Mittwoch, 11. Mai 2011, 18 Uhr

Campus Westend, Hörsaalzentrum HZ5

Dr. Bart Barendregt (Leiden University)

Funky but Shariah. Sonic Discourse on Muslim Malay Modernity

Abstract

In this presentation Barendregt focuses on nasyid, a popular music genre that since the mid-1990s has been popular across Muslim Southeast Asia, but is especially  produced and consumed in cities and towns with a large student population and a Muslim activist tradition. The mix of pop, politics and piety will be used here to tackle the increasing complexity of post secular majority Muslim societies. Nasyid is the auditory component of a newly styled Islamic popular culture that has been successful in not only addressing questions about what it is to be a modern Muslim youth in Southeast Asia, reconciling piety with a consumerist lifestyle, but also had been expressive of their political aspirations. In Malaysia nasyid has been instrumental in propagating the ideals of the now banned Darul Arqam movement, whereas Indonesian nasyid musicians and their audiences are explicitly linked to the aspirations of the Islamist Justice Party (PKS). Both organizations have been successful in addressing the needs of young well-educated Muslims, at the same time offering them a perspective of a more righteous, utopian style communal society.

CV

Bart Barendregt is an anthropologist who lectures at the Institute of Social and Cultural Studies, Leiden University in the Netherlands. He is now as a senior researcher part time affiliated to the Royal Institute for Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV-KNAW), where he is coordinating a four year project funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). Within the framework of this project, he is currently working on his book about nasyid: Islamic boy band music and the mixing of religion, youth culture and politics that has become so popular among Malaysian and Indonesian student-activists. Barendregt is as a senior researcher also affiliated to another NWO project, The Future is Elsewhere: Towards a Comparative History of Digital Futurities. At present Barendregt lectures on Southeast Asian culture and society, popular and digital culture and media anthropology. – Selected publications: Films: 2007, Generasi Jempol / The Finger Top Generation: Mobile Modernities in Contemporary Java. DVD Documentary (32 minutes). Leiden University in collaboration with Sorot Media: Leiden, Yogyakarta;
Chapters and articles: 2011 ‘Pop, Politics and Piety: Nasyid Boy band Music in Muslim Southeast Asia’, in Weintraub, A. N. (ed.) Islam and popular culture in Indonesia and Malaysia, pp. 235-256. London: Routledge; 2011, ‘Tropical Spa Cultures, Eco-chic, and the Complexities of New Asianism’, in Van Dijk, C. and J. Gelman Taylor (eds) Cleanliness in Southeast Asia. Leiden: KITLV Press.