Local repertoires of reasoning and the Islamist movement in post-authoritarian Indonesia

Abstract

This study seeks to give nuance to the current scholarship on the Islamist movement in post-authoritarian Indonesia that largely focuses on its transnational features. Through an analysis of a local Islamist movement, tied to a particular place and local history and detailed reconstruction of contestation over religion and identity in South Sulawesi during the turbulent years following the collapse of Suharto, I argue that its success in the area was based on its effective use of local repertoires of reasoning (local history, adat, rituals and memory), rather than through scriptural arguments. Often thought as being an antithesis to local elements and rituals, the various Islamist movements also exploit local repertoires of reasoning to justify their agenda: the formalisation of sharia. In contrast to the existing studies about the Islamist movement in post-Suharto Indonesia which often emphasises the violence and the vigilantism, this study invites us to see the intellectualism of an Islamist movement born during the period.