https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8916-4401
![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This article investigates the link between growing precarity – associated with the process of neoliberal economic globalization – and growing Islamist tendencies in Indonesian society, through a case study of app-enabled transport workers. It applies a Gramscian notion of common sense to understand workers’ responses to their experiences of socio-economic marginalization and the articulation of their grievances. The combination of the near hegemony of a neoliberal worldview that encourages individual entrepreneurial prowess and an Islamist focus on moral self-cultivation inadvertently contributes to workers’ normalization of their precarity, furthering the atomization of the workforce. It also helps provide the setting for mobilizations of the urban precariat under Islamic banners, without challenging the imposition of neoliberal ideology on work and life.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Daniel Yosshika for his assistance as well as the online ojek drivers who shared their stories and granted us access to their communities. This research project was approved by the Human Ethics Team at the University of Melbourne (Reference Number: 2021-22397-22361-4). All interviewees provided their informed consent for use of material from the interviews conducted for this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Standing Citation2011.
2 Yasih Citation2021.
3 Azka Citation2019.
4 Gramsci Citation1971.
5 Woodcock and Graham Citation2019.
6 Kalleberg Citation2018.
7 Yasih Citation2021.
8 During the New Order era under President Suharto, the official state ideology of Pancasila (the five principles) was redefined as representing the “authentic” culture of the Indonesian people, free from foreign ideologies, including communism. The Suharto regime elevated Pancasila to a semi-sacred status in the ideological and legal realms by investing heavily in Pancasila education and implementing a law requiring all social and political organizations to adopt Pancasila as their sole ideology. This enabled the military-dominated government to legitimize its rule and to silence its critics by labelling them as anti-Pancasila. See Bourchier Citation2019.
9 Hadiz Citation1997.
10 On cultural Islamization, see, for example, Hefner Citation1997; on Islam as a cultural resource, see Hadiz Citation2016.
11 Hakim Citation2019.
12 Rakhmani and Hadiz Citation2017.
13 Ford and Honan Citation2017; Frey Citation2020; Panimbang Citation2021.
14 Mustika and Savirani Citation2021.
15 Ford and Honan Citation2019; Yasih Citation2022.
16 Gibbings, Lazuardi, and Prawirosusanto Citation2017; Savirani and Aspinall Citation2017; Wilson Citation2017.
17 Amin Citation2012.
18 Sopranzetti Citation2014, Citation2017; Forsyth Citation2010.
19 See Hadiz Citation2016; Hadiz and Robison Citation2017.
20 Rudnyckyj Citation2009, Citation2010.
21 Rakhmani Citation2019.
22 Rakhmani and Hadiz Citation2022.
23 Seto Citation2020.
24 Guinness Citation2009, Citation2015.
25 Wilson Citation2015; Mudhoffir Citation2021.
26 Yasih Citation2017.
27 Gramsci Citation1971.
28 Crehan Citation2011.
29 Hall and O’Shea Citation2013.
30 Gramsci Citation1971, 419.
31 Filippini Citation2016, 110–111.
32 Crehan Citation2016.
33 Gramsci Citation1971, 328.
34 Bekmen, Öngel, and Hadiz Citation2020.
35 Tjandraningsih Citation2013.
36 Hsiao, Kalleberg, and Hewison Citation2015.
37 Ford Citation2006; Hadiz Citation1997.
38 Hadiz Citation2011.
39 World Population Review Citationn.d.
40 Firman and Fahmi Citation2017.
41 By mid-2020, the Grab application had been downloaded by 187 million users in Southeast Asia, while Gojek has approximately 170 million users. The majority of users of both apps are in Indonesia (Eka Citation2020).
42 Hence, we also have included in our interviews drivers who work for smaller online transport service providers such as Shoppe Xpress, which is a courier delivery service linked to Shoppe (a leading e-commerce platform in Indonesia).
43 Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, online ojek drivers’ monthly incomes ranged from US$ seventy-six to US$303 (Fanggidae, Sagala, and Ningrum Citation2016). Our interviewees reported a seventy percent decline in their income during the pandemic.
