Islamic Reformism as Networks of Meaning

Abstract

This study focuses on the issue of Islamic reformism and provides insights to a highly diverse and ambiguous phenomenon. Located in contemporary Ethiopia, the case in point for the study is what I have labeled the Intellectualist movement. De-institutionalized and decentered in character, the movement was a major player on the Ethiopian religious and political scene, and contributed significantly to the shaping of generations of young Muslims from the early 1990s to up until today. The Intellectualist movement is a good example of a kind of reformism that often escapes analysts’ attention, and the argument is that movement’s informal character points to an important trend among many contemporary religious reformism: their appearance as social networks and the processural character of reform itself. Applying the concept of network of meaning, which points to how movements are loosely structured and constituted around personal and face-to-face interactions, the study emphasizes reform movements as venues for learning, for ideological production, and for the creation of new subjects. This means that they are more than instruments for direct action, but that they are fields for symbolic exchange and self-reflexive relationships engagement, which in turn constitute processes for the realization of alternative behavior and for the mobilization of action.