Abstract
In this paper, I argue that the implementation of syariah is best understood as a heterotopia by women in Aceh, Indonesia. The current debates over the role of syariah for women in Acehnese society focus on either a secular human rights critique of non-liberal norms that restrict the rights and freedom of women or a religiously prescribed defense of communal norms that protect women and society. Based on interviews, I identify three variants of how women conceive of and inhabit syariah in Aceh. Two of these variants are underrepresented in the current academic literature on syariah in Aceh. Two key distinctions are drawn between blueprint and iconoclastic utopian thought and state-centric and non-state-centric models of political legitimacy. Rethinking syariah as a “socio-spatial dialectic” allows for all three variants of syariah existing simultaneously as a heterotopia in Acehnese society.
Highlights
The aim of this article is to further our understanding of how syariah in Aceh is inhabited, transformed, constructed, and deconstructed by women
I argue that understanding and acknowledging these marginalized voices can contribute to an attempt to re-imagine the way we think of syariah in Aceh or in Southeast Asia, but in wider intra-faith religious debates over the compatibility of religious values and norms co-existing or at times superseding secular models of democratic governance
The counter-hegemonic discourse refers to equating syariah to an illegitimate fixed legal code that is in conflict with an agreed upon set of universal
Summary
The aim of this article is to further our understanding of how syariah in Aceh is inhabited, transformed, constructed, and deconstructed by women. Based on interviews conducted between 2009 and 2010, I observed that syariah was often described by women in Aceh as encompassing more than an individual’s responsibility to follow a set of legal codes or personal beliefs They would often draw a distinction between the government’s implementation of syariah in Aceh and their lived experience of syariah within a Muslim community. In regard to the third perspective, the question of whether the state is correctly or incorrectly implementing syariah appeared to be negligible in terms of it its impact in their lives According to this third group, the question is largely irrelevant because they view syariah as something that exists within the social space of the community rather than in disassociated relationships among autonomous individuals or between individuals and the state. I argue that understanding syariah as a heterotopia through a socio-spatial dialectic allows for a richer conceptualization of women’s agency to emerge, and opens the possibility of a localized-indigenous Muslim feminist politics to emerge in some rural communities of Aceh
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