44 In selecting our informants, we first identified online ojek communities and associations that met our criteria. We then used a snowball sample technique to find additional interviewees. In addition to drivers, we also interviewed three trade union organizers and six activists from Islamist organizations that worked closely with online ojek drivers’ communities
45 All those interviewed stated that they wanted their children to have more secure and full-time work opportunities than they have had, such as in public service.
46 In 2016, Purnama, the first non-Muslim governor of Indonesia’s capital, was arrested and prosecuted for allegedly insulting Islam by misusing a verse in the Koran. In 2017, he was found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to two years in prison. See BBC News Citation2016; Westcott Citation2017.
47 This is a view that emphasizes the importance of workers’ rights. See Tronti Citation2010.
48 Ford Citation2009.
49 Hadiz Citation1997.
50 This strategy was largely abandoned in the aftermath of the Asian economic crisis of 1997 and 1998, China’s preeminent position as global factory, and the emergence of rivals specializing in labour-intensive export industries.
51 Bourchier Citation2014. He traces these ideas to philosophical and legal traditions in Europe that gave rise to German Idealism, with its praise of the volk. In Indonesia, these were initially incorporated into aristocratic Javanese views on adat (customary law) by Dutch-trained legal thinkers such as Supomo (1903–1958), the author of the 1945 Indonesian Constitution and the country’s first Minister of Justice.
52 Bourchier Citation2019.
53 Hadiz Citation2016. The main Islamist political party in post-New Order Indonesia, PKS (the Justice and Prosperity Party) does not overtly seek to establish an Islamic state. In many ways, PKS has looked at Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) as a model. AKP, which developed out of long-established Islamist networks, has embraced the urban and peri-urban middle-class and poor as well as sections of the bourgeoisie, and has dominated Turkey’s secular state for the last two decades. PKS has also been shaped by the experiences of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which tried to establish dominance over the secular institutions of the state and economy, without overtly imposing sharia, before it was suppressed by General El-Sisi in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. See Hadiz Citation2016.
54 The PKS’ problem is that its social base is much more confined to the educated urban middle-class compared to its Middle Eastern counterparts. It also has comparatively fewer financial resources to fund large-scale welfare projects, given a lack of support from Indonesia’s bourgeoisie, which continues to be dominated by an ethnic Chinese component that does not identify with the ummah. See Hadiz Citation2016.
55 Bevins Citation2020.
56 Lorenzini Citation2018.
57 Hadiz and Robison Citation2017.
58 Frey Citation2020.
59 Hall and O’Shea Citation2013.
60 Ford and Honan Citation2019; Frey Citation2020.
61 Mustika and Savirani Citation2021.
62 This is a major part of ojek drivers’ economic coping strategies, given the underdevelopment of the welfare regime. See Rosser and van Diermen Citation2016.
63 Interview with drivers’ association’s male leader, October 21, 2021.
64 Interview with a female community leader, January 14, 2022.
65 A community leader, for instance, explained how he uses his personal network to look for successful small business owners willing to share their knowledge and experience with online ojek drivers, as well as to solicit donations to fund the activities.
66 A member of Ojol Mengaji mentioned, “as an online ojek driver, [we spend most of our time] driving on the street, [where] the possibility of [injuries and] death is high. As a Muslim, I wish to die while reading the Qur’an. If anything bad should happen to me while driving, I would like to be reminded of God.” Personal interview, November 6, 2021.
67 Personal interview, January 14, 2022. She added, “it is very important for online ojek drivers to adopt the habit of reciting the Qur’an frequently, to soften our hearts. Life is so hard for us … because we cannot really foresee the traffic and road conditions. We cannot predict the kind of passengers we will deal with.”
68 BPJS (Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Sosial, or Social Security Organizing Body) is a public legal body that administers social security programs. This consists of BPJS Kesehatan (BPJS Health Citation2019) and BPJS Ketenagakerjaan (BPJS Employment) the latter of which provides insurance for employed workers (see Tjandraningsih Citation2015).
