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research-article20182018
SMSXXX10.1177/2056305118800308Social Media <span class="symbol" cstyle="Mathematical">+</span> SocietyBaulch and Pramiyanti

Article

Social Media + Society

Hijabers on Instagram: Using Visual

October-December 2018: 1­–15
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/2056305118800308
https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118800308

Muslim Woman journals.sagepub.com/home/sms

Emma Baulch1,2 and Alila Pramiyanti2

Abstract
This article studies uses of Instagram by members of Indonesia’s Hijabers’ Community. It shows how hijabers employ
Instagram as a stage for performing middle-classness, but also for dakwah (“the call, invitation or challenge to Islam”), which
they consider one of their primary tasks as Muslims. By enfolding the taking and sharing of images of Muslimah bodies on
Instagram into this Quranic imperative, the hijabers shape an Islamic-themed bodily esthetic for middle class women, and at
the same time present this bodily esthetic as a form of Islamic knowledge. The article extends work on influencer culture on
Instagram, which has considered how and whether women exert control over their bodies in post-feminist performances
of female entrepreneurship and consumer choice on social media. In it, we argue that examining the “enframement” of
hijaberness on Instagram show it to be both a Muslim variant of post-feminist performances on social media, and a female
variant of electronically-mediated Muslim preaching. That is, hijabers’ performances of veiled femininity structure and are
structured by two distinct fields - a dynamic global digital culture and a changing field of Islamic communication – and point
to a “composite habitus,” similar to that identified by Waltorp.

Keywords
dakwah, hijabers, Instagram, Indonesia, post-feminism, microcelebrity

Introduction ways more orthodox than their parents or grandparents would

have done only one or two generations before them” (p. 4).
One of the most striking developments of the late-20th and Indeed, when Pramiyanti asked her research participants to
early 21st century Indonesia has been the rapid increase in the qualify what constitutes a modern Muslim woman, they
number of Muslim women who wear the veil—a develop- invoked a sense of veiling as something modern, and also a
ment with its roots in the growth of political and public Islam sense of dwelling in a heavily mediated Muslim marketplace,
beginning in the 1990s. In the 1980s, veiling served as a sign which presented them with an expanding array of choices.
of opposition to the authoritarian New Order regime, which
was determined to quash the growth of political Islam. But Ima: Oh, a modern Muslimah (Muslim woman) is
after the Suharto regime relaxed restrictions on political veiled but free to do as she wishes because
Islam in the 1990s, and as the consumer economy began to now there are no limitations on veiled
expand, notions of consumer choice began to infuse veiling women. It used to be the case that it was dif-
practices, rendering veiling a sign of the individual transfor- ficult for veiled women to find a job—you
mation consumerism makes possible (Beta, 2014, 2016; had to unveil if you wanted to work. But now
Bucar, 2016; Jones, 2010, 2017)
In the Indonesian context, then, hijab-wearing needs to be 1
Monash University Malaysia, Malaysia
understood as a socially progressive move linked to women’s 2
Queensland University of Technology, Australia
increasing visibility with the expansion of consumer culture,
Corresponding Author:
rather than a socially conservative move aimed at preserving
Emma Baulch, School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University
long-standing notions of Muslim femininity. As Slama and Malaysia, Jalan Lagoon Selatan, 47500 Bandar Sunway, Selangor Darul
Barendregt (2018) point out, many young Southeast Asians Ehsan, Malaysia.
are opting “to live ‘the modern life’ religiously and often in Email: [email protected]

