New discourses on state and society in the Islamic world

Doctoral group, Head: Prof. Dr. Susanne Schröter

Islamism and Islamic fundamentalism are phenomena that are becoming increasingly important in the post-colonial states of the Islamic world and in the Muslim diaspora communities of Europe. Particularly in states with secular or pluralistic political traditions (e.g. Turkey, Southeast Asia), young people are being drawn en masse to Islamist organizations, an Islamic lifestyle is enjoying great popularity and Islamic utopias are being tested in social communities. This development harbors considerable social and political explosives. Fundamentalisms or re-Islamizations threaten the fragile balance of multicultural states just as much as Islamizations of ethno-nationalist liberation movements. Of particular concern is the legitimization of violence in the name of Islam, which heats up local conflicts discursively and sets off spirals of violence. In decidedly Islamic states (states in the Near and Middle East), the opposite trend can be observed. State Islam is not explicitly rejected, but is undermined and subverted in everyday practice. Instead of new community building, individualization, fragmentation and possibly even a process of secularization can be observed here.

The doctoral students in the group investigated these processes with a particular focus on actor perspectives. The research group dedicated itself to the task of using an ethnological repertoire of methods to gain insights into the ideas and dreams, action strategies and networks of the actors in Islamist communities and organizations as well as in other relevant groups within the Islamic world. The aim was to examine lifestyles and everyday practices as well as political rituals and the meaning of images and symbols. The aim of the group was the comparative recording of current developments in the Islamic world, both in relation to the conception of new normative orders and with regard to their implementation in politics and society.

The following publications resulted from the ethnological research work of the doctoral students: Brecht-Drouart, Birte (2011): Between Re-Traditionalization and Islamic Resurgence. The Influence of the National Question and the Revival of Tradition on Gender Issues among Maranaos in the Southern Philippines . Frankfurt [Electronic Resource]; Hassanzadeh Shahkhali, Alireza (2014): Rituality and Normativity: An Anthropological Study of Public Space, Collective Rituals and Normative Orders in Iran 1848-2011 (AUP Dissertation Series), Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press; Karimi, Somayeh (2013): Ethnicity and Normativity: An Anthropological Study of Normativity in Everyday Life of Gilak People in North of Iran (AUP Dissertation Series), Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press; Müller, Dominik M. (2014): Islam, Politics and Youth in Malaysia: The Pop-Islamist Reinvention of PAS (Contemporary Southeast Asia Series), London/New York: Routledge and Sharifzadeh, Natalie (2013): 200 gesichert Helden auf Grenzgang: Polizeiaufbau in Afghanistan, Marburg: Tectum Verlag; Großmann, Kristina (2013): Gender, Islam, Activism: Spaces of Action of Muslim Activists after the Tsunami in Aceh, Berlin: Regiospectra Verlag; Seto, Ario (2017): Netizenship, Activism and Online Community Transformation in Indonesia, Palgrave Macmillan; Suratno, Transformation of Jihad: De-Radicalization and Dis-Engagement of extremist Muslims in contemporary Indonesia (dissertation completed).

The individual research studies provided ethnographically rich documentation of the often conflictual negotiation and transformation of normative orders in the contemporary “Islamic world”, particularly in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Two of these studies were based on long-term data collection in Islamist movements and parties, while other works examined the transformation of ethnic identities and (neo-)traditionalist movements in the context of Islamically defined state politics. While Islamist-influenced positions are increasingly achieving discourse sovereignty in very different local contexts, decidedly anti-secular and anti-pluralist interpretations of Islam have reached the center of many societies and are undermining the justification hegemony of competing normativities. Assumptions of a “post-Islamist turn” do not stand up to scrutiny; instead, far-reaching “Islamizations” of the state, law and popular culture are taking place in many areas, even if opposing secular actors are trying to counteract this tendency with alternative justification narratives on the role of Islam in state and society. Cultural transformations are closely linked to political and legal Islamization, although these areas are usually interpreted as largely independent of each other in the current state of research. Fragmentation and normative diversification are also increasingly taking place within political Islamism, and the way these are shaped by actors at the micro level often has little in common with common academic and media representations of “political Islam”.

