas while distancing themselves from Middle Eastern orthodoxy. Thus transnationalisation of Islam leads on local-level politics not to a homogenisation but to a greater differentiation as different strands selectively appropriate and mix a variety of transnational currents with local traditions. These hybrid mixes are also in tension with the nationalist designs of the state that seeks to mould religious identities through its policy of obligatory religious education and a citizenship regime that inscribes membership in clearly defined monolithic religious communities. Yet due to the liberalisation of the press, a global culture of consumption and lifestyles among the youth and commercialisation of Islam since the mid 1990s, not only have the assemblages of Islam on offer proliferated but the clear demarcations between these varieties is often blurred allowing individuals to recast and change identifications as well. Through the appropriation of discourses and practices represented as authentic Islamic, Javanese or Western, students negotiate their identities that are publicly expressed by membership in organisations, consumption and lifestyle and political affiliations. During this research partnership we empirically explored different configurations of Islamic modernities and their varied entanglements with local- and translocal-level politics as these play out in Southeast Asia.

Contacts:

Kontaktadresse im Norden:

Claudia Nef Saluz
Doktorandin Forschungsschwerpunkt Asien und Europa
c/o Ethnologisches Seminar
Andreasstrasse 15
CH-8050 Zürich
E-Mail: Claudia.Nef@access.uzh.ch

Kontaktadressen im Süden:

Dr. Aris Arif Mundayat
Pusat Studi Sosial Asia Tenggara
Universitas Gadjah Mada
Gedung PAU UGM, Lantai I
Jl. Teknika Utara, Sleman
D.I. Yogyakarta
E-Mail: risrif@yahoo.com.au