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2 Social Media + Society

with the rise of Muslim fashion on Instagram, resonant terms, like hijabistas (hijab and fashionista) or
it’s considered fine for veiled women to work hijabsters (hijab and hipster) in Malaysia, Singapore, Middle
(Interview 13 October 2016). East, UK, and North America (Lewis, 2015; Tarlo, 2010;
Shafira: I decided to don the veil when I started to see Tarlo & Moors, 2013). Use of the term gestures toward the
all the different styles on Instagram, and on global—being a hijaber marks one as part of a global com-
television. From 2014 on hijab fashion has munity of transnationally mobile Muslimah keen to present
been growing, with more and more designers themselves as at once fashion conscious, tech-savvy, trans-
emerging. All the fun different styles on nationally mobile career women in possession of consider-
Instagram are so inspiring. There are so many able buying power.3
online shops, too—all selling fun designs and In many respects the hijabers’ sense of their own power is
some are really weird (Interview, 13 October warranted. They are certainly agents in the molding of
2016) Islamic pop culture, possessing not only consumer power as
individuals but also the ability to generate new publics,4
The decision to don the veil presents women with a num- involving the production, circulation and consumption of
ber of style choices, including the jilbab (a simple piece of images by women and for women. These woman ride high
cloth pinned under the chin), the kerudung (short veil loosely on the myth of social media’s epochal transformative power,
draped over the head leaving the hair partially visible), the using their cell phones and social media affordances to pro-
cadar (a long, knee-length veil covering the face) and the duce themselves, and design paths for circulating their self-
hijab (colorful fabrics wrapped closely around the head, productions, sparking dialogues across distant sites among
often associated with high end fashion trends). Part of an female strangers commonly engaged in crafting the ideal
increasingly crowded Islamic popular cultural field, includ- look of the modern Muslimah. Moreover, by claiming the
ing public intellectuals, tele-preachers, soap operas, Islamic- circulation of their images on Instagram as a form of dak-
themed vigilante groups, Muslim boy bands, and Muslim wah, the hijabers impinge on forms of religious knowledge
style leaders, these various styles of veiling are not free- and authority formerly reserved for men.
floating signs but, like many of the other identities available There can be little doubt that the hijabers are enhancing
for adoption from the Muslim marketplace, often tethered to the visibility of women who lay claim to empowerment, or
established class positions, signaling various degrees of that they develop technological prowess to forge trans-local
proximity to the modern and the global. Therefore, they exist connections among Muslim women who commonly idealize
in varying degrees of antipathy and affinity to one another. such values. Therefore, in Castellian terms, they posess “net-
Islamic intellectuals, for example, look down upon tele- work making power” (Castells, 2010, p. 773):, that is “power
preachers, and the hijabers are keen to distance their style of wielded by actors and networks of actors with the capacity to
veil from the simpler jilbab. set up and program a network” (Meng, 2012, p. 470).
The hijabers’ style has its genesis in the online Hijabers However, by virtue of their socio-economic position and
Community (hereon HC) established on Facebook by four capacity to consume, they also possess “networking power”
“modest fashion” designers—Dian Pelangi, Jenahara, Ria (Castells, 2010, p. 773): “the power that actors in global net-
Miranda and Ghaida Tsuraya, in 2011. Since that time, HC’s works exert over those excluded from the network” (Meng,
activities migrated to Twitter and again, more recently, to 2012, p. 470). Indeed, the performance of hijaberness to a
Instagram.1 The designers employed strategies common to the large degree rests on spectacular exhibitions of such net-
cultivation of microcelebrity—a global phenomenon in which working power; the hijabers are at pains to construct the
ordinary people draw on social media affordances to develop hijaber habitus as a distinctly middle class one, to which only
popular following among niche audiences, typically using per- those with advanced consumer power may belong. Such
formative strategies that evince an authentic self well within efforts work to link women’s power exclusively to their iden-
reach of his or her fans (Abidin, 2016; Marwick, 2015; Senft, tities as consumers, and validate the idea that the ideal
2008). They adopted the term hijab to distinguish their style of woman is a consuming woman.
veiling from practices associated with the jilbab and deemed
“improper.” The so-called “jilbab gaul” (trendy veil), and
Reading the Hijabers’ Instagram Posts
later “jilboobs,” phenomenon, by which women combined
jilbab wearing with tight-fitting jeans and tops showing their The case of the hijabers touches on key questions in the anal-
curves and sometimes their skin—was criticized by Islamic ysis of microcelebrity, a subset of celebrity defined by its
scholars, who deemed it failed to qualify as Islamic dress relationship to particular media forms (the use of social
(Beta, 2016, p. 26).2 The hijabers’ use of the term hijab worked media to gain celebrity status) and media practices (new
to differentiate the style from jilbab gaul, but it also worked to branding and marketing strategies that take advantage of the
mark it with global nuances. affordances and cultures of social media platforms). Such
The term “hijabers” is specific to Indonesia, but its work centers on debates concerning the extent to which
appearance in Indonesian lexicons coincided with that of women’s uses of social media to present the consuming
Baulch and Pramiyanti 3

