On Being a “Good” Indonesian Muslim Woman: An Autoethnography

Abstract

In this study, I propose through my own voice, attachment, and representation an expansive and inclusive construction of Indonesian Muslim middle-class women that may pose a challenge to the hegemonic construction of Indonesianness. I explore the renegotiation of the self, using the definition of Ibuism, state laws, and Islamic teachings as the frameworks through which the “good” Indonesian Muslim woman is constructed. Ibuism, derived from Ibu, an Indonesian term for “mother,” refers to the social construction of Indonesian womanhood within the household domain, as imposed by the authoritarian government for nearly 32 years (1966–1998). I use reflexive notes as my data to explore how the postauthoritarian era has affected me as a representative subject. Autoethnography offers a space to find that others’ assessment of my Muslimness is an effective lens through which I view my being and my becoming as a woman, an Indonesian, and a Muslim.

Keywords

Muslim Indonesian Muslim identities shifting identities autoethnography Reformasi

Personal Reflexive Statement

After nearly 10 years living in the United States (US), I eventually came home to Indonesia in August 2017. My return to Indonesia upon the completion of my PhD has not only given me opportunity to reconnect with familiar places but also an opportunity to redefine my Indonesianness, particularly as an educated Muslim woman. I wonder about the changes that have occurred during my absence, even as my immediate and extended family members, friends, and colleagues wonder about me. One of the most commented-upon of my “changed features,” according to them, is that I already think and act differently, emphasizing my otherness. They frequently point to my stay in the US (and, concordantly, my higher education) as the primary source(s) of these changes. In their view, the US has changed me ideologically, and my Indonesianness is now suspect. I am not the same Nelly anymore, they say; the current Nelly is “kebarat-baratan” (acting like a “Westerner”) or “keamerika-amerikaan” (appearing like an “American”). Both terms are pejorative, used to describe a perceived loss of Indonesianness (see Gunarwan 1993). While usually expressed in the form of teasing, there is some truth behind them. In this study, I position myself as both an observer and an actor in my nonacademic social circles. In these roles, I am able to see my own sociocultural context with a newly analytical set of eyes.

What Does It Mean to Be an Indonesian?

I was born into a Muslim middle-class family in Indonesia. My social stratification is integral in the context of my education, career trajectory, and other personal background, as lower- and upper-class Indonesian women share circumstances different from middle-class women like me (see Brenner 1996; Sakai and Fauzia 2016). Indonesia constitutes a crucial point of reference for me due to its role as a nation that has shaped my sociocultural and religious background and as the geographical and political boundaries that have granted my citizenship. A tropical country straddling the equator from Sabang in Sumatra Island in the West, to Papua in the East, Indonesia has 17,000 islands, each with its own ethnic/regional language alongside the only national and official language, Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia). Of all the islands, Java, where the capital city Jakarta is located, is the most populated. The government requires its citizen to observe one of the acknowledged religions, which include Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. While Indonesia hosts more Muslims than any other nation in the world, it is not an Islamic country (Hefner 2000, 2018). However, Islam plays an important role in the societal and governmental imposition of homogeneous Indonesian identity construction (hereafter Indonesianness). The status of Islam as the religion of the majority is officially codified in the 1945 Constitution (comparable to U.S. Constitution), Pancasila (the state ideology), and the Broad State Guidelines (GBHN, which functioned as guidelines for national development and were revised every five years, as applied during the authoritarian era), among other laws and regulations. The policies installed by the government have inescapably impacted every facet of Indonesians’ lives, including mine. In this light, Indonesian and religion, in which Islam plays an important role, are heavily implicated in the construction of our Indonesianness (Martin-Anatias 2018). Building on state policies and the essentialist definition of a “good” Indonesian Muslim, in this study I examine the changing degree of religious scrutiny I have experienced since returning to Indonesia. While my old self met with only minor religious scrutiny, my new self is subjected to routine scrutiny by some of my Indonesian Muslim comrades.

My otherness is often conveyed in the form of questions: How can I live geographically separate from my husband? Why did I need to pursue higher degrees that have resulted in my long-distance marriage (LDM)? When am I going to have any children? Am I still a Muslim? These questions and others are partly shaped by dominant understandings of homogeneous Indonesianness via state laws, regulations, and policies that highlight the importance of Islam. Via their inquiries, some Indonesians have contested my new self and implicitly encouraged me to reassess my being and becoming as a Muslim, a woman, and an Indonesian. I have chosen autoethnography to explore these exchanges due to its capacity to enable me to examine myself both as researcher and as subject of inquiry via social, cultural, and political lenses through which I can offer the authenticity of my own life experience (Adams, Jones, and Ellis 2015; Bochner and Ellis 2016; Chang 2016; Ellis 1999, 2009).

Framing the Study

This article builds on recent studies of Indonesia investigating how Islamic values have impacted government life and politics (Davies 2015, 2018; Hefner 2000, 2018; Künkler and Stepan 2013; Liddle and Murjani 2013; Platt, Davies, and Bennett 2018; Robinson 2009); gender (Bennett 2005; Blackwood 2007; Robinson 2009); the identity renegotiation of middle-class, urban, entrepreneur, and Muslim women in contemporary Indonesia (Sakai and Fauzia 2016); and the role of women in Islamic parties (Rinaldo 2010). I extend their work by adding to the voices of Indonesian women, which are still rarely represented. Using an autoethnographic lens, I highlight the influence of Islam on my identity as an Indonesian Muslim woman. In understanding my own identity, I am drawing on Foucault’s (1988) technology of the self which provides a framework to comprehend the dynamic between the self and others’ scrutiny of one’s lifelong attempts to “attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality” (p. 18). This framework is in line with the Islamic concept of bodily rituals, which occur at the intersection between one’s private and communal boundaries. In this vein, a number of scholars have problematized the thin boundaries between private and public matters in a number of Indonesian communities from a Western point of view, such as the communal imperative to get married, the scrutiny over the bride’s virginity and woman’s sexuality, and the relationship between husband and wife (see Bennett 2005; Davies 2015; Rinaldo 2013). In this study, private matter practices refer to dress code, pursuit of higher education, and any decision that has occurred within my marriage that is repeatedly contested by some of my Indonesian fellows.

