Negotiating Identity of Indonesian Muslims in Australia

Asep S. Muhtadi, Moch Fakhruroji, Dede Syarif and Aam Abdillah

UIN Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung, Bandung, Indonesia

moch.

akhruro

uins

d.ac.id

Keywords: IMCV, solidarity, identity negotiation, secular state.

Abstract: This paper seeks to scrutinize the process of identity formation of Indonesian Muslim in their new and

different milieu in Australia. Using qualitative method, particularly a case study, focusing on IMCV

(Indonesian Muslim Community of Victoria) as object of analysis, this paper argues that identity is dynamic

and fluid. The identity is changing due to its new environment and to its relation with other identity. This is

clear among Indonesian Muslims living in Australia where an environment was diverse comparing with

their home country. As they arrived in new milieu, Indonesian Muslim become a minority group in

Australia, thus they are potentially facing the process of identity crisis where they force to negotiate their

original identity brought from their homeland towards new diverse milieu in Australia. To deal with it,

efforts were conducted to conserve their identity in various negotiation processes which occurred within

community and in relation to others community. The efforts within community were implemented in

various activities to solidify “the brought original identity”. This includes performing Islamic study groups,

organizing sport and cultural festival, celebrating religious and national day, and to some extents in the way

they dress up in daily activities like wearing veil and Indonesian Muslims cloth. While implicitly, an efforts

directed in responds to outside environment was expressed by their accommodation to the Australian culture

which is suitable to the core values of their original identity. Through this negotiation process, Indonesian

Muslim living in Australia was identified for their accommodation and toleration to new environment

making them as welcomed community among new different social and political milieu.

1 INTRODUCTION

Identity is fluid and dynamic. It is negotiated in

reciprocal relations between self and society.

Theoretically, it is strongly associated with the

symbolic inter actionist view that society affects

social behaviour through its influence on self (in

Ritzer 2005), and was developed in part in order to

explain the central views of symbolic interactionism

into an empirically testable set of propositions

(Stryker and Serpe 1982). Identity theory, however,

discards the symbolic interactionist view of society

as a relatively undifferentiated, cooperative whole

(Stryker and Serpe 1982: 206), arguing instead that

society is complexly differentiated but nevertheless

organized (Stryker and Serpe 1982:206). This idea

of society forms the basis for the central intention on

which identity theory is predicated: that identity as a

reflection of society, the self should be regarded as a

complicated and organized construct.

This theoretical description of identity was

shown in the negotiation process of Indonesian

Muslim living in Australia which was brought when

they arrived in new environment. The Indonesian

Muslim Identity is a reflection of society and at the

same time, the environment and the society where

they living now, mirrored in their contemporary self

identity.

This paper aims to investigate how identity of

Indonesian Muslims migrates to Australia as new

environment which is differ to their original milieu

affected in constructing “a new identity”. To

analysis this, we will firstly explore historical

trajectories of relation of Indonesian Muslim with

Australia.

According to Saeed (2003), Islam has entered

Australia continent through the sailors from

Makassar, an eastern region of the archipelago that

was under the reign of the Islamic sultanate. Saeed

found the fact that Indonesian Muslims from

Makassar had arrived in Australia since the 1750s as

exploring to the northern part of Australia to get the

catch of sea cucumbers. In this exploration, they

interacted with the indigenous Australians.

Contacts between Indonesian and Australian also

occur with the Kupangnese and Javanese people

who were taken as workers in the pearl processing

100

Muhtadi, A., Fakhruroji, M., Syarif, D. and Abdillah, A.

Negotiating Identity of Indonesian Muslims in Australia.

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education (ICSE 2017) - Volume 1, pages 100-105

ISBN: 978-989-758-316-2

industry and the planting of raw materials for sugar

that lasted since the late 19th century (Saeed, 2003).

The arrival of Indonesian to Australia subsequently

took place in the 1950s through an Australian

government education scholarship scheme to train

Indonesians at Australian universities. During this

period, several Indonesians came to Australia to

teach Bahasa Indonesia. Those who choose to settle

in Australia during this period later became the

embryo of the birth of the Indonesian Muslim

community in Australia.

Nowadays, the population of Muslim in

Australia continues to grow, especially as the wave

of immigrants from other Middle Eastern and Asian

countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon,

Turkey, Bosnia, Bangladesh, Africa and also from

Southeast Asia. The diversity of ethnicity and

cultural backgrounds of these Muslim immigrants

culminates in the Australian Muslims identity. This

is why Saeed (2003) identify Australian Muslims as

“a diverse group of people, coming from more than

70 different countries.”

