Subjectivity and positionality

As “both researchers and respondents ‘speak’ from a variety of subject positions all of which are context bound” (McLoughlin, 1998:5), I also needed to consider what impact my subject positions had upon this research. This section, therefore, provides my reflections on the extent to which my own identities impacted upon the research that I undertook among the dakwah community of the Liqo-Tarbiyah movement within the PKS in Indonesia. Given that social scientists accept that no knowledge is

‘value-free’, researchers need to be aware of their subjective biases and outlooks during their research, and also of how their respondents view their positions and outlooks. This section discusses how my positionality in this research was constructed through my identities as a young female Indonesian Muslim, a lecturer at the Muhammadiyah University, and a student at a Western University.

Respondents ascribed these different identities to me during my research in relation to different situations.

Prior to my fieldwork, I considered whether my identity as a young female researcher would be an obstacle to conducting the fieldwork, especially during interviews with male leaders and male Liqo mentors and trainees. I knew that a few other female researchers were studying aspects of the Tarbiyah movement or the PKS.⁹⁴ However, given the religio-cultural expectation of having a companion present during meetings with men,⁹⁵ I provided male interviewees with a choice of the most appropriate interview situation for them – accompanied or unaccompanied.

It was their free choice. In fact only three male leaders chose to be accompanied by another male activist (see discussion in section 3.3.2 above).

There was also the question of my organisational affiliation with the Muhammadiyah. I had been associated with the Muhammadiyah organisation since my employment as a lecturer at the Muhammadiyah University of Prof. Dr.

HAMKA in Jakarta in 2004, and was a member of the women’s wing of Muhammadiyah (Nasyiatul Aisyiah) two years before.⁹⁶ At some points, I felt that

94 See, for instance, the work of Rachel Rinaldo (2008a, 2008b, 2013) from the National University of Singapore.

95 The Liqo-PKS activists believe in the concept of ghadd al-bashr which requires both male and female Muslims to “lower their gaze” in each others’ presence. The idea of ikhtilath forbids Muslims of different genders from meeting or gathering in one place (see Section 5.3). These beliefs are based on the Prophetic tradition (Hadith), which suggests that it is forbidden for a man and a woman to be alone together because ‘Satan would be their companion’. We can easily find the Liqo-PKS activists practicing this teaching in their daily life. This teaching led the PKS leaders to separate their programmes for women and men. For instance, the Liqo programmes never mix two genders in one Liqo group (see Chapter 6). Unlike the PKS activists, most Indonesian Muslims, including activists of Islamic organisations such as the NU and Muhammadiyah, are very flexible regarding this issue, and conduct religious programmes (Pengajian) and meetings which gather men and women in one place where they can talk to members of different genders as well as look at them. In my opinion, this is the wider norm that is practiced by Muslims in Indonesia.

96 Along with other young activists, I was also involved in a series of workshops, discussions and seminars on Islam and the new social movements of the ‘Maarif Institute for Culture and Humanity’

during 2003–2006. Muhammadiyah has many organisational wings and educational institutions,

my affiliation with the University of Muhammadiyah would help me to approach respondents, especially PKS leaders and senior activists from Liqo, as I assumed in Indonesia academics (even those at universities affiliated to Islamic movements) are still regarded as having neutral and independent opinions concerning their research.

At other points, however, I worried that this position would lead to some questions about the neutrality of my work.

Being a female Muhammadiyah activist, I am aware that I have my own opinions about the dakwah of the Tarbiyah movement, such as that their dakwah is too strict and that they too often adopt a polarised ‘black and white’ or ‘enemies and friends’

position. However, I attempted to put these views to one side and focus on the evidence that I collected in my fieldwork. A few years ago, there was some discussion about the ‘soft conflict’ between Muhammadiyah and the PKS. Several assets of the Muhammadiyah, including mosques and schools, were used, taken over, and finally dominated by Liqo-PKS activists (see Chapter 6). I thought that this ‘conflict’ would have some influence on the respondents’ willingness to give their opinions on my research topic, as it related closely to their commitment and obedience to dakwah. However, I found that none of the interviewees raised this issue, instead simply responding to my questions and sharing their opinions and experiences about their dakwah movement.

The last identity that respondents frequently ascribed to me was that of a student at a Western University. The majority of respondents asked me about my reasons for choosing to study Islam in the West, and nine respondents even reminded me to be

reaching from the lowest to the highest levels of education, and is the second largest Islamic mass organisation in Indonesia, with branches concerned with educational, social and religious aspects of Indonesian Muslim life (Alfian, 1989).

cautious of studying religions in the West. They argued that it would influence my perspective on my own beliefs or the practice of my faith, something which has never happened to me. They also asked me about my reasons for undertaking research on their dakwah movement. They related this query to the issue of “selling data on Islam or Islamic movements to the West so that the West [is] able to understand the weakness of Muslims”.⁹⁷ This query was an example of an old and ingrained stigma that I often heard. They related this query closely to the concept of ghazwul fikri (war of ideas) or the idea of a Western conspiracy against Islam. As McLoughlin (1998:5) has pointed out, there is often a need to re-negotiate our role in the research process by talking about our own experiences, and this query drove me to make clarifications based on my own experiences and knowledge. However, it was not appropriate to reply to such opinions in all interview situations. While some discussions and interactions facilitated further dialogue, others just required my willingness to listen to participants before asking them my interview questions.

Although my respondents ascribed these identities to me, I did not “choose to represent myself in any one way consistently throughout my research” (1998:6), as McLoughlin reflects about his research experience with Bradford-UK Muslims.

Rather, I tried to build a point of connection with my respondents by talking about the broad topics of dakwah and Islam in Indonesia, which had become the major concern of their movement. However, I concur with McLoughlin (1998:6) that such connections are only partial, because “the relationship between the researchers and

97 The issue of ‘selling research data to the West’ was raised by respondents from all levels, including one leader, three Liqo mentors and two Liqo students. These issues were indeed closely related to the idea of ghazwul fikri (war of ideas) that is spread among the Tarbiyah movement/PKS community (see Chapters 4 and 6).

their respondents is always cross-cut by social divisions, of gender, ‘race’, and class”.

Indeed, the multiple identities I discussed above generated outsider images of me, producing limitations to the research that I could conduct. For example, restricted access to high-ranking members of the PKS and to official dakwah documents impacted on the data I could acquire about the dakwah movement before 1998.

However, I made regular contact with Liqo activists by telephone or email to identify the correct official documents to analyse, the right persons to interview, and the right dakwah events to observe. I also tried to establish a friendly relationship with respondents by discussing dakwah, as this not only represented a topic that we had a mutual interest in, but was a practice that we shared as well. I talked to them about my long involvement in dakwah practice in my institution and my neighbourhood, as well as my motivation to contribute to the development of dakwah in Indonesia. In my opinion, this introduction gave the respondents a more balanced idea of my status as an outsider, my reflexive understandings as a scholar in the Study of Religion, and my identity as a mosque activist (ustadzah/da’iya, teacher/preacher). In response to my introduction, many Tarbiyah activists became willing to talk to me and to provide me with the relevant documents, while few of them rejected my requests.

Although my outsider status vis-à-vis the Tarbiyah movement produced limitations to my research, my critical distance also generated benefits for it. Knott (2010) claims that the aim of a religious studies scholar should be to build upon the benefits of critical distance to explain a religious phenomenon from the outside. Having all the different identities listed above for researching the dakwah of the Tarbiyah

movement of the PKS enabled me to adopt a critical distance within this research process.