Having been a Muslim since I was born, it is only recently that I have questioned my automatic affiliation with Islam. For most of my life, my Muslimness has been so natural that I often took it for granted. However, after living in the United States and returning to Indonesia, I unwittingly invited others’ assessments of my loyalty to Islam, entangled with my identity as a married Indonesian woman—unsolicited assessments that have compelled me to reevaluate my identifications. Inspired by a number of feminist autoethnographic studies that have problematized the feeling of being trapped within others’ values and cultures (Adriany, Pirmasari, and Umi Satiti 2017; Ang 2001; Choi 2017), I offer an additional perspective, analyzing the experience of a returned sojourner who finds her home country no longer “welcoming.” I examine this experience particularly in relation to Islam, a key element in how most Indonesians construct Indonesianness. As such, I am also building on Butler’s (2011:72) framework for understanding religion as an apparatus that not only regulates beliefs but that also acts as “a matrix of subject formation, an embedded framework for valuations, and a mode of belonging and embodied social practice.” Butler’s framework is especially valuable for approaching Indonesia after 1998, the year when the dictatorial president of Indonesia resigned from office, prompting a shift from more secular to more Islamized ways of life, as mediated by social scrutiny. Writing this study during the postauthoritarian era, I will show how a number of Indonesian Muslims use religious interpretation as a regulatory tool to correct fellow Muslims’ private boundaries, namely, bodily ritual practices including the decision to wear the headscarf (hijab, hereafter jilbab) and other modes of conduct such as marriage decisions and the private lives of husbands and wives.

In exploring some of the ways in which Islamic values have impacted my experience, I take some cues from Thompson’s (2011, 2013, 2017) studies exploring the intersection of religious values and women’s lives. Drawing on Thompson’s studies that focus on the importance of monogamous and heterosexual marriage as a path to be a “good” Muslim for Tanzanian Muslim women, I aim to demonstrate the importance of heterosexual marriage in Indonesia.

Building on existing research, I offer a more comprehensive image of how Islamic values have impacted the life of an Indonesian Muslim woman. I also situate my own study on the ethnography of a returned sojourner for whom Islam plays an important element. The scope for future work in this area is considerable.

Method

In this autoethnographic study, I explore the renegotiation of my identities as an American-educated Indonesian Muslim woman right before and after my life in the United States, both periods which took place in the postauthoritarian era, also known as the reformed era (the era Reformasi). I have adopted an evocative approach (see Adams 2011; Bochner and Ellis 2016; Ellis 2009), albeit with a preference for promoting a broader sociocultural interpretation (Chang 2016). Evocative autoethnography provides me the grounds to “combine the cultural analysis and interpretation with narrative details” (Chang 2016:46); thus, I am able to correlate both my personal experience and academic interests. Both as a method and a product, autoethnography accommodates not only my subjectivity but also my emotionality. Feeling, personal opinion, words, and thoughts are all taken into consideration. This method allows me to confront generic and essentialist social perceptions, which I may not share. Drawing on the “emotional, bodily, and spiritual” capacity of evocative autoethnography, I hope to reach a wider audience, as opposed to exclusively academia and scholars (Bochner and Ellis 2016; Ellis 1997:116). Through this study, I aim to link my personal narratives, struggles, and perspectives with those of my readers in order to generate a sense of sameness among those who share similar struggles and to build empathy among those who do not (Bochner and Ellis 2016; Ellis 1999; Ellis, Adams, and Bochner 2010). In other words, I hope to promote a cultural understanding for both insiders and outsiders of the culture I am analyzing (Chang 2016; Ellis et al. 2010).

As my data, I use my collection of self-notes, diary, memories, and journals that I have regularly kept both offline and online (i.e., on blogs) since I first left Indonesia in 2006 (Chang 2016; Smailes 2014). These data include not only my own reflections but also my notes on conversations that have led to epiphanies or otherwise significantly impacted my life (Bochner and Ellis 1992; Ellis et al. 2010). During the analysis process, I frequently shared my memories with my immediate family members and significant other as a method to confirm facts. I find others’ perspectives important tools of verification for the narration and discussion in this study (see Adams 2011). In this light, they have acted as my extended memory, augmenting my daily notes. A number of extracts used in this study highlight notable events in my lived experience that have reserved a special space in my daily notes. While I did not initially intend to keep them for research purposes, I have benefited from these records, particularly for this study. I will use life narration extracts to support my analysis (Chang 2016). These extracts are presented nonsequentially because they occurred in a broad time frame. In grounding my analysis, I have interwoven my writing and critical reflections through sociocultural and political lenses (Adams et al. 2015; Chang 2016; Ellis et al. 2010; Smailes 2014).

In my discussion, I draw on epiphanies and field notes that chronicle my multifaceted identities in relation to the majority interpretation of what it means to be a “good” Indonesian Muslim woman. My reflective notes intersect with my self-defined social-cultural beliefs, experience, representations, and practices within a wider social context. In presenting my analysis and interpretation, I am cognizant of the fact that my experiences do not exist in a vacuum and are consistently related to others, in my case, a specific group of other Indonesian Muslims. In order to protect their identities, I use pseudonyms (see Chang 2016). My discussion begins with my pre-U.S. reflections on what it means to be a “good” Indonesian Muslim. I present my analysis per subthemes in order to improve readability. Later, I extend my analysis to aspects of myself that may no longer fit with the majority interpretation of Islam and seemingly homogeneous Indonesianness. In so doing, I propose an expansive and inclusive definition of an Indonesian Muslim woman. These reflective notes chronicle my pre-, during- and post-U.S. life as relevant to my (re)construction of self as an Indonesian Muslim woman. The notes derived from my conversations with others, which largely occurred in Indonesian, have been translated into English for a wider accessibility. I will subsequently provide an overview of this study and recommendations for further study in the Conclusion section.

Being a “Good” Indonesian Muslim Woman

I will start this discussion a couple of years before I left for the United States, with some geographical and political background that has shaped my Muslimness and thus the construction of my Indonesianness. Furthermore, my time in Indonesia before I left for the United States, during the era Reformasi, is integral to my Muslim identity in part because it was there that I started wearing jilbab and got married, an imperative Muslim rite of passage. Moreover, during this period, I neither questioned my Muslimness nor experienced it being questioned by others. Thus, I assumed myself to be a “good” Indonesian Muslim woman in the sense that I conformed to sociocultural expectations. Aside from my own self-image, then, my “good” Muslimness was partly indexed by the absence of any complaints or reprimands (teguran) from my circles.