woman as empowered, in fact, empowering. Some scholars through smartphone use. Composite habitus is usefully
lament microcelebrities’ problematic embodying of post- applied the the hijabers. Unlike the veiled women of which
feminist ideas, in which female power is entangled with con- Waltorp writes, the hijabers don the veil both on and offline,
sumer power and “individual choice, independence and maintaining a coherent identity. Nevertheless, our research
modes of expression rooted in the consumer marketplace” finds that hijaberness is concurrently structured by and ori-
are celebrated (Duffy & Hund, 2015, p. 3). Duffy and Hund ented to two distinct fields, with distinct implications for the
contend that digital culture entrenches rather than challenges hijabers’ gender politics: first, a culture of microcelebrity on
post-feminism by positing the consuming woman as the Instagram in which dominant gender norms are largely
ideal woman: “What is especially problematic about digital reproduced, and second, a dynamic field of Islamic com-
expressions of post-feminist self-brands is the extent to munication, in which “normative” feminine practices are
which visibility gets articulated through normative feminine contested and in flux.
discourses and practices, including those anchored in the We shall review the scholarship attending to contempo-
consumer marketplace.” But for Abidin (2016), by using rary developments in Islamic communication more thor-
social media platforms to stage disintermediated relation- oughly below. Suffice to note here that such work observes
ships between their performances of femininity labor and the considerable fragmentation of Muslim authority in recent
those who gaze upon it, microcelebrities capitalize on post- years, as digital uptake and the commoditisation of global
feminist ideology and extend ownership over the means of Islam prompts the proliferation of knowledge sharing activi-
production. Their image-making endeavors are subversive, ties outside the mosque (Echchaibi, 2011; Scholz, Selge,
because they reframe selfies—constructed in the dominant Stille, & Zimmermann, 2008). Some scholars argue, this re-
discourse as frivolously vain—as a “prized asset” the pro- spatialising of knowledge-sharing not only prompts new
duction of which makes visible women’s tacit “femininity contests among male religious authorities; it also affords
labor” and reveals their intimate knowledge of how to women greater power in shaping the way preachers address
manipulate, arrange and adorn their bodies to extend/ aug- audiences at preaching events (Millie, 2017; Slama, 2017).
ment its commodity value, enacting “subversive frivolity” Below, we show how the hijaber case is revealing of wom-
(Abidin, 2016, pp. 15-16). en’s use of Instagram to advance such feminisation in ways
In the article, we engage with these debates, but we also that disrupt familiar and long-standing modes of Muslim
contend that a reading of the hijabers’ identity performance communication.
is complicated by their historical positioning at the intersec-
tion of digital uptake and rising consumerism, democratiza-
tion and Islamicisation in Indonesia. This positioning Methods
requires acknowledging the multiple lineages globalizing This article is based on a conception of identity as performed
digital cultures—that is, beyond those inferred in Euro- and constantly negotiated, rather than given. As Meldelson
American trajectories of digital change—to grasp the and Papacharissi (2011) note:
hijabers’ gender politics. Indeed, as we will see below, such
lineages bear their trace in the hijabers’ Instagram posts, and In everyday life, people consciously and unconsciously work to
prompt us to conceptualize hijabers’ performances as reveal- define the way they are perceived. . .. Contemporary scholars
ing of a “composite habitus” (Waltorp, 2015, p. 50), for they from a variety of disciplines argue that identity is performed, in
orient to two distinct fields: microcelebrity culture and digi- its many iterations, in contexts that are both virtual and real,
tally mediated Islam. We aver, the term “composite habitus” mediated or not, offline or online.” (p. 252)
accommodates both an acknowledgment of the historical
agency of technologies, and a nuanced analysis of variations Numerous scholars have argued that the Internet
in cultures of their of use. As we will see, such variations expands opportunities for what Goffman (1959) calls
cannot always be accounted for through reference to long- front-stage self-making (Abidin, 2016; Duguay, 2016;
standing ways of doing things in the locale. They may well Mendelson & Papacharissi, 2011; Sundén, 2003), and with
be rooted in global processes that elude a West-centric vision the advent and popularization of web-based image-shar-
of digital change. ing, such self-
In her study of young Danish Muslim women’s social making increasingly proceeds through strategic manipula-
media use, Waltorp argues that the women use social media tion and posting of photographs. Alluding to the rise of
to augment to spaces available to them for identitity experi- Instagram as evidence of the increasing importance of
mentation. On and offline, they play with various subject visual texts in contemporary culture, Highfield and Leaver
positions in various fields. This kind of practice is evidence (2016) point to the urgent need for greater attention to
of what Waltorp (2015) calls a “composite habitus” (p. images in the study of online identity performances, and
50)—bodily comportments that betray the acute sensibilities Marwick (2015) argues that images offer qualitatively dif-
both structured by and necessary to the successful naviga- ferent resources for identity construction, and calls for new
tion of distinct social environments that become available frameworks for understanding identity construction online.
4 Social Media + Society

