ANTHROPOLOGY – SOCIAL SCIENCES FACULTY

Being Muslim in the age of Facebook, Youtube and Twitter Anthropological reflections on Media and Religion Symposium, April 18th-19th

“Being Muslim in the Age of Facebook, Youtube and Twitter Anthropological Reflections on Media and Religion”

September 2012, Youtube postings of the film “Innocence of Muslims” sparked manifestations of indignation all over the world, many African cities included. While at times, the demonstrations were peaceful, Reuters mentioned that Shi'ite Muslims in the Nigerian town of Katsina burned U.S., French and Israeli flags, and a religious leader called for protests to continue until the makers of the film and cartoons are punished. The Islamic Movement in Nigeria organized a protest march in Kano, northern Nigeria, in which thousands marched peacefully. On 21 September 2012, thousands of Muslims rallied through the roads after Friday prayers in Dar es Salaam where different speeches, which condemned the film, were provided. Men, women children and even elders, together made a peaceful march. Elsewhere, like in Cairo, riots occurred and people were killed. The reactions did not only reflect a concern about respect for Islam communities. Rather, the protests themselves became moments in which local state actions gained meaning as well. Authorities in Cairo, for example, are said to have ordered the arrest of seven US-based Egyptian Coptic Christians for their alleged involvement in the anti-Islam video. In Bamako, on the other hand, protests were scheduled to take place in front of the American Embassy, but in the end were canceled. According to rumors, protesters feared that violent interventions by the national army would offer the government the occasion to mobilize respect for and support of “the US”. These events trigger questions concerning the imagination of the West; the representation of Islam; and the dialectics between politics and social media. We want to invite three prominent anthropologists who have done extensive fieldwork on media and popular forms of mobilization in three different African countries where Islam is important: Egypt, Mali and Tanzania. During a roundtable session, the scholars will address the two following questions: 1. “What does it mean to be a Muslim in the global media age?” How do media representations, media practice and media use influence piety, faith and the public manifestation of one’s religious identity? 2. And, how do the public manifestations (sometimes violent, sometimes peaceful) by Islam believers and triggered by media influence their daily interactions with other religious practitioners? How are these mobilizations inscribed within local conversations with Christian communities and other religious groups? And, how are these also transformed by inter-religious encounters? 3. What kinds of moral communities are being created throughout the media? To which extent do new media provide a platform for shaping pious self-understandings and can religious groups draw on these new technologies to establish and create new collectivities or counter-publics? From Representation to Mobilization Anthropologists are turning more and more to the significance of social media. In particular, compelling research deals with how new media platforms impact lifestyles, construct “imagined communities” or ethical communities, and shape agency, fantasies and expectations.

Influential scholars that have set the theoretical background for an anthropology of social media are Benedict Anderson and Arjun Appadurai. In Imagined Communities (1983), Anderson analysed how the formation of nations depend to a high degree on innovations in communication technologies, in particular the print press. By reading journal articles that discuss issues of “common interest”, “national publics” came into being. Newspapers were written in a language its readers shared, and enabled the emergence of a national consciousness. Apart from the formation of national groups, media of all kinds are fundamental in the creation and consolidation of religious groups and the mobilization of transcendental powers as well (Meyer and Moors 2006). Challenging for students of contemporary society is that innovations in communication technologies such as radio, television and, especially social media, give rise to various kinds of new communities and publics, new forms of attachment and belonging, and novel ways of experimenting with collective and private identities. In particular, social media bring to the fore the participatory element of “the public”. Writing comments on e-platforms, sharing images and photo-shopping them, blogging or updating one’s online status are practices that bring out the agency of members of these new publics, and that can induce mass actions. Appadurai’s elaboration (1990) on the mediascape draws our attention to the trajectories of print and electronic media. These travel along fluid and irregular “global cultural flows”, which cross local and global boundaries, and produce new realities. Probably best known about the contemporary Muslim mediascape, because of the widespread media coverage, are the Mohammed cartoons published in Danish newspapers and, recently, the anti-Islam film produced in the US. These images, originating in Western “Christian” societies but immediately dialoguing with Islam leaders and practices of faith mobilize feelings of anger, frustration, hatred and disgust; they inspire violent confrontations and peaceful dialogues; they force Muslims and non-Muslims to reflect about the worlds they inhabit, and to take position. These forms of mobilization may be new; yet, they also stand in local histories of community formation, public dialogue and registers of faith expression.

