Expressing Rituals Through Social Media: Muslim Youth in Contemporary Indonesia
摘要
In this age of social media, young people are presumably less likely to consider religion to be an important part of their everyday life. As opposed to the older generation, young people often focus on individual needs, become more independent, and consult diverse sources through social media for religious guidance. By studying ethnographically young people in Indonesia, in this chapter I suggest that young people in the region are proud of their identity as Muslims. They are active agents when displaying their identity and unique rituals to the world through a range of social media. I argue that the older clerics are no longer the sole specialists of rituals and the people in charge of the construction of meaning over rituals celebrated in today’s Indonesia. Instead of claiming this phenomenon as a sign of religious resurgence, the chapter concludes that the religious authority of young people has diverse sources with different trajectories.