Available studies of visual social media, however, offer few composite habitus. First, the hijabers’ posts emplace them in
methods for qualitatively reading images—that is, for analyz- particular socio-geographic settings that mark them as high-
ing their contents but also for understanding how their particu- end consumers, and this mode of identity performance
lar social efficacies might be distinct from those of text-based locates them in microcelebrity culture and draws attention to
forms of identity construction. Abidin (2016), for example, the growing role images of place are playing in it. Second, by
relies heavily on interviews and observational methods to captioning their posts with dakwah-related messages, the
understand the tacit labor involved in making and engaging hijabers mark themselves as authentically pious, and this
with microcelebrity images. In their article exploring “meth- positions them as knowledge holders, not just hedonistic
odological and ethical considerations” for studying visual consumers. This mode of identity performance positions the
social media, Highfield and Leaver (2016, p. 47) also rely on hijabers in a field of Islamic communication, and shows how
hashtags rather than visual analysis methods to understand the hijabers’ phenomenon not only validates consumerist
what Instagram images mean, and Marwick uses Instagram ideology; it also bolsters a broader challenging and fragmen-
images as hooks to discuss microcelebrity practice rather than tation of male religious authority.
to analyze their special potency as images. Frosh (2015)
alludes to this gap in his article in which he positions selfies in
an historical trajectory of the evolution of photography as a
Enframing Hijabers
media form, noting how “non-representations and technologi- Existing studies show how Muslim women use Instagram to
cal changes are made analytically pre-eminent in work on link veiling to prevailing notions of feminine beauty (Jones,
visual social media” (p. 1607). 2017; Kavakci & Kraeplin, 2017), and they do so by present-
In this article, we use Spyer and Steedly’s notion of ing images of the hijabi body situated in non-places or cul-
enframement to hone in on images in a qualitative reading of turally evacuated backgrounds that work to focus the
the hijabers’ Instagram posts. They write: “[b]y ‘enframe- viewer’s gaze on the hijab-enframed face, suggesting its
ment’ we mean the various ways the image is foregrounded inherent beauty across space and time. In such images, the
or separated from its general environment to be apprehended hijabi self appears evacuated of context (the background is
as an image,” and lay out a range of devices for enframing blacked out or the portrait is taken at such close range that
images (Spyer & Steedly, 2013, p. 19). These include border the background is unidentifiable), inviting an exclusive focus
effects enclosing an image; depth of field and camera angles, on the body and face, and allowing the hijabis to demonstrate
which present the viewer with a framework by which to that their veiled selves are well able to conform to conven-
understand an image, bringing certain objects to the fore and tional notions of beauty.
relegating others to the background; frames of reference, or This practice is also discernible in some of the hijabers’
“sets of ideas that direct how the image should be evaluated, posts. For example, in one post, Syifa Fauziah, Chairwoman
viewed or comprehended”; and finally, language, including of Hijabers Community Jakarta, appears as little more than a
captions, but also the time stamps that appear on digital pho- hijab-enframed face. Seated in the back of a car—a taxi per-
tographs, or thought balloons. haps—in an unidentifiable location, Fauziah looks away
Most other studies of microcelebrities focus on particular from the camera toward the light falling on her cheeks, her
influencers (Kavakci & Kraeplin, 2017; Marwick, 2015), but hand held delicately under her chin, as if to gesture to her
our study applies the same treatment to elite and non-elite averted gaze. Fauziah’s face is heavily made up—lipstick,
(founders and ordinary members) all included in the cohort of foundation and rouge all clearly visible on her fair skin and
26 hijabers interviewed by Pramiyanti between May and pert smile (Figure 1).
October 2016. This treatment is apt because our interest here is But images depicting the hijaber as a passive beauty are
in the discursive fields structuring hijabers rather than the tactics not common in the corpus of posts we collected. What distin-
used by individual micro-celebrities to self-brand. Participants guishes the Indonesian hijabers from those Kavakci and
were recruited by targeting key elites (founders and social media Kraeplin (2017) and Jones (2017) study is their interest in
administrators) and then snowball sampling ordinary members presenting as not only “beautiful” but also especially empow-
in Jakarta, Bandung and Yogyakarta. In order to understand how ered and independent Muslimah, and this requires a certain
members of HC use Instagram to construct hijaberness, we ana- kind of enframement—setting her in a broader social world
lyzed interviewees’ accounts. Posts were coded manually by featuring performances of bodily and intellectual strength.
looking for core and common patterns. Such strength is communicated in the posts in several ways.
We discuss these patterns below, drawing attention to how Some post images of themselves engaged in vigorous physi-
multiple tactics are used to enframe hijaberness on Instagram. cal activity, others include posts that show them to be intrepid
Attention to enframement in the hijabers’ Instagram posts travelers, and others still that highlight their roles as equal
brings the qualities of their front-stage self-making on partners in marriage.
Instagram to light—its orientation to both a transnationally For example, contrasting the above-described post, in
manifest culture of Instagram’s use and developments in which Fauziah’s veiled face occupies the entire frame of the
Islamic communication, thereby revealing the operation of photograph, a travel snap pans well back from her face, and
Baulch and Pramiyanti 5

