Homeland, Identity and Media: a Study of Indonesian
HOMELAND, IDENTITY AND MEDIA: A STUDY OF INDONESIAN TRANSNATIONAL MUSLIMS IN NEW YORK CITY A dissertation presented to the faculty of the Scripps College of Communication of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Putut Widjanarko June 2007 This dissertation entitled HOMELAND, IDENTITY AND MEDIA: A STUDY OF INDONESIAN TRANSNATIONAL MUSLIMS IN NEW YORK CITY by PUTUT WIDJANARKO has been approved for the School of Telecommunications and the Scripps College of Communication by Drew McDaniel Professor of Telecommunications Gregory J. Shepherd Dean, Scripps College of Communication WIDJANARKO, PUTUT, Ph.D., June 2007, Telecommunications HOMELAND, IDENTITY AND MEDIA: A STUDY OF INDONESIAN TRANSNATIONAL MUSLIMS IN NEW YORK CITY (415 pp.) Director of Dissertation: Drew McDaniel This dissertation describes an attempt to understand the complex process of how Indonesian Muslims in New York City negotiate their cultural identities. This dissertation gravitates around the concept of transnationalism, which perceives that contemporary immigrants form and maintain multi-stranded social and cultural transnational links to the societies of the country of origin, chiefly thanks to advancement of media, communication and transportation technologies. Applying the non-obvious multi-sited ethnography approach (Marcus, 1999), I explore the dynamic process of how the deterritorialized Indonesians strive to reterritorialize their culture in the new cultural context, such as manifested in the establishment of the Indonesian mosque with its various Islamic activities and the reenactment of Indonesian cultural practices. Subsequently I explain how various forms of media are produced, circulated, and consumed in the Indonesian Muslim community. The study concludes with several important points.
[Show full text]