There are at least two vital environments that have shaped my Muslimness: My familial context and my place of growing up, Depok. I was born to West-Sumatran practicing Muslim parents. West Sumatra (Minangkabau) is a region famous for being strictly religious (Blackwood 2007). The economic development of Jakarta has grown remarkably since the Suharto regime (1966–1998, also known as the New Order era), causing massive migration of Indonesians from other islands to Jakarta, a wave that included my parents. Migrating to Java in the early 1970s, they still preserved their Minangkabau values and passed them on to their children. I thus automatically assumed my identity as a Muslim at birth. In addition to being born to Muslim parents, I grew up in Depok. As one of the satellite cities of Jakarta, Depok shares rather different sociocultural tensions with the capital and cosmopolitan city. Since the beginning of the New Order era, Jakarta, the metropole of government, fashion, finance, and entertainment, among other areas, has been largely considered more permissive for sexual “deviants” and alternative lifestyles (see Bennett 2005; Blackburn 2004). Depok, however, is relatively more “traditional” and religious compared to Jakarta. Post-New Order era, Depok has become more religious, partly indexed by the growing number of Prosperous Justice Party (Partai Kesejahteraan Sosial, a religiously strict Islamic party) supporters living in the region (Machmudi 2008). These familial and communal environments have been playing key roles in shaping my understanding of Islam.

As a Muslim, I learned Islam both formally and informally. As part of formal education, the New Order era required the teaching of religion as a core and examinable subject at all levels of schooling (see Parker 2014; Sakai 2012). Aside from receiving a 16-year formal education from public elementary school to university, I attended after-school Islamic courses in which I learned how to recite Qur’an, with my understanding limited to the Indonesian translation. Many Indonesian Muslims position the Holy Qur’an and hadith as the most important Islamic laws. Additionally, I routinely learned from my parents who taught their children how to read the Qur’an and passed on their interpretation of Sunni Islam. Informally, I also absorbed Islamic teaching from my parents and my surroundings—my communities, circles of social groups, extended families, Islamic study groups, and public sermons in the mosque, radio, and television (cf. Hamid 2018; Sakai and Fauzia 2016). These modes of teaching have never been truly dialogic; they were all largely dogmatic. In retrospect, my absorption of Islamic teaching was not in-depth, but rather surface-level. In this way, just like many other Indonesian Muslims, I was educated at secular schools without any access to “Islamic classical texts or Islamic scholars, traditional authoritative sources of Islamic knowledge” and had no affiliation to the biggest Islamic organizations such as Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah (see Sakai 2012:11). Regardless, those sites of learning have shaped my interpretation of Islam and myself as a Muslim. Growing up in a Muslim family in a Muslim majority neighborhood and schools, I unquestionably identify with Islam. As of the time of writing, I still consider myself a moderate practicing Muslim.

Wearing “Jilbab”: The First Step of Being a “Good” Indonesian Muslim

Since its inauguration in 1998, the era Reformasi or postauthoritarian era has been seen as a period of kebebasan (freedom) because Indonesians can celebrate our freedom in many aspects of life, including religious expression (Davies 2015, 2018; Hamid 2018; Hefner 2018; Hellwig 2007; Platt et al. 2018). This kebebasan has allowed more space for Muslims to express their Islamic identities while at the same time enabling their exercise of “religious power” toward other Indonesian Muslims. Many see this period as permitting the close scrutiny of their fellow Muslims’ morality based on their own interpretation of Islam (Davies 2015, 2018; Hefner 2018; Platt et al. 2018). Such scrutiny has become so prevalent that the era Reformasi appears to have provided “more space for Islamization” (Platt et al. 2018:4). This is a central point in this study, as I, to some extent, withstand similar treatment from my Muslim compatriots, due to my statements and life decisions that may appear to conflict with their interpretation of Islam.

The first visible signage I used to demonstrate my Muslimness was the jilbab, which for me should have been a private matter. I wanted to wear it as early as 1995 but was denied by my parents. Although religious, they stopped me from wearing jilbab due to their concern that I would become an extremist, a label the New Order era granted to anyone wearing jilbab (hereafter jilbaber(s)). Via state policies, the New Order era restricted the use of jilbab for Indonesian Muslim women (Adriany et al. 2017). In the 1990s, Suharto treated Islam as an enemy of the state, alongside communism (Hefner 2000, 2018). During this period, the relationship between Islam and Suharto was severely antagonistic (Hefner 2000; Platt et al. 2018; Savitri Hartono 2018), although the role of Islam remained codified within official laws and constitutions. Like many other parents at that time, mine saw jilbab as a symbol of extremism as a result of government propaganda. In light of this, many Indonesians have witnessed how the dress code, which should fall within the private sphere, is a matter of public and governmental scrutiny (cf. Davies 2015, 2018; Platt et al. 2018).

For many Muslims, wearing jilbab has multiple meanings from an expression of religious identity to a fashion statement to an excessive Muslim dress code to a symbol of oppression (Brenner 1996; cf. Haddad 2007; cf. Thompson 2017; cf. Topal 2017). There has been ongoing debate that surrounds jilbab in many parts of Indonesia (Brenner 1996). For me personally, jilbab stands at the intersection of my personal, communal/social, and political tensions. I eventually started wearing jilbab in 1999, one year after the start of era Reformasi. In the postauthoritarian era, a number of Muslim groups have heightened their Islamic “patrol” or “Islamization,” particularly of acts deemed as irreligious and thus “immoral” and “un-Indonesian” (Davies 2015; Platt et al. 2018). I saw this kind of social policing firsthand when I enrolled to one of the public and presumably secular universities in Jakarta. While a public university, it was religious in spirit. A number of Islamic organizations there highly encouraged jilbab and deemed other fashion choices as “un-Islamic,” “immoral,” and thus “un-Indonesian” (Rinaldo 2010, 2013). This kind of regulation has become so prominent that there is a recognizable shift in control over religious life from the New Order era to civilian rule (Künkler and Stepan 2013). To some extent, my initial decision of wearing jilbab might have been a response to peer scrutiny. In retrospect, I was afraid of being “different” within my crowds. During weekly gatherings of Islamic studies, my circles regularly reminded the non-jilbabers about the importance of jilbab, basing their interpretation of the Qur’anic verses. Having learned that jilbab was one of the Islamic requirements, I decided to wear it in 1999. Through jilbab, my Muslimness was solidified. This brings to light how religion regulates many Indonesians in both personal and public domains (cf. Butler 2011) as a perceived way to achieve a moral community (Foucault 1988), in line with the spirit of amar makruf nahi mungkar (enjoining the good and forbidding the evil), an Islamic concept from the Holy Quran teaching Muslims to do good things and forbid immoral things not only for themselves but also for the goodness of other people (Ahmad et al. 2013; Winarni 2014).

