The Development of Civil Society Islam in Turkey and Indonesia: Parallels, Commonalities and Contrasts

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 18:00 in Discussion Forums

Tags:

Dr Carool Kersten

Where: Room 313,Rose Bowl, Civic Quarter,Leeds Metropolitan University,LS1 3HB, Leeds

Abstract

Although located on the geographical peripheries of the Muslim world and home to vastly different cultures, a survey of the Turkish and Indonesian experiences with religion in the public sphere, or more specifically: the accommodation of Islam in secularized constitutional contexts, shows nevertheless some remarkable parallels. The significance of these findings extends beyond the countries concerned. There are lessons to be learned for the Muslim world at large from the commonalities detected in the developments in two such diverse Islamic countries.

The ways in which Indonesia and Turkey have managed to integrate religion in the public sphere; creating a civil Islam or Muslim civil society and finding new ways of accommodating religion in culturally very Islamic contexts, provide the rest of the Muslim world with potential trajectories for new strategies and scenarios to work towards similar objectives.

This talk examines Turkey and Indonesia’s parallel journeys in the last twenty-five years or so, identifying both similarities and differences in two countries which are also of growing importance on a global level given the magnitude of their economies and increasingly active stance in international diplomacy.

Biography

Dr Carool Kersten is a lecturer in Islamic Studies at King’s College London. His research interests include the intellectual history of the contemporary Muslim world, Islam in Southeast Asia, alternative Islamic discourses, and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of Islam. He has published in Journal of Comparative Islamic Studies, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Middle Eastern Studies, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Religious Studies Review, Prajñâ Vihâra: The Journal of Philosophy and Religion, Social Anthropology, and Poligrafi – International Edition. He has also contributed to a textbook on world religions and the Macmillan encyclopaedia on race and racism, and translated, annotated and edited two historical travel accounts on Southeast Asia. Carool Kersten has an MA (with distinction) in Arabic Language and Culture from Radboud University Nijmegen (the Netherlands), a certificate in Thai and Southeast Asian Studies from Payap University in Chiang Mai (Thailand), and a PhD in the Study of Religions from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.