•  
  •  
 

Abstract

Islamic web series have recently become a notable cultural phenomenon in Indonesia. Unlike mainstream Islamic films, most Islamic web series are created by Muslim youth communities and distributed freely on social media platforms such as YouTube, reflecting a more innovative, grassroots approach to exploring identity. The creators of Islamic web series have greater flexibility in crafting narratives that reflect the experiences of young urban Muslims. Their interactive engagement with audiences, both online and offline, facilitates the collective negotiation and preservation of religious values through digital media. One of the recurring themes in these series is ta’aruf, the Islamic practice of pre-marital acquaintance, which is frequently depicted as a contrast to the westernized dating culture. The ta’aruf process is characterized by its business-like nature, with young individuals exchanging CVs and conducting interviews about their marriage intentions in the presence of family members, seemingly undermining the significance of love as a fundamental aspect of marriage. However, the audiences of the web series do not accept it uncritically. They negotiate and adapt it to fit their own social contexts and experiences instead. This article explores how ta’aruf, as represented in Islamic web series, has become a site for participatory ethics and communal meaning-making about the social patterning of desire among Muslim youths. Through in-depth interviews with web series creators and audiences, plus textual analysis of supplementary materials such as books and anthologies, I argue that ta’aruf narratives in Islamic web series shape the discourse of contemporary public Islam by promoting the lifestyle of pious asceticism among young Muslims. It has become dynamic cultural commons that reflects the negotiation of piety and gender roles in contemporary Indonesia.

References

Afrianty, D. 2020. “Rising public piety and the status of women in Indonesia two decades after reformasi”, TRaNS: Trans-Regional and-National Studies of Southeast Asia 8(1): 65-80.

Bayat, A. 2007. Making Islam democratic; Social movements and the post-Islamist turn. Redwood, CA: Stanford University Press.

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

Brenner, S. 2018. “Islam and gender politics in late New Order Indonesia”, in: Andrew C. Willford and Kenneth M. George (eds), Spirited politics, pp. 93-118. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Bruinessen, M. van (ed.). 2013. Contemporary developments in Indonesian Islam; Explaining the “conservative turn”. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

Cameron, L.A., D. Contreras Suarez, and Y.-P. Tseng, Y.-P. 2023. “Women’s transitions in the labour market as a result of childbearing; The challenges of formal sector employment in Indonesia”. [IZA Discussion Papers, No. 16136, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn.]

Cancian, F.M. 1986. “The feminization of love”, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 11(4): 692-709.

Fansuri, H. 2023. “On the road of hijrah; Contesting identity through urban mobilities in contemporary Indonesian Muslims”, Archipel. Études Interdisciplinaires Sur Le Monde Insulindien 105: 115-139.

Fatma, Andina Dian Dwi. 2024. Islamic web series and women’s piety in Muslim Indonesia. PhD thesis, Monash University.

Gökarıksel, B. and E. McLarney. 2010. “Introduction; Muslim women, consumer capitalism, and the Islamic culture industry”, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 6(3): 1-18. [DOI: 10.2979/mew.2010.6.3.1.]

Gray, J. 2010. Show sold separately promos, spoilers, and other media paratexts. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Hadiz, V.R. 2013. “Islamic politics in Southeast Asia; A critical reassessment”, TRaNS: Trans-Regional and-National Studies of Southeast Asia 1(2): 215-235.

Hadiz, V.R. 2014. “A new Islamic populism and the contradictions of development”, Journal of Contemporary Asia 44(1): 125-143.

Hadiz, V.R. 2016. Islamic populism in Indonesia and the Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hardy, J. 2011. “Mapping commercial intertextuality; HBO’s True Blood”, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17(1): 7-17. [DOI: 10.1177/1354856510383359.]

Heryanto, A. 2011. “Upgraded piety and pleasure; The new middle class and Islam in Indonesian popular culture”, in: Andrew N. Weintraub, Islam and popular culture in Indonesia and Malaysia, pp. 76-98. New York, NY: Routledge.

Heryanto, A. 2014. Identity and pleasure; The politics of Indonesian screen culture. Singapore: NUS Press.

Jones, C. 2010a. “Images of desire”, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 6(3): 91-117. [DOI: 10.2979/MEW.2010.6.3.91.]

Jones, C. 2010b. “Materializing piety; Gendered anxieties about faithful consumption in contemporary urban Indonesia”, American Ethnologist 37(4): 617-637.

Kang Abay et al. 2020. Cara muslimah memperjuangkan cinta. [Anthology.] Bandung: Teladan Kreator Indonesia.

Kang Abay and Teh Nia. 2022. Muslimah dalam penantian. Yogyakarta: Penerbit Bentang.

Kassam, S. 2011. “Marketing an imagined Muslim woman; Muslim Girl magazine and the politics of race, gender and representation”, Social Identities 17(4): 543-564.

Nisa, E.F. 2018. “Social media and the birth of an Islamic social movement; ODOJ (One Day One Juz) in contemporary Indonesia”, Indonesia and the Malay World 46(134): 24-43. [DOI: 10.1080/13639811.2017.1416758.]

Nisa, E.F. 2020. “Battling marriage laws; Early marriage and online youth piety in Indonesia”, Hawwa 20(1-2): 76-102. [DOI: 10.1163/15692086-12341387.]

Nisa, E.F. 2021. “Online halal dating, Ta’aruf, and the shariatisation of matchmaking among Malaysian and Indonesian Muslims”, CyberOrient 15(1): 231-258.

Rakhmani, I. 2017. Mainstreaming Islam in Indonesia. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan US. [DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-54880-1.]

Rismoyo, M. 2018. “Perjalanan Anisa Rahma dari Cherrybelle sampai Hijrah”, DetikHot, 14 September. [Available on: https://hot.detik.com/celeb/d-4211995/perjalanan-anisa-rahma-dari-cherrybelle-sampai-hijrah.] 

Robinson, K. 2008. Gender, Islam and democracy in Indonesia. New York, NY: Routledge.

Slama, M. 2018. “Practising Islam through social media in Indonesia”, Indonesia and the Malay World 46(134): 144. [DOI: 10.1080/13639811.2018.1416798.]

Smith-Hefner, N.J. 2019. Islamizing intimacies; Youth, sexuality, and gender in contemporary Indonesia. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press.

Utomo, A., A. Ananta, D. Setyonaluri, and C. Aryaputra. 2022. “A second demographic transition in Indonesia?”, China Population and Development Studies 6(3): 288-315.

Weng, Hew Wai. 2018. “On-offline dakwah; Social media and Islamic preaching in Malaysia and Indonesia 1”, in: Kerstin Radde-Antweiler and Xenia Zeiler (eds), Mediatized religion in Asia, pp. 89-104. New York, NY: Routledge.

Weng, Hew Wai. 2024. “Packaging, persuasion and propaganda; Popular preaching and Islamic counter-publics in Indonesia”, Asian Studies Review 48(1): 70-85. [DOI: 10.1080/10357823.2022.2052801.]

Download

Share

COinS