•  
  •  
 

Antropologi Indonesia

Abstract

As being religious is often seen in religious societies as a precondition for having values, atheists often face prejudice as they are seen as people without values. However, as they conceptualize and construct their values with and against the religious other, they are part of society as an arena in which what counts as values is constantly negotiated. Drawing on David Graeber’s concept of society as an arena for the realization of value production, this article sheds light on the values of atheists in religious plural societies in Southeast Asia, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. It analyzes how atheism functions as the negative other of religious society, and how atheists negotiate and express their values within this social-political framework. It concludes that while atheists are often depicted as being outside of society and its values, they are indeed part of society in two senses: firstly, they comprise its internal other that serves as a counterfoil to the hegemonic religious notion of these societies. Secondly, atheists construct values that allow them to engage with other parts of society as they identify nexuses between their values and the values of religious people. In other words, atheists construct their values both with and against the backdrop of their religious others.

References

Aldama, P. K. (2020). Becoming godless: Exploring the life story of college atheists of UP Los Baños. University of the Philippines Los Baños Journal, 18(2), 42–51.

Andaya, B. W., & Andaya, L. Y. (1982). A history of Malaysia. Houndmills: Macmillan.

Assyaukanie, L. (2009). Islam and the secular state in Indonesia. Singapore: ISEAS Press.

Barry, C. (2018). Gender, nation, and Filipino Catholicism past and present. In M. R. Thompson & E. V. C. Batalla (Eds.), Routledge handbook of the contemporary Philippines (pp. 330–340). London & New York: Routledge.

Batalla, E. V., & Baring, R. (2019). Church–state separation and challenging issues concerning religion. Religions, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10030197

Batchelor, T. (2017, August 9). Malaysia government minister calls for atheists to be “hunted down” and “re-educated”. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/malaysia-government-minister-atheists-hunted-down-reeducated-religious-freedom-shahidan-kassim-constitution-muslim-state-a7884766.html

Blechschmidt, A. (2018). The secular movement in the Philippines: Atheism and activism in a Catholic country (Doctoral dissertation, University of Zurich). https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/157305/1/157305.pdf

Bourchier, D. (2019). Two decades of ideological contestation in Indonesia: From democratic cosmopolitanism to religious nationalism. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 49(5), 713–733.

Bruinessen, M. van (Ed.). (2013). Contemporary developments in Indonesian Islam: Explaining the “conservative turn”. Singapore: ISEAS Press.

Bullivant, S. (2015). Defining atheism. In S. Bullivant & M. Ruse (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of atheism (pp. 11–21). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Christ, S. (2013). Santo Niño, Sugo, and Sinakulo: Faith, piety, and religious plurality. In N. Reese & R. Werning (Eds.), Handbook Philippines (pp. 447–456). Cologne: Philippinenbüro im Asienhaus.

Copeman, J., & Quack, J. (2017). Godless people and dead bodies: Materiality and morality in atheist materialism. In R. L. Blanes & G. Oustinova-Stjepanovic (Eds.), Being godless: Ethnographies of atheism and non-religion (pp. 40–61). Oxford & New York: Berghahn.

Damshäuser, B. (2022). Der Text der Pancasila – eine kleine Exegese. In B. Damshäuser & W. Brehm (Eds.), Mythos Pancasila: Die fünf Grundprinzipien des indonesischen Staates aus deutscher und indonesischer Sicht (pp. 11–38). Berlin: Regiospectra.

Duile, T. (2018). Atheism in Indonesia: State discourses of the past and social practices of the present. South East Asia Research, 26(2), 161–175.

Duile, T. (2020). Being atheist in the religious harmony state of Indonesia. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 21(5), 450–465.

Duile, T., & Ricardo, V. (2024). The (im)possibilities of public atheism in Indonesia: Legal perspectives and social practices. Advances in Southeast Asian Studies, 17(2), 153–169.

Duile, T., Ramli, A. F., Poh Kwan Lik, W., & Fatah, M. A. A. (2025). The (im-)possibilities of public atheism in Malaysia. Asian Studies Review. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2025.2450039

Furnivall, J. S. (1939). Netherlands India: A study of plural economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Genilo, E. M. O. (2014). The Catholic Church and the reproductive health bill debate: The Philippine experience. The Heythrop Journal, 55(6), 1044–1055.

Graeber, D. (2001). Toward an anthropological theory of value: The false coin of our own dreams. New York: Palgrave.

Graeber, D. (2013). It is value that brings universes into being. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 3(2), 219–243.

Hadiz, V. R. (2015). Islamic populism in Indonesia and the Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hasani, I. (2016). The decreasing space for non-religious expression in Indonesia: The case of atheism. In T. Lindsay & H. Pausacker (Eds.), Religion, law and intolerance in Indonesia (pp. 197–210). London & New York: Routledge.

Hutt, D. (2017, August 19). Beware the war against ASEAN’s atheists. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2017/08/beware-the-war-against-aseans-atheists/

Iskandar, P. (2016). The Pancasila delusion. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 46(4), 723–735.

McGrath, A. (2004). The twilight of atheism: The rise and fall of disbelief in the modern world. London: Rider.

Menchik, J. (2016). Islam and democracy in Indonesia: Tolerance without liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Milner, A. (2003). Who created Malaysia’s plural society? Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 76(1), 1–24.

Norman, R. (2017). Ethics and values: How much common ground? In A. Carroll & R. Norman (Eds.), Religion and atheism: Beyond the divide (pp. 105–115). London & New York: Routledge.

Parsons, T. (1967). Social theory and modern society. Glencoe: Free Press.

Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (1952). Structure and function in primitive society. Glencoe: Free Press.

Ramli, M. A., & Jamaludin, M. A. (2012). Interaction of plural society in Malaysia: Diatribe or dialogue. World Journal of Islamic History and Civilization, 2(1), 52–57.

Ramli, A. F., Sarifin, M. R., Yaacob, N. H., & Zin, S. A. M. (2022). Understanding the atheism phenomenon through the lived experiences of Muslims: An overview of Malaysian atheists. HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, 78(1), a7640.

Ryan, N. J. (1967). The making of modern Malaysia: A history from earliest times to 1966. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press.

Schäfer, S. (2016). Forming “forbidden” identities online: Atheism in Indonesia. ASEAS – Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Research, 9(2), 253–263.

Nasr, S. H. (2001). Islamic leviathan: Islam and the making of state power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Turner, T. (1979). Anthropology and the politics of indigenous peoples’ struggles. Cambridge Anthropology, 5, 1–43.

Wahab, M. R. (2018). Ateisme: Satu penelitian awal. Putrajaya: Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia.

Download

Share

COinS