EINZELPROJEKTE / FERDIANSYAH THAJIB

Edge of Tolerance: Politics of Emotions of Muslim Minorities amidst Intra-Religious Conflicts in Indonesia

Ferdiansyah Thajib

This doctoral thesis investigates the emotional life of Muslim minority groups in the wake pervasive forces that exclude them from various facets of public life.

Different Muslim minority groups, ranging from a collective of moderate Muslim activists, followers of Ahmadiyah strand, and various Muslim sexual minorities in Indonesia become target of violent campaigns led under the discplining banner of Islamic moral and dogmatic norms. The once celebrated tolerance of Islam in Indonesia is increasingly under scrutiny with the consensus on what being an Indonesian Muslim means collapsing into forms of antagonism in the public sphere. By working on emotion as a framework in approaching the different Muslim minorities, this research aims at exploring the loci for feelings and sentiments of marginalized communities, that are not only Shahred by groups of individuals implicated in common social structures and cultural processes, but which are also significant in the construction of social identities and collective behavior. It maps out the formation of subjectivities that deploy emotionally charged positions, narratives, and relationships in inhabiting and negotiating the tensions between faith, community and selfhood.