Strategies of Inclusion and Exclusion: Middle Class Morality and Urban Place-Making in Jakarta

• In Event: Urban Exclusion in Southeast Asia - Sponsored by the Southeast Asia Council (SEAC)

Abstract

Recently, religious terms such as ‘Islamic’, ‘Halal’ and ‘Shariah’ have been deployed to describe various urban places such as hotels, housing estates, fashion boutiques and beauty salons in Malaysia and Indonesia. In this paper, I develop the term ‘religious gentrification’ to understand how and under what conditions pious middle class Muslims appropriate urban places to meet religious needs and to pursue middle class lifestyles. Such processes sometimes marginalize poor Muslims, non-Muslims and secular-minded Muslims. To show this, the paper examines how the intersections of class and religious interest lead to the growing number of Muslim-only gated communities (Perumahan Muslim) in periurban Jakarta. Based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in some of these communities, I depict four major lines of urban exclusion, as developers and residents seek to distance themselves from (1) poverty, (2) religious diversity, (3) traditional religiosity, and (4) immoral lifestyles. At the same time, I also discuss how both developers and residents narrate four types of inclusion: (1) cooperating with non-Muslim investors, (2) inviting nearby residents to join activities in their mosques, (3) helping the poor, and (4) providing job opportunities. Comparing my data with religious gentrification in Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Turkey, I argue that middle class morality is related to urban exclusion based on class and religiosity. The pious middle class Muslims in my research do not focus on issues like poverty and social injustice, but instead focus their spiritual attention on public morality issues, which effectively segregate themselves from the poor and the immoral.

Author

• Wai Weng Hew, Zentrum Moderner Orient