Invited speakers:

•

Prof. Dr. Kelly Askew, associate Professor at the University of Michigan (USA) Kelly Askew has pursued extensive fieldwork in East Africa along the Swahili Coast of Tanzania and Kenya on topics relating to music and politics, media, performance, nationalism, socialism, and postsocialism. In addition to academic work, she is actively involved in film and television production, having worked in various capacities on two feature films and a number of documentary films. Her publications include two edited volumes, African Postsocialisms (co-edited with M. Anne Pitcher, Edinburgh University Press, 2006) and The Anthropology of Media: A Reader (co-edited with Richard R. Wilk, Blackwell Publishers, 2002), articles on topics ranging from nationalism to gender relations to Hollywood film production, and a book on music and politics in Tanzania entitled Performing the Nation: Swahili Music and Cultural Production in Tanzania (University of Chicago Press, 2002).

•

Prof. Dr. Charles Hirschkind, associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley (USA) Charles Hirschkind’s research interests concern religious practice, media technologies, and emergent forms of political community in the Middle East, North America, and Europe. Taking contemporary developments within the traditions of Islam as his primary focus, he has explored how various religious practices and institutions have been revised and renewed both by modern norms of social and political life, and by the styles of consumption and culture linked to global mass media practices. His first book, The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics (Columbia 2006), explores how a popular Islamic media form-the cassette sermon-has profoundly transformed the political geography of the Middle East over the last three decades. Also see his article“New Media and Political Dissent in Egypt,” Revista de Dialectologia y Tradiciones Populares 65, 1 (2010): 137-153, in which he situates the Tahrir manifestations within a longer history of political mobilization and transformations in the Cairene public sphere.

•

Prof. Dr. Dorothea Schulz, professor at the University of Cologne (Germany) Dorothea Schulz’ research, publications, and teaching are centered on the anthropology of religion, political anthropology, Islam in Africa, gender studies, media studies, and public culture. She has extensive field research experience in West Africa, particularly in urban and rural Mali and has recently embarked on a new research project in Eastern Uganda that deals with Muslim politics of education as well as with intra-Muslim debate over burial rituals and proper religious practice. Her new book Muslims and New Media in West Africa: Pathways to God (Indiana University Press, 2011) analyzes Muslim revivalist groups in Mali that draw inspiration from transnational trends of Muslim moral reform and promote a relatively new conception of publicly enacted religiosity (significantly displayed in feminized signs of piety).

Full program THURSDAY APRIL 18TH 3pm-5:30pm Key Note – Round Table with Dorothea Schulze, Kelly Askew & Charles Hirschkind Place: AV 02.17 3pm: Welcome and introduction Dr. Katrien Pype (IARA) 3:15 – 4:15 pm: Keynote on the role of social media and religious groups Prof. Dr. Charles Hirschkind Prof. Dr. Kelly Askew Prof. Dr. Dorothea Schulze 4:15pm – 4:45pm: Round table on media and religion with keynote speakers Moderated by Prof. Dr. Steven Van Wolputte and Prof. Dr. Nadia Fadil 4:45pm – 5:30pm: Q&A with audience

FRIDAY APRIL 19TH 9 am – 10:30 am (SW02.07) - PhD Seminar with Prof. Dr. Dorothea Schulze Megan Bartel (University of Calgary) “Religious groups and “soft power” through the internet” Amidst the world of IPhones, Facebook, and Twitter, ever evolving technologies seem to pervade every crevice of society – indeed, they are often inescapable. Some of the most recent and avant-garde technologies to date are those pertaining to the internet, particularly social media. Social media has revolutionized the means and the speed by which people are able to communicate. Furthermore, within the realms of social media, lies the potential for people to effect social and political change. For the purpose of this work, the language of soft power (a term coined by Joseph Nye), shall be employed. Nye has defined soft power as “the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion.” This paper shall explore the possibility for online religious groups to exercise soft power through the vehicle of social media insofar as they can rapidly bring together religious actors from around the globe for the purpose of advocating common goals and ideas, as well as, more specifically, insofar as they might hold governments and actors in the public and political spheres accountable. I have located three specific online groups on which this paper shall be focused: Homosexual Christians, Engaged Buddhists, and Muslim Feminists. Jennifer Earl has provided compelling contributions to scholarship in terms of how the internet and social media have vastly changed both the platform and the role of social activism in the modern world. Although her research is not focused on religious groups, Earl’s work on e-movements and web activism has the potential to set the stage for my arguments concerning religious groups, specifically. When understood with respect to the work of Nye and thus translated into the language of soft power and accountability, I think