Figure 1. @syifaf. Screengrabbed, July 2017.

Figure 2. @syifaf. Screengrabbed, July 2017.

shows her modestly dressed body engulfed by the well-rec- The image of the hijabers as Muslimah in possession of
ognizable rugged landscape of the Grand Canyon. This agency is further reinforced by their posts showing them
reframing directs the viewers gaze away from her beauti- engaged in sporting activities. In Figure 3 Irina confidently
fully veiled face, and toward her emplacement in iconic rides a horse, and Figure 4 shows Ghina at an archery range.
exotic settings. This image shows how depth of field is These posts, too, contrast those focussing on the veiled
being used to evince a sense of the hijaber as empowered for Muslimahs’ physical beauty—rather than resting on her face,
her mobility. What is being performed here is an agentive, the camera pans back to enframe the hijaber in social settings
active mode of Muslimah publicness: not a publicness lim- attesting to her independence and physical vigor. In both
ited to inviting a gaze, but one that gazes back, if not into the images, too, the hijabers appear alone—unaccompanied by a
camera, then at the ‘other’; the dry, rough-hewn American man—and in both they also wear practical, sporty outfits—
landscape (Figure 2). pants, mid-length hijabs and runners.
6 Social Media + Society

Figure 3. @irineorene. Screengrabbed, January 2017.

Figure 4. @ghinaafaa. Screengrabbed, January 2017.

When hijabers appear side by side their husbands, it is in Fitri sit or stand at the same height as their husbands. Fitri
posts that posit the ideal marriage as one in which husband and her husband are shown looking at an unknown object out
and wife enjoy equal status. In the posts below, Udhe and of frame, suggesting a common purpose, and Udhe and her
Baulch and Pramiyanti 7

Figure 5. @ulydarojah. Screengrabbed, April 2017.

