Workshop Report: Social Media and Islamic Practice in Southeast Asia, 14-15 April 2016, Institute for Social Anthropology, Austrian Academy of Sciences

Abstract

Above the rooftops of Vienna's old city center and on the top floor of the building of one of the world's leading technology companies, a selected number of international scholars working on new media and religion in gathered early this year to discuss their current research.1 They were invited by the Austrian Science Fund (Fonds zur Forderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung, or FWF) project (lnter)Faces of the Internet: Emerging Socialities and Forms of Piety in Indonesia led by Martin Slama, a researcher at the Institute for Social Anthropology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The workshop, which was comprised of 12 presentations in the span of two days, focused on social media and digital technologies uses and Islamic practices of Muslims in different parts of Southeast Asia. The central question that informed this workshop was how the rising use of new communication technologies affects Islamic practices and forms of piety in the Muslim majority countries of Southeast Asia. The presentations touched upon a number of related issues including Islamic finances, fashion, music, and youth culture. They discussed changes in the perception and representation of religious authority or the revival of lslamic concepts in the light of social media uses. Apart from popular Islamic expressions of piety, some presenters addressed issues of religious sectarianism and sentiments of hate spread through the online presence of particular religious groups.What remained uncontested throughout those two days was the fact that social media have become an indispensable part of the daily practices and socialities of Muslims throughout Southeast Asia (Barendregt, 2012; Slama, 2016). For example, followers connect to their lslamic leader, be it the local preacher or the country's most influential Sufi scholar, by simply opening Facebook. Islamic leaders, on their part, use social media as means of self-representation in yet unprecedented ways. These online presences trigger new perceptions and articulations of authority and preacher-followers relationships which do not remain uncontested. This is the case when, for example, self-representations on the Internet intersect with the Islamic concept of riya, roughly translated as showing off. Yet, social media and other online platforms, such as forums or blogs, offer ample space for users to discuss and eventually find agreement upon such activities. This is only one example of how 'new' media prompt the renegotiation of traditional practices, forms of communication, and self-representation (Gershon, 2010).The infusion of digital media in everyday expressions of Islamic piety affect not only the construction of Islamic authority but also popular understandings of Islamic gender roles. Selfies, popular among social media users across Southeast Asia, expose those behind the camera to exhibitionist narratives and other forms of criticism framed in the discourse of Muslim femininity and virtue. Notably, both the authors of contested visual expressions and their most vigorous critics are predominantly young social media users. As a number of presenters argued, social media use affects the ways in which Southeast Asian Muslims understand their religion and conversely, Muslims' understandings of their religion affect the ways they use social media to spread their message, as in the case of online da'wa, or Islamic proselytization.Another aspect of social and digital media, which is rarely touched upon, is the effect of sound or music both upon consumers and music production industries. For example, nasyid - a popular music genre among Southeast Asian Muslims today - reconciles piety with modern consumerist lifestyles by offering new avenues for the expression and experience of Islam. Islamic sounds, constitutive of short videos posted on social media and other online platforms, trigger affective registers among users and generate sentiments and dispositions which further inform online and offline socialities. …