Grassroots Muslim Majoritarianism: An Analysis of Salafi Islamic Expansion in Makassar & Its Socio-political Significance

Wednesday Forum – 19 October 2022

Over the past 30 years, Indonesia has witnessed the growing prominence of a number of transnational Islamic revivalist movements. These have had a considerable impact on political culture, as the popularity of these movements has gone hand-in-hand with increasingly sectarian views across segments of Indonesian society. Yet how do such movements successfully transmit their ideas at the grassroots level and present them in ways that influence national political opinion? Conversely, how does such grassroots activism alter the message and social aims of such activists? I aim to address these questions by focusing on the city of Makassar, South Sulawesi, and the activism of Indonesia’s largest Salafi-influenced organisation, Wahdah Islamiyah. Illuminating how Wahdah Islamiyah have grown their local network of mosques and schools, and the subtle practices they deploy to frame their Islamic message in ways that both relate to the anxieties of their audience, I explain how they promote a Muslim majoritarian vision of society. More broadly, I conclude by assessing the extent to which such activism can form an understandings pertaining to the socio-political mobilisation of religious social movements, and what it may tell us about the health of democratic debate and pluralism in 21^st century Indonesia.

In Search of Allah: Queer Spiritual Space in Bissu Community, South Sulawesi

Wednesday Forum – 12 October 2022

The proliferation of conservative Islam has affected non-normative gender and sexuality groups’ experience and construction of identity, as it has impacted the Bissu community in South Sulawesi. Bissu can be categorized as pan-Indigenous, including gender, sexual, and/or spiritual identity. Within Indigenous communities with androgynous concepts in their cosmology, Bissu have culturally-specific ceremonial and social roles in Bugis culture. In this ongoing research, I seek to understand how Bissu have encountered confrontation and acceptance within their queer indigenous body and spiritual space and how it has impacted their ability to partake and learn their religion and culture.

The Everyday Practices of Women’s Fatwa-making in Java, Indonesia

Wednesday Forum – 05 October 2022

My study deals with the legitimacy of Muslim women as ulama and the right ascribed to them by society to interpret religious texts and issue fatwas in response both to the everyday concerns of their followers (jamaah) and to urgent social problems. This study is therefore primarily concerned with the concept of religious authority and how it is modulated through gender. Taking a combined anthropological and gender lens, my study examines women issuing fatwas in different places and spheres of interaction between the fatwa-giver and fatwa asker as occurring at the institution, grassroots, women’s movement, and women’s magazines; spaces that are often considered as being of marginal importance in fatwa-making especially when it is done by women.

For the upcoming semester, CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum will start on August 23, 2017.

Wednesday Forum is a weekly discussion on religion-related ideas and practices organized by both the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies (CRCS), the Graduate School of Universitas Gadjah Mada, and Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS), Yogyakarta. This forum is an academic space open for public, encouraged especially for our graduate students, faculty members, researches, Indonesian and overseas scholars. It is aimed for scholars to share their research on the field pertaining to religion, and twenty through thirty presenters have become speaker in the forum every year. We invite those who have researches or (ongoing) papers on the field to do presentation in the forum.
Topics
The topics discussed include, but are not limited to, interfaith dialogue; conflict resolution and peace building; religious education; art and spirituality or mysticism; religion and pop culture; religious violence and radicalism; indigenous religions; religion and ecology; religion and politics; and philosophical ideas on religion.
Attendees
The forum is attended by CRCS and ICRS graduate students and faculty members, visiting professors, activists, and students from other universities. Basically the forum is open for public.
Date and Venue
The forum is held every Wednesday, from 1 to 2.30 pm, in the Room 406 of the Graduate School Building, Sekolah Pascasarjana Universitas Gadjah Mada, Jl. Teknika Utara, Pogung, Yogyakarta. For the coming semester, the forum will start on January 25, 2017.
Application
Application to be a presenter can be made by an email to the organizer: subandri.simbolon@mail.ugm.ac.id. Send the abstact of your research and your brief CV, primarily your study background, activity, and research. The forum committees will evaluate the applications and select the presenters.

Abstract
Corruption is a problem of civilization which, by extension, is a problem of culture. This must be confronted by reviving the cultural values of anti-corruption. Learning from local traditions which combat corruption can be a powerful instrument to fix corrupt tendencies in a state. Strong beliefs in local cultural values can become the base of these efforts. In other words, the culture will create the people, and the people will create the civilization. Presenter try to offer an overview of Mambagi Jambar (Sharing Pieces of Meat) activity as representative of the cultural activities which combat corruption. By basing on ethnographic interviews and analysis of related texts, the presenter will describe this discussion in a systematic matter. The first part introduces global corruption and, furthermore, the issue of corruption in Indonesia. The second part describes the activities of padalan jambar juhut in Toba Batak culture. The last part then discusses these activities and their contributions in an effort to revive anti-corrupt cultural practices.
Speaker
Subandri Simbolon is Public education Staf at CRCS-UGM. His research, focused on culture and populer issue, has been published in globethic.net journal. He finished his BA at Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat dan Teologi (STFT) Widya Sasana Malang  where he majored in Christian Philosophy. In 2014, he graduated from CRCS-UGM where focuse on Culture and Ecology. In 2014 and 2015, he awarded the first winner for globetthic.net essay competition about “Anti Corruption Ethics and Religiosity (2014) and “Responsible Leadership (2015)“.