My Muslimness Is “Complete” Due to My Marriage

Aside from jilbab, marriage for me was also a crucial rite of passage in cementing my Muslimness. While ostensibly a personal choice, marriage is a familial, social, and state expectation. In this section, I show how my personal desires are understood to be less important compared to the desires of my family and community. I also show how the “good” woman in my circles is a sociocultural and political construct that has become the local norm (adat istiadat), significantly contributing to the construction of my (our) Indonesianness.

My Muslim upbringing in Depok to West-Sumatran parents has influenced my rites of passage in life. My neighbors in Depok, to some extent, still scrutinize women’s lifestyles and are relatively stricter than Jakartans when it comes to “nonnormative” sexual behavior, such as promiscuity, extramarital affairs, pre-and nonmarital relationships, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) lifestyles. Such alternative lifestyles do exist in Depok but are generally frowned upon and socially sanctioned. In retrospect, my interpretation of Islam has influenced how I behaved and related to others in that I adopted it as a guiding principle, and subsequently chose my husband. Within my immediate and extended families, marrying a Muslim spouse (or someone from the same religion) is a shared and predecided notion, which is also shared by many other urban middle-class families (cf. Utomo and McDonald 2016). In other words, the subject is set in stone.

The following is Note 1, which is a reflective note, the contents of which are taken from my regular diary. In my diary entries, I wrote about my courting process and my marriage regularly between the years 2000 and 2004. In the following notes, I have excerpted some passages from my Indonesian diary and translated them into English for this study.

I got married when I was 25 years old. I was at that time considered to be “ready” to get married because I already graduated from my undergraduate [university], had landed a good job, and had a boyfriend. Being a twenty-five-year-old female when getting married, I at that time considered my marriage occurred at the “normal and expected” age. While I did not experience a great deal of pressure from my parents to get married so that I did not pass the “expiry date” (masa laku), my late dad and my mom did express their hope for me to get married upon my undergraduate completion or before 30. Also, I had been dating my boyfriend for almost a year, so my parents, my extended family members and some elderly in my communities urged me to get married in order to avoid fitnah (uninvited seduction) and zina (forbidden sex). They were worried that I would make my parents and my neighborhood embarrassed (malu), if I did not marry “at the right time.”

In many parts of Indonesia and in many other Muslim societies, monogamous heterosexual marriage is the only path for a woman to maintain her moral power as a “good” woman (Bennett 2005; Platt et al. 2018; Suryakusuma 2011; cf. Thompson 2011, 2013, 2017). In this light, marriage is a significant element of women’s Muslimness and Indonesianness. On the state level, marriage is officially regulated by the government via the Marriage Law No. 1/1974. On the religious level, Muslims are formally and informally taught the importance of marriage via a Qur’anic verse that many Indonesians interpret as commanding heterosexual marriage for all Muslims as soon as we are biologically and financially ready; as well as the hadith, which teaches that marriage completes our Muslimness. Socially, we have been indoctrinated into believing that the virtue of being a “good” woman is related to being a virgin until marriage; this belief is constantly reinforced through informal conversation, public advertisements, and routine Qur’an study (cf. Bennett 2005).

My status as a “good” Muslim was thus achieved via two routes: First, I got married, which symbolized my complete submission to the Qur’an and hadith, which are integral to my faith. In this way, my Muslimness became complete. Secondly, being a virgin on my wedding night not only signified my “quality” as a “good” woman but also as a “good” Muslim. Through my family, schools, and wider neighborhood, I absorbed the understanding that “a good Muslim woman” is one who protects her purity (virginity) until she is married (Bennett 2005). Her virginity belongs to her husband, and marriage is the only space a “good” woman can “release” it (melepaskan keperawanan). Thus, sexual intercourse (hubungan intim, literally “intimate relationship”) may only be consummated within the marriage institution. My schoolmates and I learned that we must get married in order to avoid seks bebas (literally “free sex” or being promiscuous). The failure to “protect our virginity” (menjaga keperawanan) via extramarital intercourse would have earned us a label of hancur (damaged) or wanita jalang (sluts), and our family would have received social ridicule as well (Bennett 2005). Furthermore, in our formal education albeit within secular schools, we learned from our religion teachers that those who practice “alternative” lifestyles are viewed as “immoral” and “irreligious/non-Islamic” (tidak Islami) and thus deserve to go to hell. Such teachings present morality in black and white, with virtually zero room for reflection or nuance. By getting married as a virgin, I can claim that “I am a ‘good’ woman, daughter, and Muslim.”

Note 1 highlights the ways in which the construction of a “good” Muslim woman is predicated upon sexuality and reveals that sexuality is not a personal but a familial and communal matter. In this light, my understanding of sexuality operated not only via juridical discourse but also via multilayered mechanisms (see Foucault 1976). My sexuality was learned via a shame (malu) mechanism. My marriage functioned to avoid zina (forbidden sex) and fitnah (uninvited seduction) in order to protect my family’s name (menjaga nama baik) and my community’s as well. Many Indonesian Muslims interpret zina as any sexual relationship outside of heterosexual marriage boundaries (Bennett 2005). Via this shame (malu) mechanism, I have been taught by my parents, my teachers at formal schools, and the government’s propaganda that I should be malu (ashamed) if I am not perawan (virgin) when I get married and I would embarrass (meMALUkan) my parents if found to be not virgin on my wedding night. Throughout my single years, I received a certain degree of social surveillance. As is the case for many Indonesian women, my sexuality did not belong only to me but was also under familial and communal regulation (see Bennett 2005). My marriage is a matter through which I have saved my parents, my community, and myself from embarrassment (malu).

Furthermore, the desire to achieve “good” Indonesian womanhood through (heterosexual) marriage is reinforced by social pressure. Note 1 emphasizes that I was urged to get married before 30, so I did not pass the “expiry date” (masa laku, literally “a marketable period”), which implies that being single beyond 30 is a “shame” (malu). Indonesian women who are unmarried virgins beyond 30 can earn the label perawan tua (literally “an old virgin,” a derogatory term for any single woman, which suggests their “inability” to get a man), and are considered of lower social status. Another factor contributing to my decision to get married was thus the desire to move up the social ladder. As soon as I received legal status as a wife, I could join my married friends, whom I perceived held higher sociocultural status than my unmarried friends. In many parts of Indonesia, there is an implied hierarchy of women: The highest rank is occupied by married women with children, followed by childless married women, and the last rank by nonmarried (presumably virgin) women (perawan; Tiwon 1996). Upon getting married, I was under the impression that I had finally “leveled up” and shared a sense of proximity with other married women. The feeling that I was no longer different from others in my social circle was exhilarating. Those in my circles at that period of time were my others of similarity with whom I shared viewpoints as a woman, a Muslim, and an Indonesian (cf. Chang 2016: 26). In hindsight, I have become more aware that my marriage provided me a sense of personal satisfaction and achievement because I did not violate any social and cultural expectation; thus, I had become a “good Muslim Indonesian woman.” I fit in just fine with my friends, my extended family, my colleagues, and my communities.