there is a compelling argument to be made that religious communities might remain politically, socially, and ethically relevant when they are effectively engaged with the social media world. Marloes Hamelinck (Utrecht University) “Phones, boyfriends and buibui’s: Zanzibari women and the mediation of Swahili Islam” Muslims on the islands of Zanzibar on the east coast of Tanzania, demonstrate a rise in religious practices in daily life. Public piety and Islamic awareness are expanding both in offline and online spheres. Islamic knowledge and practice increase mainly due to scholars who gained knowledge in Arabic countries and the rise of religious mass media. However, mass media and communication technologies are often blamed to be the main cause in the development of westernization and modernization of the Swahili1 society. This belief is especially apparent in the older generation of women, who fear that the youth is becoming westernized and their religious and cultural values are in decline. However, with the rise in technology, and therefore access to education, young girls have more religious knowledge and dress more religiously conservative than their mothers did when they were young. During my current ethnographic fieldwork I focus on ideas about the relations between technology, Islam and the way women express religiosity and perform social relationships in daily life, both online and offline. Internet and mobile phones are used to intensify social networks and to express religiosity. Besides, Muslim women use those technologies in mediating love relationships, their secrets and the moral ethics involved in navigating those relationships. Young women find ways to negotiate the cultural and religious expectations of the society they are part of, and embed communication technologies within their daily social lives, creating a more flexible space to express their identities.

10:45 am – 12:15pm (SW02.07) – PhD Seminar with Prof. Dr. Kelly Askew Jitte Brys (SOAS London) “Islamic Hiphop in Jakara and social media” This paper investigates the emergence of Islamic ‘fundamentalist’ rappers and punk-rock musicians in Jakarta, Indonesia. An important aspect of this research is the way in which these urban middle class Muslims actively make use of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogspot and YouTube, to spread their messages of social and political protest. This protest is analysed in two of my case studies where I talk about a few key figures (mainly rappers and punk-rock singers) in the Islamic underground community, mostly referred to as Salam Satu Jari or One Finger Movement.2 Muslim artists and supporters who identify themselves with this movement 1) want to ‘go back’ to the fundaments of Islam3, 2) feel closely connected to devote Muslims in other parts of the global world, especially to those who suffer, 3) strongly believe in a

1

The term Swahili is used for the inhabitants of the east African coast, and shares mainly commonalities in the tremendous diversity and the exchange of cultural practices and believes (Askew 1999: 70).

2

The name ‘Salam Satu Jari’ or One Finger Movement refers to different symbols and meanings, but the main meaning is the believe in one God, Allah.

3

This, for example, includes the ban of alcohol/drugs and ‘free sex’ (sexual intercourse before or outside marriage), no physical contact between men and women (e.g hand shaking), a simple (non-commercial) lifestyle, the burqa for women (which is unusual in most parts of Indonesia),..

Zionist conspiracy theory between the US and Israel that is meant to ‘destroy’ the Muslim world and 4) have online access to blogs and fan-pages, free mp3 downloads, music video’s, concert flyers and information about gatherings and protest actions,.. Although these Satu Jari Muslims tend to worship a devote and simple/non-commercial lifestyle, that rejects capitalism and certain ‘negative Western influences’ (such as the consumption of drugs/alcohol and the use of condoms), they also prove to be part of a different form of modernity – one in which technology and information plays an important role.

Abderrahman El Aissati (Tilburg University) “Tattoos for believers: constructing religious identities among Moroccans in the Diaspora” This contribution is about how social media and Internet forums allow for stronger (more prominent) identity markers than off line discourse. The Internet allows inscriptions of individuals to last longer than in offline modes of conversation, and can enhance the visibility of personal attributes. As such it can speed up the process of group identification. Although the personal trust needed for group formation is relatively hard to gain in the online mode, users can build up large support groups as well as tightly knit communities (through private messaging for example) . I will deal with data that illustrate the richness of the online mode with respect to religious identity, in particular how social media and Internet forum users present themselves with respect to marking a religious identity. The data cover instances of graphic uses such as the choice of avatars and message signatures, and textual uses such as code-switching to Standard Arabic, and the use of Literary Dutch style.