In the 2001 census, total Muslim population in

Australia amounted to 281,572 or about 1.5 percent

of Australian total population of 13,629,700

(Commonwealth of Australia, 2002). Most of

Australian Muslim population comes from Lebanon,

Turkey, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Pakistan, Indonesia,

Iraq, Bangladesh, and Iran. In addition to immigrant

Muslim generations, there is also a new generation

of Muslims born in Australia (Muslims Australian-

born), which about 36.5% of the total Muslim

population in Australia. Therefore statistically,

almost half of Australian Muslims aged fewer than

24 are generally dispersed in two large cities,

Sydney and Melbourne. In the Sydney area, Muslim

communities are in Auburn, Greenacre, Bankstown,

Lakemba, and Punchbowl. While for the Melbourne

community the Muslim community occupies

suburbs such as Meadow Heights, Reservoir, Dallas,

Noble Park and Coburg. Some smaller communities

can be found in outer areas of the city such as

Shepparton located in northern Victoria.

This paper aims to reveal the facts on socio-

religious solidarity and identity negotiation as a

social process among Indonesia Muslims with

fellow Muslims and both Australia public and

government. Using qualitative method with a case

study, this research was conducted in one of the

largest Muslim communities in Australia, the

Indonesian Muslim Community of Victoria (IMCV)

based in Melbourne.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

The concept of identity is available in cross

contemporary social sciences from sociology,

psychoanalysis through psychology, history and

political science. General usage of the term,

however, ignores the considerable variability in both

its conceptual meanings and its theoretical role.

Restricting consideration to sociology and social

psychology, variation is still considerable. Among

them there are three relatively distinct usages of this

concept. First, those who use the term to refer

essentially to the culture of a people without

distinction between identity and, for example,

ethnicity, thus blurring the theoretical point of its

introduction.

Second, scholars use the concept of identity to

refer to common identification with a collectiveness

or social category as in Social Identity Theory

(Tajfel, 1982). Finally, the third scholars who use

the concept with reference to parts of a self

composed of the meanings attached by persons to

the multiple roles they typically play in highly

differentiated contemporary societies and

environment.

In general, Identity theory has evolved in two

somewhat different, yet robustly related, directions,

particularly on the goal to understand and explain

how social structures impact self and how self-

impact social behaviours.

The first direction is represented by work of

Stryker and colleagues (e.g., Stryker 1980; Stryker

and Serpe 1982), concentrates on investigating how

social structures impact the structure of self and the

impact of the latter on social behavior, while the

second as founded on the work of Burke and

colleagues (Burke and Reitzes 1991; Burke and Stets

1999) concentrates on the internal dynamics of self-

processes as these impact social behavior. Thus, in

degree, the first neglects internal dynamics of self-

processes, the second ways in which external social

structures impose on the internal processes.

The process of identity construction occured

when people enggage in particular social group for

instnces religion, community, sport organization etc.

Referring to the theretical frame work as explained

earlier, this paper scrutinize the identity formation in

religious community such as dakwah community.

Meanwhile, religions are able to bind solidarity

and identity among its adherents. However,

Annemarie de Waal Malefijt (1968: 290) remarks

that the religious function can be seen significantly

in their social relationships with the individual or

community of its adherents. These functions can be

Negotiating Identity of Indonesian Muslims in Australia

101

seen in the relationships it establishes with the

family institutions, political organizations,

economies, or values contained in other social

structures.

As noted by Tischler (1990: 569-570) social

solidarity “emerges from the people’s commitment

and conformity to the society’s collective

conscience”. When a strong collective awareness

exists among members of the community coupled

with the strong commitment amongst them will

mechanically form a strong togetherness as well. In

this context, religion itself according to its

characteristics becomes a force that shapes

commitment among fellow believers, thus create

group identity. In the view of Donald W. Klopf

(1989: 34-35), one of the factors that constitute the

community is that individuals who engage in the

community hope to find an image of their status.

Another reason why a person joins a community is

that the reasons for the expected values can be

derived from the behavior of serving each other

among their community members.

Even in Sociology, the term of community is

often explained by a set of people bound to each

other by certain similarities and purposes, such as

regional equality, hobbies, and interests. As a

concept, community is different from society.

Ferdinand Tonnies (in Fuchs, 2008: 340) reveals that

community (gemeinschaft) lies in the awareness of

mutual belonging and affirmation of the

interdependence among its members, whereas

society (gesellschaft) is a concept that simply refers

to the common goal of the activity.

On the other hand, social interaction can also be

seen as an interaction that involves various

identities. Sociologically for traditional societies,

identity cannot be questioned because it has attached

itself to a person when he was born and grows.

