Commerce, piety and politics: Indonesian young Muslim women’s groups as religious influencers

Abstract

The article discusses the indiscernibility of social-media-based young Muslim women’s groups’ (YMWGs) transformative roles in socio-political analysis, standing in contrast to the groups’ visibility in Indonesian young women’s everyday lives. How does the (in)visibility of the YMWGs reconfigure the (political) subjectivity of Muslim womanhood? How should we understand the influence of this form of ‘women’s movement’ in the re-invention of Muslim identity? This article proposes the notion of ‘social media religious influencer’ to understand the groups’ conflation of religious, political and commercial elements in their online and offline representations and their encouragement to their followers to do self-transformation. The article demonstrates how, although such creative conflation challenges prevailing ideas about young Muslim women, it requires the young women to remain and take part in the prevailing gender regime by maintaining female conformity.

Interpretasi Hadis tentang Penciptaan Perempuan dari Tulang Rusuk Laki-Laki dan Kesetaraan Gender Menurut M. Fethullah Gulen

“…Ini memberikan pekerjaan yang lebih berat kepada pria dan membuatnya bertanggung jawab atas pemeliharaan keluarga (Sidani et al, 2017). Mereka menyerahkan pekerjaan mengurus rumah tangga dan mengasuh dan mendidik anak-anak kepada perempuan, pekerjaan yang paling penting dalam tugas membangun masyarakat yang sehat dan sejahtera (Beta, 2019).…”

Frömmigkeit, Fashion und Business: Positionen ethisch/ästhetischer Weiblichkeit in muslimischen Lifestyle-Vlogs

“…Eine Sonderform stellt die Figur der religiösen Influencer_in dar (vgl. Beta 2019 , S. 2146): Dabei handelt es sich um Produzent_innen, die kommerzielle Interessen mit religiösen Appellen an ihr Publikum kombinieren, indem sie etwa bestimmte Konsumpraktiken und -produkte als ethisch und der Realisierung moralischer Subjektivität zuträglich bewerben.…”

“…Entsprechend lässt sie sich als religiöse Influencerin charakterisieren (vgl. Beta 2019 , S. 2143). So spricht Nataya Empfehlungen für religiöse Literatur und Internet-Quellen aus (Abb.…”

Pushing boundaries and blurring categories in digital media and religion research

“…There is a need for more scholarship on contexts outside of North America, Europe and Australia, as well as original theorization of media and religion grounded in the specific cultural and political contexts. Relevant work on media and religion has been done in contexts such as the Middle East and North Africa (Echchaibi, 2009), Ghana (Asamoah-Gyadu, 2013), South Africa (Khanyile, 2017), Indonesia (Nisa, 2018;Jones, 2010;and Beta, 2019), Brazil (Cunha, 2004), India (Thomas, 2008) and South Korea (Park, 2016and Kim, 2017. While this work is a productive start, big picture theorization on the relationship between media and religion needs to build on critical theory within decolonial contexts.…”

“…At the same time, digital media provide opportunities for new authorities to emerge, as they may be more efficient at using new technologies than established religious leaders. For instance, young Muslim women gain authority as they effectively engage with social media spaces and Islamic fashion to spread information about religious piety and modesty (Peterson, ; Beta, ).…”