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Dominik Müller: Contesting Sacred Normativity - Pop-Islamism and Youth Culture in Malaysia

Beschreibung

Vortragender: Dominik Müller (Goethe University Frankfurt, Cluster of Excellence 'Formation of Normative Orders'):
While numerous studies on Islamic political movements are concerned with their engagement in party coalitions and the state, surprisingly few scholars have chosen to investigate the dynamic cultural life of ‘Islamist’ movements or its normative dimensions.

My presentation will explore how the Islamic Party of Malaysia (Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, PAS) is currently undergoing dramatic cultural changes and has developed an unprecedented flexibility in the field of modern popular culture. Based on ethnographic data gathered during several long-term fieldwork stays in Malaysia since 2009, I will elucidate how PAS has shifted from a group that long held the image of conservative zealots who try to ban any form of art and entertainment towards being a pioneer of pop-cultural creativity, as popular music, celebrity persons, and even motorbikes have been passionately integrated into its ‘Islamic struggle’. PAS’ cultural transformation has not only been influenced by political competition and wider social tendencies, but also by the emergence of a new generation of cultural reformists within the party. Their call for change is driven by tactical considerations and reconsiders theological positions that stipulate that modern music is strictly forbidden in Islam. Electric guitars have thereby been re-conceptualized from ‘instruments of the devil’ to tools for ‘missionary work’. The rise of pop-Islamism, however, and its underlying processes of normative change continue to be highly controversial in the community of Malaysia’s Islamist opposition.

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