Figure 6. @fitriaulia. Screengrabbed, April 2017.

husband gaze into eachothers’ eyes, suggesting reciprocity doesn’t even try, everything starts to fall away. Try to make habit
(Figure 5 & 6). Udhe captions her post thus: of doing little things for each other, like opening the car door,
eating from the same plate, feeding each other, being gentle with
It becomes difficult if both parties don’t make an effort. If one each other, giving each other presents, or going out once in a
person has already tried to be romantic but the other person while. . .. From the simple to the complex things, the important
8 Social Media + Society

Figure 7. @pratiwanda. Screengrabbed, July 2017.

thing is that both put in equal effort to keep the relationship activity and, most notably, equality in marriage, implicitly
happy and romantic until old age, noting the importance of challenges discourse of Muslimah femininity sanctioning
keeping the harmony and intimacy between husband and wife. marital rape and polygamy,5 thereby providing a soft popular
cultural scaffolding for the Muslim feminist agenda.
This orienting of the Hijaber Community toward the ideal At the same time, however, the social settings that enframe
of the independent Muslimah, and especially the way the the hijabers as mobile and independent women also identify
hijabers use the trope of the empowered Muslimah wife, is them as those with access to sites and spaces restricted to
significant in light of a Muslim feminist agenda, which for people of considerable economic means. Consistently, these
some time has been focussed on agitating for the reform of settings depict a world of high-end consumption featuring
the institution of marriage. In an article exploring how luxury sports, fancy restaurants, foreign foods and interna-
Islamicisation and democratization co-constituted one tional tourism. Such consistency reveals the high end setting
another in early 21st century Indonesia, Suzan Brenner (2011) as a key piece of visual vocabulary employed by the hijabers
reviews a number of Muslim initiatives that dedicated them- as they write themselves into Instagram, and works to limit
selves in the 2000s to legislative reform on polygamy, the hijabers’ empowerment to a those who inhabit a middle
domestic violence, marital rape and child brides (p. 478). class subject positioning.
Lobbying and campaigning by such groups resulted in the Interestingly too, these spaces often reflect a decidedly
passing of a bill criminalizing domestic violence in 2004, Western orientation. For example, the hijabers’ posts about
although their efforts to outlaw polygamy in the same year their holidays depict them as independent and intrepid
failed. Notably, more recently the call for reforming the insti- explorers, but also as those whose affinities for travel orient
tution of marriage emerged again, after the world’s first con- to the West rather than Muslim majority countries, identify-
gress of Muslim scholars in Cirebon, West Java in 2017, ing them as a subset of a global, cosmopolitan elite, Muslim
which resulted in a fatwa denouncing these practices. and otherwise. Food posts similarly work to identify the
Reporting on the Congress, Kathy Robinson writes: hijabers as members of a middle class. By posting an image
“Violence against women and women’s rights within the of ramen, Wanda is able to register her presence at a Japanese
family were key issues. . .. The congress ended with . . . restaurant—a setting surely well beyond the reach of any
fatwa reinforcing the value of female religious authority. The ordinary Indonesian. Indeed, Wanda suggests as much on the
first fatwa argued for a minimum age of marriage of 18; the caption she pens to accompany the post (Figure 7):
second, that sexual violence against women, including within
marriage, is haram (forbidden)” (Robinson, 2017, n.p.). The I am so grateful that Allah has blessed me with the ability to eat
hijabers do not explicitly reference the feminists’ arguments, delicious food. I can buy anything I want. All my cravings can
but their orientation toward transnational mobility, physical be satisfied. When I got home I felt so full I could barely stand.
Baulch and Pramiyanti 9

Figure 8 @hijaberscommunity. Screengrabbed, July 2017.

