Bachelor thesis | South and Southeast Asian Studies (BA)
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In recent years Indonesia faced some challenges with regards to feminism and Islam. Islam and feminism are two terms which are assumed to be incompatible according to the Muslim community. Before...Show moreIn recent years Indonesia faced some challenges with regards to feminism and Islam. Islam and feminism are two terms which are assumed to be incompatible according to the Muslim community. Before the start of the Jokowi-era in 2014 the Indonesian feminist movement was gradually taking place and Indonesian Islam was modestly acquainted with feminism. This progressive spirit reached its peak with the implementation by the government of the 30% gender quota in 2004 with which women obtained more political involvement. This showed that the government aimed at empowering women and strived for more gender equality. Until recently a mildly progressive development with respect to women’s participation is still taking place. Several other organizations and institutions support the pro-feminist movement. Yet, as it is, the feminist progressive spirit has also known a certain backlash since 2014. In this thesis my research will show how the relation between Islam and feminism in Indonesia has changed during the last 5 years and consequently what challenges the Indonesian religious feminist movement is facing. I will focus on the recent events, struggles and the coinciding ongoing debates. Firstly, I will focus on the by government implemented gender quota system and its pitfalls. Secondly, I will briefly discuss the various organizations and institutions that contribute to Indonesian feminist movement and are linked to the recent KUPI-congress which provides us information about the specific Indonesian ‘religious’ feminist movement. Thirdly, I will cover the debate about the Elimination of the Sexual Violence Bill which gives us insights in what the pro-feminist spirit and the anti-feminist wave have to contend with. Finally, I will discuss the Islamic sources and the contextual interpretation of the scriptures that dictate how Indonesian women should dress in the public sphere and act in in the political arena. These different aspects of my research will answer the question: “How has the relation between Islam and feminism changed since the start of the Jokowi-era in 2014?” Show less
In this thesis I will research how young Indonesians express their identities or how they create new identities in the period from the 1990s until today and I will examine this through forms of...Show moreIn this thesis I will research how young Indonesians express their identities or how they create new identities in the period from the 1990s until today and I will examine this through forms of Indonesian popular music. Popular music is an important site of cultural struggle and can reveal much about class, gender and other social divisions. That is why I want to zoom in on these social divisions by dividing them in class, religion and gender, to see how each of them relates to popular music and identity formation. I choose to focus on class, religion and gender because these have undergone drastic and interesting transformations during the period I want to examine, allowing people to reconsider their place or someone else’s in the social ladder, as a religious person or as a woman or man in society. Popular music and the way people consume it can reveal a lot about people’s thoughts and conceptions on class, religion and gender in contemporary Indonesia. The period from the 1990s until the present knew for example a remarkable growth of the Indonesian middle class who adopted a consumerist lifestyle and wanted to set themselves apart from the lower class, using popular music among other things. Concerning religion, I will focus on the developments of Islam in Indonesia, the religion of roughly 90% of the country's population. The fall of Suharto has been a significant turning-point for religious expression, because for much of the New Order, Islam was marginalized especially in the political sphere and Islamic organizations were restricted. After 1998, Indonesian Muslims could express themselves more freely, leading to an amplified process of Islamization which includes the creation of new Islamic political parties, the rise of radical Islam and the expression of religious identities in public that could not be expressed before, particularly extremist ones. Moreover, in the 21st century Muslim pop culture has flourished immensely and popular music has helped in the process of articulating religious identity. Finally, issues of gender, including for example femininity, masculinity and the role of women in the family have become a more prominent subject of discussions and debates in the past two decades. Women's rights groups and opinions about feminism have more political support than before, but so has (conservative) Islam. This leads to diverse opinions about popular female artists who are regarded as a role model to some and an actor of immorality to others. Popular music is a strong medium to spur debates about gender and to introduce new images of how young men and women can, or should, dress and behave. Consequently, this makes young Indonesians rethink and possibly reshape their gender identities.Show less