69 Statistik Citation2015.
70 Murphy Citation2019.
71 Group interview with SPEED leaders in Bogor district, March 1, 2022.
72 Group interview with SPEED leaders in Bogor district, March 1, 2022.
73 Dhanani Citation2004; Devanto Citation2015.
74 Drivers we interviewed were adamant that they can only rely on themselves to be resilient in overcoming adversities. They are aware of the limited resources driver communities have to improve working and living conditions of their members, though they acknowledge the role of these communities in providing an avenue for members to talk about workplace problems.
75 One of our interviewees, for instance, referred to her participation in a pengajian organized by a drivers’ community as a way to achieve a work-life balance. Her religious activity reminds her to turn to the Almighty to alleviate her suffering, as she believes that she will receive help to undergo every trial and hardship.
76 As mentioned above, most of our interviewees perceive themselves as entrepreneurs, instead of employees. This indicates their acceptance of the precarious nature of their work, in return for a presumed greater freedom at work.
77 Mudhoffir and Hadiz Citation2021.
78 In an interview for this article GARDA’s leader stated that online ojek drivers are micro entrepreneurs, not employees of companies. The bill is therefore positive, according to him, because it provides greater opportunities for online ojek drivers to establish secure legal businesses, through the establishment of limited liability companies.
79 The drivers’ association’s leader was concerned that the implementation of the bill would result in the expansion of precarious work conditions into other sectors of the economy. Interestingly, Islamic organizations that oppose the present government, including operatives of the now-banned FPI (Islamic Defenders Front), also organized protests against the bill. See CNN Indonesia Citation2020.
80 Our interviewees repeatedly stated their preference for participating in non-political activities like pengajian, in comparison to collective actions that challenge company and government policies, which may put their employment at risk.
81 Hefner Citation2000; van Bruinessen Citation2002.
82 Interview with the president of SPDT-FSPMI, December 10, 2021.
83 The dramatic fall of Purnama was a consequence of the absorption of identity politics into conflicts between oligarchic factions. See Hadiz and Rakhmani Citation2017.
84 Observation on Ojol Bershalawat (online salutations to the prophet Mohammad), an event organized by TIBER (Eastern (Jakarta) United), a drivers’ association with close connections to SPDT-FSPMI, to commemorate the birth of the Prophet.
85 Group interview with members of TIBER, December 13, 2021.
86 Group interview with SPEED leaders in Bogor Regency, March 1, 2022.
87 Group interview with SPEED leaders in Bojong Gede District, February 12, 2022.
88 Laz Al Bunyan (Citationn.d.) receives and manages funds derived from zakat (the obligation that an individual donates a certain proportion of their wealth each year to be distributed to the poor and vulnerable).
89 ACT is an Islamic non-government organization that focuses on social work, humanitarian activities, community empowerment and development, as well as zakat management. See ACT Citation2022.
90 Hidayatullah is an Islamic mass organization that focuses on education and dakwah (efforts to encourage people to embrace Islamic teachings). It has branches in hundreds of regencies and cities in Indonesia. See Hidayatulah Citationn.d.
91 Group interview with members and organizers of Ojol Mengaji, January 28, 2022.
92 Personal interview, November 14, 2021.
93 Rakhmani and Saraswati Citation2021.
94 Rakhmani and Saraswati Citation2021.
95 Yasih Citation2020.
96 Bourchier Citation2019.
97 Hadiz Citation2014.
98 Gramsci Citation1971
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Diatyka Widya Permata Yasih
Diatyka Widya Permata Yasih is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Deputy Academic Director at the Asia Research Centre, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Indonesia. Her research is centered on increasing precarity in work and life under neoliberal pressures and their effects on workers’ solidarity and politics.
Vedi R. Hadiz
Vedi Hadiz is a professor of Asian Studies, Director of the Asia Institute, and Assistant Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Melbourne. He is the author of Islamic Populism in Indonesia and the Middle East (Cambridge University Press, 2016), among other books.