Mobilizing Piety Islam and Feminism in Indonesia [Paperback]

Islam and feminism are often thought of as incompatible. Through a vivid ethnography of Muslim and secular women activists in Jakarta, Indonesia, Rachel Rinaldo shows that this is not always the case.

Examining a feminist NGO, Muslim women's organizations, and a Muslim political party, Rinaldo reveals that democratization and the Islamic revival in Indonesia are shaping new forms of personal and political agency for women. These unexpected kinds of agency draw on different approaches to interpreting religious texts and facilitate different repertoires of collective action - one oriented toward rights and equality, the other toward more public moral regulation. As Islam becomes a primary source of meaning and identity in Indonesia, some women activists draw on Islam to argue for women's empowerment and equality, while others use Islam to advocate for a more Islamic nation.

Mobilizing Pietydemonstrates that religious and feminist agency can coexist and even overlap, often in creative ways.

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1: Islam and Feminism in Jakarta
Chapter 2: Islam, Women, and the Public Sphere in Indonesia
Chapter 3: Fatayat and Rahima: Islamic Reformists
Chapter 4: The Prosperous Justice Party: Islamizing Indonesia
Chapter 5: Solidaritas Perempuan: Global Feminism in an Age of Islamic Revival
Chapter 6: Conclusion

Appendix A: Methodology
Appendix B: Development Indicators
References
Index

With her book,Mobilizing Piety, Rachel Rinaldo joins a growing and influential subset of social scientists attempting to theorize the intersection of religion and social movements using the lens of Islamic feminist activists in majority Muslim contexts. Rinaldo's excellent work offers both the theoretical and methodological groundwork for such further inquiry into the compatibilities and limits of Islam and female agency in majority Muslim contexts. --Journal for the Scientific Study of ReligionlӜ