Perhaps this is caused by the identity itself is often

associated with the concept of belonging, which is

about what one’s equality with others or what

distinguishes one with another. Moreover,

fundamentally, identity is also often shown by

location and associated with individuality (Weedon,

2004: 1).

Nevertheless, identity discourse becomes very

different in the context of modernity where identity

becomes more mobile, multiple, personal, tends to

change, and can be created. It can also be social and

related to self-consciousness that can arise by itself

(Kellner 2000: 316). This is in line with the

theoretical explained in the first section of this paper

which states that identity is something fluid and

negotiable. To this idea, the notion of identity crisis

helps to understand the dynamic of particular

identity both due to internal and external factors.

Term ‘identity crisis’ in this context is seen as part

of a broader process of change that breaks away

from the central structures and processes of modern

society and undermines the framework previously

built by the social world. This concept at the same

time clarifies the reason why person chooses a friend

or to adhere to an organization, association, and so

forth. In other words, self-identification process is

nothing but the process of self-classification with

those who has the same meaning of something.

Thus, all human identities are essentially social

identities. The process of self-identification or others

is a matter of meaning and always involves

interaction: agreement and disagreement, convention

and innovation, communication and negotiation

(Jenkins, 2004: 4).

Nevertheless, these distinct groups can interact

effectively if each can engage in identity

negotiations. Generally speaking, identity

negotiation generally occurs in the context of

intercultural communication and interaction aimed at

achieving an understanding of different group

identities. Ting-Toomey (1999: 39-40) believes that

identity negotiation is a form of mutual-

communication activity. It is not only a

communication act that is active but also mutual.

Individuals try to generate the identity they want in

interaction, they also try to challenge or support

another identity.

Identity negotiation is not related to the

diminishing of one's identity, but instead, provides

the way for identities to exist in the context of even a

plural society. Therefore, identity negotiation

requires mindfulness, the readiness to shift the frame

of reference, the motivation to use new categories to

understand cultural or ethnic differences, and

readiness to experiment with creative opportunities

from decision-making and problem-solving. Instead

of mindlessness is a great dependence on familiar

reference frames, categories and designs that are

routine and ways of doing things that have become

habitual. Therefore, the practice of identity

negotiation is more likely in the context of an open,

modern society with adequate levels of education.

3 METHOD

This is mainly qualitative method with a case study

approach. To gain data, this research deploys in

depth interview conducted among Indonesia Muslim

Community in Victoria, observation in community

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hub (mosque, family, majelis taklim, and offices),

and document analysis relating to the topic of this

research. This include archives of IMCV, brochure,

and government regulation on community in

Australia. The constructive case study does not

assume a mere reality and believes that empirical

reality and theoretical concepts are mutually

reinforcing. Therefore, case studies of this type

focus on processes that bridge concrete observations

and abstract meanings using interpretive techniques

(Given, 2008: 69). As Yin (1994: 13) points out,

case studies are studies that investigate

contemporary phenomena in the context of everyday

real life, especially when the boundary between

phenomena and context is not very clear. This study

does not situate the Indonesian Muslim Community

of Victoria (IMCV) as the main subject but makes it

a medium for understanding the phenomenon of

social solidarity and identity negotiation in the

context of a secular state so that it can be viewed as

a typical description of other cases or even the case

that it stands Independently and represents only a

unique and non-general phenomenon.

4 DISCUSSION

Indonesian Muslims migrated to Australia for

different motivations. Some were coming for

studying and they could be identified as student,

while others were arriving in for economic reason as

they tried to find jobs in Australia. They reside in

two concentrated cities, Sydney and Melbourne in

the state of Victoria. This paper focus on Indonesia

Muslim Community in Victoria (IMCV), for several

reasons. First, IMCV accommodates members from

diverse Islamic religious background, such as

Nahdhatul Ulama, Muhammadiyah, Persatuan Islam

as well as tarbiyah religious background such as

PKS. This characteristic signified the melting

identity across mass organization boundaries which

is problematic in context of Indonesia, a homeland

to the IMCV members. Second, IMCV represents a

dynamic identity both intra community and

intergroup community.

IMCV organizes six Indonesian Muslim

communities that share various religious activities,

such as; Pengajian Brunswick, SAS (Sulit Air

Sepakat) Study, Pengajian LaTrobe, Monash

Indonesian Islamic Society (MIIS), Young

Indonesian Muslim Students Association (YIMSA),

and Pengajian At Taqwa (later known as Pengajian

Westall). In 1997, all these study groups then agreed

to establish a kind of container that could shelter all

these groups which were later called Indonesian

Muslim Community of Victoria (IMCV). After

IMCV was formed, then several other groups joined

among others; Pengajian Footscray and Pengajian

An-Nur. Indonesian Muslim Community of Victoria

(IMCV) is the only institution that embraces almost

all Islamic organizations in the state of Victoria,

Australia.

