Abstract:

Scholars who recognise an increasingly common distinction between ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’ in Western popular usage have suggested that the new spiritualities, framed in contrast to ‘religion’, are largely confined to North Atlantic and Australasian societies. This paper, examining recent developments in the practice and framing of ‘religion’ in Indonesia, argues that comparable new spiritualities, emphasising subjective experience and individual autonomy and existing in tension with congregational religion, have emerged in this Asian country amongst people participating in the modern sector of the economy and the global spiritual marketplace. However the differing institutionalisation of Indonesia’s new spiritualities from those of Western and other Asian countries needs to be understood in the historical context of Muslim reactions to colonialism and give due attention to particular national legacies of colonial administration.

Author: Julia Day Howell