2:30pm – 4pm (SW02.25) – PhD Seminar with Prof. Dr. Charles Hirschkind Iman Lechkar (HU Brussel) “Belgian Muslim converts, facebook and the ideal of solidarity and a human centered formation” The developments of Islam in Belgium cannot be situated outside the global mass media practices. Muslim (Sunni) converts in Belgium refuse to inscribe themselves in the dominant neo-liberal society and create specific social and ethical frames to shape formations are that are centered on solidarity and human wellbeing. Based on Lechkar’s doctoral thesis on conversion to and within Islam, this paper aims at presenting the impact of social media on ethical, social and political ideas and commitments. It particularly investigates how solidarity and human wellbeing is represented, shaped en reinforced through facebook.

Nerina Rustomji (St. John's University) “New Media and the Houris of Islamic Paradise” In one of the Danish cartoons published in Jyllands-Posten in 2005, prophet Muhammad yells out to suicide bombers approaching heaven, "Stop stop we ran out of virgins." References to these pure female companions—called hur in Arabic and referred to as houris or "virgins" in English—have become so commonplace that they now represent pervasive assumptions about Islam. While American and European discourse about Islam is obsessed with the sexual and violent associations of the houri, this figure has

contested meanings that are debated on the Internet. Aside from the many sensational American blogs about the houris, there are lectures by some Muslim theologians who use the figure of the houri as a metaphor for purity. There are also contested feminist approaches to the houris, which range from arguing one position - that houris are a byproduct of male patriarchy and Islamic oppression - to another – that all women transform into pure houris upon entry in heaven and so the figure of the houri reinforces equality. Meanwhile, jihadis repeatedly use the phrase "marriage with the houris" as a code that signals their intention to employ violence for strategic aims. This presentation uses discursive analysis and intellectual history to demonstrate how the dynamic interplay of new media after September 11th has transformed the classical Islamic houri into a global symbol of Islam. The significance of the presentation is that it not only shows how varying Muslim religious and political interpretations use medieval tropes and reconfigure them in global discussion about Muslim piety, but also accounts for how varying moral communities have turned the houri into a twenty-first century new media icon.

Aslihan Akkaya (Georgetown University) “Devotion and Friendship through Facebook. An Ethnographic Approach to Language, Community and Identity Performances of Young TurkishAmerican Women” Skype session – TBC This research explores how linguistic, media, and semiotic ideologies intersect in the integration of Facebook as communication media in religious practices of a group of young Turkish-American women affiliated with a faith-based civic movement, known as the Gulen or Hizmet (volunter’s service) Movement. Conducting a three-year long ethnography (2008-2011), I observed these young Muslim women’s participation in various instances of discourse on Facebook in addition to conducting several face-to-face ethnographic interviews with the group members. Observing the circulation of discourse, specifically the uses of interdiscursive and hence semiotic processes and mechanisms, I witness the unfolding discourse and so the mediation of various ideologies that have a great impact on these young Turkish-American women practices and performances on and off Facebook (Eisenlohr 2010, Gershon 2010, Spitulnik Vidali 2010). I observed that these young women, after being dispersed to different locations, began to see Facebook as a vital means to maintain their group ties. Stepping into the ideological realm, I understand that the notion of “friendship” is highly influenced by an ideology of tefânî (advanced level of religious brotherhood). That is, true/religious brotherhood is one of the important principles of gaining ikhlas (sincerity) and hence a way to establish good relations with God; these young women see Facebook as a means to further their relationship with their sisters and thus establish a good relationship with God. Influenced by several competing ideologies, these young women negotiated the positive and negative sides of Facebook in terms of their religiosity. In this negotiation process, they both negotiate Facebook and their identities as emergent in discourse via practices and performances (Bucholtz and Hall 2004). By means of distinguishing their Facebook from the popular use of it, they index their difference from the mainstream users and hence index “otherness” of their practices and identity.

Practical Information The event will take place at the Campus of the Social Sciences Faculty Parkstraat 45 3000 Leuven Map for more information at: http://soc.kuleuven.be/web/staticpage/1/1/eng/5 Organising commitee: Katrien Pype (IARA – KU Leuven) Nadia Fadil (IMMRC – KU Leuven) Jori De Coster (IMMRC – KU Leuven)

This event is sponsored by IARA (www.iara.be), IMMRC (www.immrc.be), Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies (KU Leuven) the Faculty of Social Sciences, the PhD School for Humanities and the Flemish Government