Westall Mosque is not the only center for the

activities of Indonesian Muslims in Victoria. In

addition to Westall, there is Surau Kita Mosque in

Coburg North and Baitul Ma’mur Mosque in

Laverton which both serve as a center of IMCV

activities with somewhat distant area but still in the

State of Victoria. In addition to these three mosques,

some small religious activities are still being held by

the mentioned above.

In Australia, however, Indonesian Muslims are

minority, both ethnically and religiously. This

awareness formed in the process of establishing the

Indonesian Muslim community in Victoria. In the

span of the journey of the establishment of the

Indonesian Muslim community in Victoria, the issue

of the identity of their origin social organization

(such as Nahdlatul Ulama, Muhammadiyah or

Persatuan Islam) in Indonesia has appeared several

times. But along with the growing awareness of their

community as immigrants, they are aware of the

emergence of a common identity as an Indonesian

Muslim. They can find a common identity that

transcends the different religious organizations.

In its development today, the presence of the

Westall Mosque is not only a facility of worship and

social activity for Indonesian citizens, but it

becomes a meeting point for Muslims from various

other countries, such as the Middle East and other

Arab countries. This scene is unique, especially as

shown in mosques in the Victoria area associated

with the identity of the country's origin of the

immigrants such as the mosque of Bangladesh,

Turkish mosque, Mosque Lebanon and others. The

mosques not only serve as a place of worship but

also as a community center. In such a function, the

mosque serves as a primordial bonding tie that can

treat and nourish the immigrant's longing in a

foreign land called Australia.

But on the other hand, the identification of

mosques with certain ethnicities creates a boundary

between one ethnic and another ethnic becomes so

obvious. Generally, one particular ethnic Muslim

group would prefer to come to a mosque in

accordance with ethnicity. But what happened in

Westall Mosque as Indonesian mosque is quite

different since they serve Muslim from other

Negotiating Identity of Indonesian Muslims in Australia

103

community, like Arab Muslim who well received

even get a role in many activities at Westall Mosque

as seen in tahfidz Al-Quran for children who guided

by an ustadz who is Arabic for instance.

In this secularized state of Australia, Indonesian

Muslim community embodies the tolerant face of

Islam beyond the mazhab (school of thoughts),

ethnicities and states barriers. It is precisely in this

secular milieu that the figure of Nusantara Islam

finds its form. Nusantara Islam is no longer limited

to claims as a particular religious identity of

madhab, but rather as a representation of the Islamic

face of Indonesia which is the color of the united

state of the Republic of Indonesia.

5 CONCLUSIONS

IMCV has strengthens solidarity among Indonesian

Muslims. This is reflected in a number of activities

held, both religious and social, IMCV has become a

glue of the Indonesian Islamic community in

Australia that not only strengthens the existence of

each study group spread in several places practically

but also structurally has become a unifying society

Indonesian Islam in Victoria so that more systematic

and more have a more qualified bargaining position.

Regarding identity, IMCV also serves as one of

the institutions that bridging identity negotiation.

The practice of identity negotiation undertaken by

Indonesian Muslims in Victoria can be identified

through several matters, among others; they do not

use mosques for Friday prayers given government

regulations since some mosques do not have

adequate parking facilities. More broadly, the

negotiation of Islamic identity of Indonesia is

illustrated by the first Indonesian Muslim Congress

which was held in Melbourne in September 2016.

This conference is not only the momentum of

affirmation of the existence of Muslims in Australia

growing and growing but also as the practice of

identity negotiation of Indonesian Muslims in the

West as inclusive Islam.

This study offers an important contribution to

understanding the dynamic of identity particularly in

realm where the original identity constructed by

religious values, as the IMCV members in Australia

adhered; interact with new milieu, such as

secularism, which is in opposition with the Islamic

values. The results provide evidence that formal

religious participation is associated with having a

stronger religious social identity and that this aspect

of identity, in turn, accounts for constructing identity

to others community and different milieu. The

findings are noteworthy in terms of their addressing

a relatively understudied factor within empirical

investigations of religion, secular environment and

social identity. Results also point to the promise of

continuing to apply and extend identity on group

processes and individual outcomes to the social

scientific study of religion and identity construction.

As this research only covered the identity within

certain situation, the question of how this identity

renegotiated when the IMCV members return to

Indonesia, their homeland, is remain critical for

further research.

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