Leaving Indonesia for the First Time: Am I Not a “Good” Wife?

In the period prior to my sojourn in the United States, I successfully projected myself as a “good” Indonesian Muslim woman. But in some ways since then I have failed to maintain social expectations as a “good” Muslim (and an Indonesian) because my social circle and I have different understandings about the boundaries between private and public domains. Tensions arose when I found myself unwittingly scrutinized for a number of supposedly private decisions. First, I left my husband, Lesky, to live in the United States by myself for almost a year during my first Fulbright award. Secondly, I remain a childless married woman. I will discuss these two points, which are central to my marginalized feeling as an “in-betweener,” a word I use to emphasize my sense of foreignness in my own “home.”

It was a hot and humid day around two in the afternoon at my parents’ home in Depok when I received a letter informing me that I had been granted a Fulbright award to teach at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA. It was a long-overdue piece of news, as the scholarship process took almost a year until the final acceptance in mid-2006, yet still exciting. At this time, I had been married for two years. I was ecstatic at the news, as were my husband and my family members, and I could not wait to break the news to my then best friend. Imagining that I would receive a jubilant reaction, I hurried to call her. I broke the news excitedly yet in an instant, my excitement fell flat, as demonstrated in Note 2. Note 2 was originally written in Indonesian in my regular diary in June 2006, a few months before I departed to Honolulu. For this study, I translated some parts into English.

I rushed to call her thinking of her as one of my closest circles—thus important. Yet, her reaction was unexpectedly disappointing. Instead of feeling happy for me, she was asking if Lesky knew about me leaving to the US (OF COURSE HE KNEW!!!) and she was wondering who would take care of him (not in a good tone, of course). While I could translate her concern to be an indicator of caring, I unfortunately comprehended it quite the opposite. I was stunned and was speechless. First, I did not expect such a reaction. Second, I did not know how to react. Before I picked up myself, she continued to give me some advice in the name of Islam: She asked me whether I am aware that in Islam, a woman can only go outside of the house with the husband’s permission. She highlighted that she is speaking as a Muslim fellow who is also married so she carried some responsibility to give me some advice based on the Quran and hadith…. As she continued by citing the hadith emphasizing the significance of reprimanding each other in Islam, my mind shut down. I know that I was intimidated. While she was questioning my quality as a good Muslim, and particularly as a “good” wife, I did not quite understand the whole situation. (Note 2)

Eventually I understood why I was sad, disappointed, and angry at her reaction: I found her response grounded in an assessment of my quality as a Muslim. In order to evaluate my being a “good” woman, she drew on her status as a fellow Muslim woman who had been married longer than I was. By doing so, she authorized herself to give me advice on an issue that should have been within my personal boundaries. Furthermore, she built her accountability as a Muslim by citing the Holy Qur’an and hadith. She continued to claim her right to assess my womanhood (or wifehood, to be precise) and Muslimness on the grounds of a Muslim duty to give advice to one another. By building a sense of solidarity as a Muslim and a wife, not only did she remind me of my position as a wife in Islam but also, she tried to appraise my Muslimness (cf. Feener 2014). In retrospect, though annoyed, I was also fully aware that, in many parts of Indonesia, religion has never been a personal matter. In fact, it is one of the most common social and communal issues.

Another exchange contesting my Muslimness occurred a few days later. This time the assessment was not aimed solely at my Muslimness but also at my husband’s. Unlike the first statement, which was expressed by my female friend, this second one came from a man named Andri who was connected to me and Lesky as a distant acquaintance. The conversation took place in an office space in the South of Jakarta where Lesky was waiting for me and Andri waited for his wife in June 2006. It was almost seven in the evening; the sun had set almost an hour before. The waiting room was in a close proximity with my and Andri’s wife’s office desks and as it was an open office, I could hear Andri quite well. He did not express his opinion directly to me, but to Lesky. While he did not directly comment on anything related to my Fulbright award, he commented on my and Lesky’s future relationship upon my departure to the United States. In other words, he was trying to assess our Muslimness via our potential LDM, which in his opinion was a violation of Islam. As I recorded in Note 3, he referred to a hadith stating that it was forbidden for a husband and wife to live geographically away for more than three months. The original note was written in Indonesian in my diary dated back in June 2006. I translated this into English for this study.

So, Nelly is going to the US? How about her duties as a wife? You know, in Islam, a husband and a wife are not allowed to be separated geographically for more than three months. (Note 3)

He delivered his statements with an air of certainty. I overheard him from another room and found his level of confidence in citing the hadith excessive, annoying, and most critically, intrusive. Returning to my notes for this study, I found myself getting emotional again remembering my feelings of that evening. His comments intruded upon my relationship with Lesky, which should have been personal. This was a trespassing of boundaries, given that he was not closely related to me or Lesky, but merely an acquaintance. Although an outsider to our relationship, he claimed his right to partake in our personal relationship, authorizing his intrusion by citing a hadith. Via his own interpretation of Islamic teaching, he gave himself the authority to evaluate our Muslimness (cf. Feener 2014). We eventually found out that he had cited a false hadith. Furthermore, Andri’s statement also reveals the gender ideology of many parts of Indonesia and which is partly informed by Islamic teachings. As reflected in Note 3, he questioned my duties as a wife and the validity of my marriage should I leave for the United States for almost a year. In his interpretation of Islam, as a wife, I should stay with my husband or I should be in his company when traveling.

