Islamic Popul[ar]ism: Religious Popularism and Activism in the Yukngaji Community

M. Abzar Duraesa, Muzayyin Ahyar

Abstract


The increase of Islamic populism is in line with a massive spread of popular culture bringing Islamic symbols. This condition has brought a proliferation of Islamic activism which promotes its discourse with popular styles familiar to millennials. YukNgaji community, which is popularly emerging on social media, is one of the Islamic movements arising from this condition. This article examines how popular culture works in creating a discourse of Islamic activism in the YukNgaji online movement. This fieldwork uses a socio-political approach to analyze the proliferation of the YukNgaji movement in various areas driven by millennials. Some of the informants’ field data and experiences were obtained through an ethnographic method. Besides, some data on Islamic activism discourse amplified by YukNgaji was obtained from screenshots in YukNgaji.id movement’s Instagram accounts. This article finds the relationship between Islamic discourse by YukNgaji activists and popular cultural narratives. According to the finding of this article, it reveals that the phenomenon of millennial Islamic movements can be read within the scope of Islamic populism and activism in Indonesia by two important things. First, the YukNgaji movement campaigns for Islamic discourse through popular culture. Second, the YukNgaji movement tends to create a group with a common Islamic identity, which is voiced through the concept of hijra.



Keywords


YukNgaji, Islamic popularism, hijra, religious activism

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21043/qijis.v9i2.7795

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