This turned my mind to people who live on the street—do they Our research affirms this finding, but we propose an extended
forget what it feels like to have a full stomach? Thankyou Allah, interpretation of it. In Beta’s analysis, the taming of the veil
please allow me to pass on your blessings to others. is presented as a consequence of the expansion of Islamic
consumer culture in Indonesia, whereas we contend that
Posts calling on Muslimah to enact acts of kindness dur- hijabers’ rendering as “fun, safe” Muslims may also be seen
ing the fasting month, organized around the hashtag “ibadah as a function of a transnational culture of Instagram’s use.
jangan kendor” (Don’t let your worship slack off), also pro- According to Marwick (2013) and Duguay (2016), a cul-
vide opportunities to showcase this middle class habitus. The ture of Instagram’s use—that is, modes of identity perfor-
two images below were posted during this Ramadhan chal- mance not determined by the technical structures of the
lenge program organised around the hastag Figure 8 depicts platform, but by user understandings of acceptable comport-
an image of a pair of thongs (flip-flops), adorned with the ment on it—makes the platform especially amenable to tam-
words #ibadahjangankendor across the toe-line, which ing or mainstreaming identity performances associated with
dafinamaalina donated to her office musholla (prayer room), microcelebrity. In Marwick’s (2015) study, Instagrammers
and identifies her as a white-collar worker in a clean, car- display an affinity for emulating “the tropes and symbols of
peted office. Figure 9 depicts an image of prayer mats atop a traditional celebrity culture, such as glamourous self-
washing machine -in the comments, meiswari explains that portraits, designer goods and luxury cars” (p. 139). Duguay’s
these are the prayer mats she has taken home from the office comparative study of queer influencer Ruby Rose’s accounts
to wash, in her expensive front-loader washing machine—an on Vine and Instagram highlights the how the platform tames
item that marks her as a woman of means: most Indonesians marginalized identities by presenting them as a subset of
handwash their clothes in a bucket. mainstream culture. On Vine, Rose appears in a full-throated
Indeed, in her study of the Hijaber Community in embrace with her girlfriend but on Instagram the couple pose
Instagram, Beta also notes its discursive construction as a in shots depicting their coupledom as a variant of bourgeois,
sign of middle classness and consumer power. She contends sex-evacuated bliss.
that the hijabers proffer a tame alternative to both the vulgar Similar dynamics are at play in the hijaber case. In their
style of “jilbab gaul” and the “gloomy Arabic veils”; they glossy, thoughtfully composed images of their middle class
flaunt “their ability to adjust to a level of colorfulness —the everyday, the hijabers both emulate corporate media (they
fun, safe Muslims—that requires respectable financial means make hijaberness look like a tv ad or a glossy magazine), and
and in turn accretes as cultural capital: an ability to be bring threatening identities in to a mainstream fold (ie, the
accepted as global and cosmopolitan” (Beta, 2014, p. 385). retrieve veiling from the threat of jilboobs and jilbab gaul).
10 Social Media + Society

Figure 9. @hijaberscommunity. Screengrabbed, July 2017.

In light of Marwick’s and Duguay’s arguments, we may sur- spend [and] the number of location aware apps is expected to
mise that this taming is a function of a transnational culture triple by 2019”). There is also an increasing tendency among
of Instagram use, and not just a consequence of the hijabers’ everyday users to incorporate location data into their social
specific geographic and historical locatedness in Indonesia. media posts (in 2013 “30% of adult users included location
It is also linked to how Instagram is discursively constituted in their social media posts, up 14% two years prior”)
as a media form, and demonstrates the operation of what (Mitchell & Highfield, 2017, n.p.). Clearly, the hijabers con-
Spyer and Steedly (2013) refer to as frames of reference: tribute to this grounding by according distinctive socio-
“sets of ideas that direct how the image should be evaluation, geographies such a prominent place in their Instagram
viewed or comprehended” (p. 19). In other words, a culture identities. Moreover, their use of geographic settings to mark
of Instagram’s use works alongside captions, borders and themselves as being in possession of consumer power reveals
depth of field to attach meaning to images on Instagram. how location data is being drawn into frontstage self-making
The case of the hijabers also proffers new insights into endeavors (Goffman, 1959) on Instagram. The hijabers wil-
recent developments in cultures of using Instagram, particu- fully curate location data to compose coherent and ordered
larly the new roles location is playing in constituting the cul- Instagram identities that belie the messy subject positions
ture of the platform. Earlier we distinguished the Indonesian suggested by a vast backstage archive of geodata, being pro-
hijabers Instagram posts from those that position the hijabi in duced in ever greater volume by ordinary social media users
a “nowhere” in order to focus attention on her facial beauty, (Mitchell & Highfield, 2017).
and draw connections between hijab-wearing and conven- We see two possible readings of the implications of
tional feminine beauty. By contrast, the hijabers post images Instagram’s packaging of the hijabers for their gender poli-
of themselves in recognizable places, and this may be seen as tics. Instagram expands the field of everyday image-making,
a function of the increasing importance of location data in and contributes to the visibilising of Muslim women and
uses of social media; geographic location plays an important their enhanced role in public life. Hijabers use this tool to
role in the way the hijabers constitute themselves as exem- link hijaberness to bodily and mental agency, which they
plars of an ideal middle class Muslim femininity. Such tac- articulate by providing visual evidence of their well-to-do
tics entangle them in power dynamics emerging from what existence. This particular articulation of women’s power
Mitchell and Highfield (2017) call the “digital spatial turn” emerges from a context of the expansion of consumer culture
(n.p.), in which ubiquitous uses of location by the makers and the attendant commoditisation of Islam in Indonesia. But
and users of social media platforms are working to make the it is also significantly bolstered by a culture of Instagram’s
internet an ever more grounded space. Not only are geo tar- use, which favors the glossy, the high-end, the luxurious.
geted ads are becoming more important to the ways social Instagram cements the hijabers’ reliance on “feminine dis-
media corporations do business (“over the next five years, courses and practices. . . anchored in the consumer market-
location-based ads will make up over 40% of mobile ad place” (Duffy & Hund, 2015, p. 3) in order to articulate their
Baulch and Pramiyanti 11

