Revisiting Women's Piety Movements in the Indonesian Context

Abstract

The current Islamic studies literature focusing on women’s expression in Indonesia remains understudied. It still presents a scholarly challenge for current Islamic studies to address the issue of ideal expressed space for women. This mainly includes women’s positions and roles in society and their concerns about public issues. This gap often becomes a source of criticism, especially from the feminist perspective. The latter believes that dogmatic religious understanding restricts women’s roles in public space. Addressing this puzzle, this paper aims to analyze how Islam affirmatively can address women’s expression as individuals and members of social groups. This paper employs critical discourse analysis by cultivating theoretical frameworks such as the debate between feminism and Islamic understandings of women. It also draws data from fieldwork, conducting in-depth interviews with women activists and academics. The findings of this study show that the need for inclusive public space for women to express their concerns while keeping their Islamic faith is imminent. This need could also expand women’s concerns to broader contexts such as interfaith dialogue. By focusing on three different Islamic women's movements, this paper further investigates how these three movements build up their expressed spaces and their impact on society.