Both interactions occurred a few months before my departure to Honolulu in 2006, during the era Reformasi. This Islamization era has inadvertently affected me. Via such judgment, my Muslimness was assessed. I was encouraged to reevaluate my position as both wife and Muslim. Here, my choice to pursue my fellowship was perceived to affect not just me but also my relationship with my husband, to whom I should behave properly as taught by the Qur’an and hadith. These two responses (as illustrated in Notes 2 and 3) reaffirm the ways in which the Post New Order era has created new space for Muslims to “moralize” their fellow Muslims’ Muslimness. Moreover, they show how the interpretation of religion is being manipulated to blur the boundaries between private and public matters, particularly post-Suharto era (cf. Butler 2011; Davies 2015; Platt et al. 2018; Savitri 2018). They also demonstrate that such moralizing is quite common and not limited to close relationships: As my best friend and a distant acquaintance, both claimed similar rights to correct my marriage and contest my views of Islam (cf. Butler 2011; cf. Foucault 1988). In this way, they demonstrate that marriage is not only personal, but also social, cultural, and communal (Bennett 2005).

Overall, my experience illustrates how the conception of religion falls within amar makruf nahi mungkar. The principle that one’s religious “responsibility” is to take care of others’ well-being as well as one’s own has been used by some Indonesian Muslims to regulate and discipline others, presumably for the sake of their goodness (cf. Ahmad et al. 2013; cf. Butler 2011; cf. Foucault 1988, Winarni 2014). However, I find it not benevolent so much as intrusive and a violation of my husband’s and my personal domain.

Regardless of others’ judgments, I found that my Muslimness was still an identification that I wanted to retain. As recorded in my daily journals in mid-2006, I made efforts to convince my friends, colleagues, and my extended family that I had received Lesky’s blessing (restu), which was important for me as a device through which I submitted myself to meeting sociocultural expectations and also to successfully defend my Muslimness. This justification is also shared by a number of middle-class, educated, and working Indonesian Muslim women in order to avoid the “bad” wife stigma (see Sakai and Fauzia 2016). In hindsight, when I return to the note on Lesky’s restu, I can still reconnect with my “old” feeling that Islam and my identities as a “good” wife and “good” Muslim woman are important, even in the middle of uncertainty over this new landscape of self. And reading and knowing that I had Lesky’s restu before leaving the United States, I am again comforted and reassured.

Questioning My Quality as a “Good” Muslim Woman

Since returning to Indonesia from the United States, life has granted me space to evaluate what happened in my memories and past surroundings but has also subjected me to intense inquiry, particularly with regard to my Muslimness and Indonesianess. It was only after my return to my hometown that I became aware that my multifaceted identities were being challenged and seen as a threat to some of my friends’ and relatives’ interpretation of Islam. In other words, they used their own lenses to gauge my Muslimness. These challenges and questions are chronicled in my notes and reflections, which I can now treat “with critical, analytical, and interpretive eyes” to see what judgments and implied meanings lie beneath them (Chang 2016:50).

The communal scrutiny has been felt to be much stronger after my return from the United States. During the first month after I returned to Indonesia, I found myself restless. While I had returned to old thus familiar places, I felt bewildered. I was no longer in complete alignment with my own crowds, with whom I used to share similar thoughts. I felt like a foreigner in my own country. While I was still trying to figure out what was wrong with me, I was also fielding questions from some of my social circles. Unlike my pre-American life, during which I received few notable comments about my childlessness and marriage, in the course of and post my American life, I have received countless comments, statements, and questions on those matters, conveyed explicitly and implicitly, virtually and in-person. In the discussion to follow, I have drawn on my notes to reflect.

My LDM has become a subject of constant scrutiny because for some friends and acquaintances it indexes my violation of both Muslimness and Indonesianness. The majority in my circles know that my husband and I were in an LDM for a few years: First, when I was in Hawaii while he was in Depok/Jakarta, and then when we both were pursuing our master’s degrees: I was in Athens, OH, USA, while he was in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Even after I returned to Indonesia, my husband was in Auckland, New Zealand. The fact that I have been geographically distant from my husband multiple times has invited a number of assessments of my wifehood and my being a “good” Indonesian woman. First, a number of my Muslim fellows challenge my being an Indonesian wife. For many Indonesians, a “good” woman is the wife who acts as mental and physical welfare provider for the children and as career supporter for the husband (Blackburn 2004; Robinson 2009; Sakai and Fauzia 2016; Suryakusuma 1996, 2011). So much that the New Order government was labeled a state of Ibuism (Suryakusuma 1996, 2011). Ibuism, derived from Ibu, an Indonesian term for “mother,” is the heart of Indonesian womanhood and positions the woman’s role to be exclusively limited to pedamping suami (literally “the companion to the husband”) and mothers (to their children; Sakai and Fauzia 2016; Suryakusuma 1996, 2011). As such, womanhood is always enmeshed in wifehood and motherhood. Therefore, the questions directed often appeared to contest my ability to fulfill my Ibuism role. By living geographically away from my husband, I was seen as a “bad” wife who has failed to take care of her husband’s needs by functioning as a loyal companion. In this way, I had failed to fulfill the state’s expectations of womanhood (cf. Blackburn 2004; Robinson 2009; Sakai and Fauzia 2016; Suryakusuma 1996, 2011).

Aside from being assessed on this state level, I was also assessed according to religious expectations. Like Andri, who questioned my choices by reciting a hadith, many others reminded me often that as a good Muslim couple, Lesky and I were not supposed to be geographically away from each other for such a long period of time. Such distance, we were told, can cause fitnah (uninvited seduction), particularly on Lesky’s side. Other times, some of them would say things such as, “Are you sure Lesky will be all faithful? If he can’t stay faithful, don’t blame him. He is a man after all.” Those two statements imply two important points. One, if my husband were to commit adultery, it would be only natural, because he is a man. Secondly, adultery is a natural and anticipated consequence, a result of my failure to behave as an “obedient” wife, thus not a “good” wife for Lesky. Clearly, an imbalanced power dynamic was being reinforced through their interpretation of Islam. My identity as a Muslim woman had been weakened, in their view of Islam.

The 1993 GBHN assigned the woman’s role as companion to her husbands, with an emphasis on holding up her kodrat (nature) as mother and wife, the harkat (dignity) of the family, and the martabat (status) of herself and her family. In other words, a woman’s role has been mainly defined as mother and wife (Robinson 2009; Sakai and Fauzia 2016; Suryakusuma 1996, 2011). In my own circles, my condition as a childless woman is seen as against my kodrat (nature) as a woman who should give birth. While my status as married woman once saved me from being seen as a “left-over” woman and thus of a lower social rank, that did not last long due to my childlessness. For more than 10 years of my marriage, I have received comments and suggestions relating to my “incompleteness” as a woman if I am not yet a mother (Belum lengkap rasanya menjadi wanita bila belum menjadi Ibu). As a result of the constant propaganda asserting that Indonesian women’s power can only be assumed through being a mother and a wife (Bennett 2005; Platt et al. 2018; Robinson 2009; Suryakusuma 1996, 2011), I often find myself as a childless woman treated as “less woman” and thus “less Indonesian” than those who are mothers.