The ethnographic results of the research group offer promising approaches for follow-up research. Now that the combination of regional and national with transnational and global perspectives has empirically questioned and analytically problematized explanatory models prevailing in the current state of research, this can serve as a starting point for a larger-scale theory development that enables new approaches to understanding current normative conflicts over “just orders” in the Islamic world. Individual sub-projects and the results of the project’s comparative group work offer concrete approaches to this, on the basis of which further social science research can now build.

In addition to the cluster’s internal group of doctoral students, 9 other doctoral students worked on the topic of “State and Society in the Islamic World”. In this externally funded group, the research focus was primarily on Southeast Asian countries. The largest single coherent project was a three-year DFG-funded project on “Cultural and Political Transformations in Aceh, Indonesia, after the Tsunami”, in which three members of staff were employed. The province of Aceh in north-western Indonesia has always been a center of political Islam in Indonesia and for several years after the independence of the post-colonial state was even part of an Islamist insurgency area (Darul Islam Indonesia), in which a separate “Islamic Army of Indonesia” fought battles with the national army. After the defeat in 1961, however, there was no peace and a separate guerrilla army, the “Free Aceh Movement”, fought for more than thirty years for independence from Indonesia and the implementation of an Islamic state. After the devastating tsunami in 2004, a peace agreement was reached between the independence movement and the Indonesian government, as a result of which the province was granted the right to introduce Islamic law at all levels of society. The project examined this transformation under several aspects (state and nation building, peacekeeping, participation of women). Other projects of the doctoral students dealt with new media (Seto), deradicalization programmes (Suratno), Salafi women’s organizations (Marddent), marginalization (Roy), migration (Delalic) and development cooperation (Barkabessy).

Seven dissertations were completed within the project (see above). In addition, the project resulted in the following publications, among others:
Susanne Schröter (2009): “Acehnese culture(s)”, in: Graf, Arndt/Susanne Schröter/Edwin Wieringa, (eds.): Aceh. Culture, history, politics, Singapore: ISEAS Kristina Großmann (2013): Gender, Islam, Aktivismus: Handlungsräume muslimischer Aktivistinnen nach dem Tsunami in Aceh, Berlin: Regiospectra Verlag; Kristina Großmann/Gunnar Stange/Roman Patock (2012): Aceh nach Konflikt und Tsunami, in: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 62. Jahrgang, 11-12/2012, March 12, 2012; Müller, Dominik (2010): ‘An Internationalist National Islamic Struggle? Narratives of ‘brothers abroad’ in the discursive practices of the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS)”, South East Asia Research, 18 (4), 757-791. (Special Issue: Islamic Civil Society in South East Asia: Localization and Transnationalism in the Ummah); Müller, Dominik (2010): “Review: Joseph C. Liow (2009): ‘Piety and Politics: Islamism in Contemporary Malaysia‘, New York: Oxford University Press”, South East Asia Research, 18 (3), 616-620.

The joint work and exchange within the group was organized through a weekly colloquium, regular theoretical and methodological workshops and a one-week summer school. The most important joint events include the international conferences: “Formation of Normative Orders in the Islamic World”, May 7-9, 2010, International Conference of Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies on the topic of “New Beginnings – Transformations in Post-Disaster and Post-Conflict Region” from 25-26 May 2011 in Banda Aceh, Banda Aceh.-26.5.2011 in Banda Aceh, together with the International Centre for Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies, and “The spreading of religions and the neutralization of social space”, 25 – 26.6.2010 in Bad Homburg (together with Hartmut Leppin and Thomas Schmidt), the international workshops “New approaches to gender and Islam. Translocal and local feminist networking in South and Southeast Asia”, from April 29-30, 2011 at the Humboldt University Berlin (together with Nadja-Christina Schneider, Asia-Africa Institute, HU, and Gudrun Krämer, Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies) and “Following the Path of the Prophet. Islamic Piety, Social Movements and Political Organizations”, at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, Bad-Homburg, 07.07.2012 as well as the Doctoral Summer School: “Discourses on State and Society in the Islamic World” in Fignano, Italy, 25-31.07.2011, and weekly research colloquia: “New Discourses on State and Society in the Islamic World” per semester (2009-2012) with national and international guest lectures, at the Cluster of Excellence, Frankfurt/M.