Alternative Routes in Madura and Translational Moments in Java

This chapter analyses the microlevel of an individuals' processing of migratory experiences and explores the particularities and exemptions in the overall appropriation, rejection, and Othering of Arabness. It highlights two special cases, namely Javanese labor migrants' rejection of Arabness in favor of East Asian styles and Madurese peoples' vivid localizations of Arabness. It also looks at disparities and local features that reveal changes in Islamic lifestyles that cannot be generalized in a culturally heterogeneous country like Indonesia. The chapter refers to the ambivalence of Indonesian engagements with the Arab world. It unravels the question of why migrants and pilgrims in Madura and in Central Java follow different guiding narratives.

Indonesia and the Arab World, Then and Now

This chapter provides a historical overview of ambivalent encounters between Indonesia and the Arab world through findings that show the relationship between Indonesia and the Middle East. It recounts the Indonesians' earliest encounters with Arab traders in the seventh century, from confrontations with Indo Persian Sufi up to the current democratization process that have been marked by contradictory dynamics. It also explains how Arabs have been acknowledged as teachers of Islam and allies in the postcolonial nonbloc movement. The chapter describes the gloomy counterimage of the Arab world against which Indonesian officials and religious leaders drew the picture of a tolerant, pluralist Indonesian Islam. It mentions the key role of the mobility across the Indian Ocean in the formation of Islamic culture in Indonesia.

The Beaten Tracks and Embedded Returns of Migrants and Pilgrims

This chapter characterizes the nature of the current mobility from Indonesia to the Arabian Peninsula, which migrants and pilgrims considered as “beaten tracks” that are loaded with meaning and direction through previous travellers' narratives. It discusses the prospect of return that significantly “leads” migrants and pilgrims in what they make of the journey. It also references norms and values that are valid in the migrants and pilgrims' home context in which the returnees exploit different types of capital from their migration or pilgrimage. The chapter looks at “success stories” of migrants and pilgrims as an outcome of their experience of guided mobility. It explores ethnographic accounts on a local level that illustrate how popular ideas of success and images of the Arab world guide migrants and pilgrims in how they represent their journeys.

Introduction

This chapter highlights how Indonesians regard for the Arab world as Islamic religiosity increased in the private and public life. It explains the significance of Islamic religiosity regarding social changes in Indonesia since its transition from autocracy to democracy at the close of the millennium. It also points out the intensified adherence to religious rules, changing dress codes, and new voices in political Islam as a “conservative turn.” The chapter identifies radical representatives within the conservative turn that demand for Islamic praxis to be purified, turning toward Wahhabi interpretations of Islam. It analyzes Orientalizations and Occidentalisms with a focus on South–South transnational linkages and dynamics of Othering in contexts where the Other constitutes part of the Self.

Conclusion

This chapter looks at the evidence that determine the force of guidance in mobility that culminates the conditions under which sociocultural changes and religious orientations happen in the course of Indonesians' transnational mobility to the Arabian Peninsula. It reviews the aspects of guided mobility, the reciprocal demand–supply logic of guidance, the profitability of guiding, and the prospect of capitalizing on mobile experiences. It also determines the effects that migration and pilgrimage have on social change in Indonesia. The chapter complements studies that show how the conservative turn in Indonesia is highly complex, regionally diverse, and has underlying local social tensions. It speculates the functioning of features of mobility that are not perceived as restraints and enhance sociocultural continuity rather than change.