On top of that, the Suharto-era 1974 Marriage Law officially put the childless woman into an unfavorable circumstance, a law that remains intact today. Under this law, a husband is allowed to practice polygamy if his wife fails to give birth (isteri tidak dapat melahirkan keturunan, literally “the wife cannot give birth to the next generation”). However, the same right is not accorded to a woman under the reverse circumstances. I read this as an official device that weakens the position of women, while simultaneously championing the rights of men. The government does not even acknowledge any potential issues women may face, nor does it give any routes for childless women to advocate for themselves, yet grants immeasurable privilege to men. The law shows the government’s patriarchal attitude while it should have been gender-neutral. In this light, the masculinism of Indonesian gender ideology is clear and loud (see Blackwood 2007), and it is supported by the institution of marriage.

The sociocultural norms inspired by state laws and religious interpretations also encourage Indonesian women to be submissive to their husbands, and for some, this means to be educationally inferior to them. Thus, the question of my being a “good” Indonesian Muslim woman extends to my pursuit of a PhD, which for many in my social circles indexes my personal ambition. For many male friends and acquaintances, the household spheres are gendered such that the woman’s role is limited to kasur (bed, symbolizing the woman’s task to fulfill her husband’s sexual desire), dapur (kitchen, symbolizing the woman’s responsibility to cook the food on the table, while the man’s job is to provide the money for the food served), and sumur (literally water-well, which in contemporary Indonesian is the bathroom, symbolizing the wife’s responsibility for cleanliness of the house). These gendered roles are structurally taught via community organizations, school subjects, and official propaganda. From a young age, girls are oriented to view the position of wife and mother as their future career, while boys are oriented to professional careers (Blackwood 2007; Parker 2008). This propaganda gives very little room for a woman to be academically superior to her husband. Thus, for some Indonesian (especially male) friends and acquaintances, my pursuit of a PhD is a violation of this gender ideology and puts my Muslimness and womanhood subjects under question. Rather than highlighting my academic advances as social, cultural, and linguistic capital (Bourdieu 1991), they have accused me of being too ambitious, a problem that prevents me from fulfilling my duty as a “good” wife and woman. Justifying their “concerns” through religion, some friends and acquaintances have often urged me to keep trying to have children because it is one of our duties as Muslims, and particularly as women. In their view, I could become a “good” wife and be a mother by focusing less on my career. In this light, my gender role has been a communally contested issue, giving others license to evaluate my commitments to my marriage and my faith, which to my understanding should have remained within my private spheres.

My educational background seems to threaten a number of my male friends in particular. To some of them, I appear as a liberal feminist, a combination that is linked to Western cultures and thus seen as subversive to my Indonesianness (see Blackburn 2004). A number of uninvited comments have been thrown at me by some male friends questioning my Westernized way of thinking, which for them is closely related to my PhD studies and also to my stay in the United States. For them my feminism is a natural outcome of my graduate study in the United States, the place where they imagine “liberalism” and “feminism” have originated. For nearly 32 years, the New Order era successfully co-opted the term feminist to refer to women who compete against men, thus many Indonesian women generally avoid the use of the word (Adamson 2007; Blackburn 2004). The persona of the liberal feminist is generally unwelcome because feminism and liberalism for many Indonesians and the government are understood as subversions of one’s Indonesianness and Muslimness and is linked with something “western” (kebaratan) or American (keamerikaan; Adamson 2007; Blackburn 2004; Hoesterey and Clark 2012). Hence, in being labeled as one, I am concurrently seen as “non-Islamic” and “less Indonesian” than other Indonesian Muslim women.

In all these ways, my status as a childless woman with higher education and a career has invited others to assess my personal space and challenge my kodrat (nature) as an “authentic” Indonesian woman (orang Indonesia asli). I am perceived as nonnormative to the dominant construction of the Indonesian woman, a Muslim mother. In the perspective of many Indonesians, I am not following my kodrat (nature), harkat (dignity), and martabat (status) of my husband, thus I fail to project myself as a “good” Indonesian Muslim woman that fits an essentialist definition.

My Reflection as an Indonesian Muslim

For me, personally, the era Reformasi has been problematic. While it may have facilitated more freedom of expression for many Indonesians, I often receive some degree of Islamicized scrutiny particularly on the grounds of my “new interpretation” of Islam and gender as a Muslim woman and an Indonesian (see Davies 2015; Hefner 2018; Platt et al. 2018). My personal subjectivity as an Indonesian Muslim woman has been repeatedly contested through the dominant interpretation of what it means to be an Indonesian Muslim woman. My membership as an Indonesian woman seems to be invalid due to my LDM, my childless condition, and my professional ambition. Because my otherness is persistently highlighted and emphasized via constant scrutiny, I feel marginalized in the view of the mainstream Indonesian Muslims. I am increasingly aware of the value of individual and private space, which is often taken for granted or treated as insignificant by my Indonesian colleagues, or even my own family and friends. Now, whenever I am in my own country, I find some of my compatriots intrusive and the minimal personal privacy uncomfortable. I believe that contemporary Indonesia has transferred Islamic authority to laypeople who manipulate it by exercising their religious interpretation upon others (cf. Feener 2014; Platt et al. 2018; Sakai and Fauzia, 2016; Savitri 2018)

With regard to gender ideologies, I have learned that the understanding of my Indonesian circles has not changed much although the postauthoritarian era is 20 years behind us. My friends and I are the products of the New Order era, trained under traditional gender divisions. While 20 years have passed and the role of president has shifted hands a number of times, many Indonesians still preserve their understanding of government-imposed gender roles. State Ibuism is still strongly ingrained in some parts of Indonesia, even in the era Reformasi. Furthermore, some still treat “being a feminist,” “feminism,” “being liberal,” and “liberalism” as enemies to Indonesianness and Muslimness. Their understanding of those concepts has yet to change much.

When it comes to different understandings of gender, I respect others’ opinions even while I find them incompatible with mine. Unfortunately, I do not always receive mutual understanding in turn. Thus, when ideological conflict arises, which usually marginalizes me as “not Muslim enough” or “less Indonesian” than the majority of Indonesians, I sometimes force myself to keep silent and not fight back. I worry that I will be socially sanctioned because I no longer fit their definition of a “good” Indonesian Muslim woman. At many points, it does feel like I am in “the closet,” and it is risky to be “out.” I am fearful that if my new self is exposed, I would be labeled as “infidel” (murtad), a word used to describe both “bad” Muslimness and “bad” Indonesianess.

This feeling of alienation has not only produced self-deprecation and negativity; it has also afforded me the ability to empathize with other Indonesians who are considered socially, culturally, and religiously nonnormative. I am more at ease than I was before going abroad with those sharing different social, cultural, and religious values. I am also winning new friendships with Chinese–Indonesians who are likewise socially and culturally marginalized in Indonesia.

Another lesson learned from this religious scrutiny pertains to my attachment to Islam and Indonesia. While other Indonesian scholars who study in other countries tend to treat their academic pursuits as a “permanent move” to the adopted country (see Mulya 2014:109), I have resisted that particular view, regardless of the many years I have spent overseas. Since my first time in America in 2006, I have consistently viewed Indonesia as the country to which I would return for good. In my resistance, I have used verbs, such as “pursue (my study)” or “go to (the States),” as opposed to “to live” or “to move” (Mulya 2014:109) to index the temporariness of my movement. I have never fully treated the United States as my adopted country and I always viewed my “movement” as a phase. However, this view has been repeatedly contested by some friends who readily label me as “Americanized.” This label has culturally, socially, and psychologically sanctioned me as a person who is no longer a “true/authentic” Indonesian. While in my mind (and heart, if I may), I consistently treat Indonesia as my home, doing so is currently mostly a means to comfort myself.

Just as I have never thought of “leaving” my Indonesianness, it has never crossed my mind that I might leave my faith. Even today, I am wearing my jilbab through which I visibly project my Muslimness. Wearing jilbab is not only important to validate my Muslimness but also my Indonesianness. Jilbab is one of the ways in which I respect my husband and agree to show my ornaments only to him (see Thompson 2017 for a similar interpretation of hijab in Tanzania). While living in the United States, where many Americans tend to see jilbab as a symbol of the oppression of women (Haddad 2007), I have never considered it oppressive. Rather, it is a celebration of my choice. More than a fashion statement, it in fact embodies the self: as a Muslim, a woman, and an Indonesian. In other words, I see how my Indonesian Muslims’ Islamic interpretation plays a vital role in regulating the self and others (cf. Butler 2011; cf. Foucault 1988). Furthermore, while it is sometimes easy for me to feel that my religion is no longer a “safe” shelter for my being and my becoming, I am constant in my belief that it is still my home. The daily prayers through which I sustain connection with God have remained a source of solace, particularly in the darkest moments.

Through the questions and assessment of others, I have come to realize that I am no longer seen as part of my old group, or associated with the dominant groups in the cities within which I have been living. I exist now in my own space, a liminal space (Bhabha 1994). Regardless of the years during which I was physically absent from my own country, I know I am still attached to Indonesia, and still claim my Indonesianness. I continue to maintain strong relationships with good friends via WhatsApp and other social media. Connecting with them is one of the ways in which I maintain my Indonesianness and, to some extent, my Muslimness. However, in response to questions that position me as Other in relation to Indonesianness, I may want to recast my Indonesianness from a broader and more expansive lens.

In hindsight, it is through this constant series of reprimands and “advice” (nasihat) that I am able to reassess my subjective positionality among other Indonesian Muslims, particularly women. This rigorous scrutiny, either bluntly expressed or indirectly implied, has facilitated a multilayered process of redefining and rediscovering myself. Through my friends’, colleagues’, and acquaintances’ questions, assessments, and implicit judgments, I have come to realize that my identity as a Muslim Indonesian woman occurs at the intersection of familial, communal, religion, and state matters. Moreover, as I have been writing this autoethnography, I have also recognized my vulnerability. I now understand that I do not need to keep my vulnerability private: Others may know it and use it as they see fit. While some may manipulate this side of me and take advantage of it, I also know there are many who will acknowledge and appreciate it. In being vulnerable, I relearn to be a better human being. Through questions and judgments, I realize that I have grown.

Conclusion

The discussion above has shown that gender segregation and sexuality are grounded in sociocultural and political rhetoric, discourse, and public policy. I demonstrate that the construction of a “good” Muslim woman does not come solely in the guise of individual choice, but also through social and political forces. In other words, my identity as an Indonesian woman and wife does not fall within my private boundaries, but it is also a matter of others’ evaluation and judgment. My knowledge and understanding of being a “good” wife and woman are collectively built by my family, communities, and the states.

Additionally, I have never found Islam as a religion to be a problem. However, era Reformasi has enabled Muslim fellows to conflate private and public matters, with Islam as the keyword or the basis for their argument. In this light, one’s similarity as a Muslim is frequently used as an effective weapon to assess another’s Muslimness, whether one is closely or distantly connected.

Furthermore, I have come to understand others’ comments and questions as a reflective lens through which I can reassess and measure my own Muslimness. Seeing my private choices and other private decision within the framework of a technology of self where others’ unwavering “advice” is prevalent has helped me reassess and open up a deeper awareness of my being and becoming as an educated Indonesian Muslim woman beyond the symbolic and political domains. In this vein, the constant assessment has been an effective device in enabling me to learn my new-self landscape more comprehensively (Choi 2017). Thus, while they are painful and oftentimes intrusive, I have come to terms with their questions and the “self” that may be trapped in between worlds, values, and cultures. The boundaries between submission and agency, the religious and the secular, private and public, and freedom and oppression are often at the dynamic intersection of challenges and negotiation between the self and others (Foucault 1988; cf. Topal 2017). In this respect, future studies could investigate how the Islamization era has also impacted the self, particularly post the 2014 presidential election when the religious interpretation has been politically manipulated (Hamid 2018).

Lastly, my analysis shows that autoethnography offers discursive space not only to evaluate self but also to uncover larger sociocultural, religious, and political issues in Indonesia. These questions, epiphanies, and diary entries have offered insights about myself that sometimes bring me sentimental and emotional feelings. Through the reflection and writing in this study, I have become more aware of the significance of emotion as a space through which I can explore my past, present, spatial, and future events.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Katrina Daly Thompson who provided insightful and detailed feedback and Associate Professor Dr. Sharyn G. Davies for the suggestion on the first draft of this article. I would also like to thank the editors and the reviewer(s) for their constructive feedback. My special gratitude also goes out to Professor Allan Bell and Dr. Philippa Smith at the School of Language and Culture, Institute of Culture, Discourse and Communication, Auckland University of Technology.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Nelly Martin-Anatias

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