Figure 10. @pratiwanda. Screengrabbed, July 2017.

empowerment-—problematic from a feminist perspective female consumers are playing in shaping interpretations of
because it limits such empowerment to women’s capacity to scripture (Millie, 2017; Slama, 2017).
consume. At the same time, by presenting themselves first
and foremost as objects of consumer desire, the hijabers gain Islamicising Through Captioning
an opportunity to “slide under the radar” (Abidin, 2016, p.
2). Framing their relationships with their husbands as a fea- Captions allow the hijabers to present themselves as pious
ture of a middle-class consumer culture, they capitalize on subjects, aware of their good fortune, au fait with scripture
Instagram’s valorisation of the consuming woman to present and confident in its interpretation, observant of the daily
controversial female subjectivities (for example, the rhythm of prayer, and always eager to do good deeds. In the
Muslimah wife who stands on an equal footing with her hus- posts we collected, hijabers’ dakwah efforts are abundantly
band) in a palatable format. In this way, they shape Muslimah evident. For example, Syifa Fauziah interprets the above-
pop culture consumers’ aspirations in a way synchronous discussed image of herself at the Grand Canyon by way of a
with an Indonesian feminist agenda to reform the institution flowery citation from the Qur’an which reads: “Who has cre-
of marriage. ated the seven heavens layering one upon the other, you can
In the next section, we move to a consideration of the see no fault in the creations of the Most Beneficent. Then
posts’ captions, which affords a different interpretation again. look again: Can you see any rifts? Then look again and yet
Diverging from microcelebrity practice chronicled by other again, your sight will return to you in a state of humiliation.”
scholars, entailing the use of captions for product promo- (Surat Al-Mulk verse 3-4). Similarly, Wanda to a post depict-
tion,6 the hijabers use captions to interpret their posts through ing sites featured in her tour of Europe, Wanda appends a
reference to scripture—the Qur’an and Hadith. This enables caption expressing her humility as a subject of Allah (Figure
them to claim their activities on Instagram as forms of dak- 10):
wah, thereby framing hijaberness as something more than a
subset of microcelebrity culture—it is also a mode of Islamic Allah, please allow me to add more stars as many as possible on
Your blessed earth. It is not only about taking pictures to feed
communication, analysis of which requires an engagement
my Instagram, but it is more to feed my soul. Because little that
with work on contemporary developments in the mediation I knew, a tinie-tiny human like me needs to learn more from
of Islamic knowledge. By claiming the sharing of images of other creatures in other places. I go somewhere as no-one, then
their consuming bodies as forms of dakwah, the hijabers I come home still as no-ne but with many stories to tell. May this
attest to the fragmentation of Muslim authority; a phenome- map always (leeds) to you. #alhamdullilah #travelgram
non linked variously to electronic mediation (Echchaibi, #traveling #solotravel #backpacking #tourist #europetrip #map
2011; Scholz et al., 2008) and the increasingly important role #lessonlearned #terimakasihlpdp7
12 Social Media + Society

Figure 11. @gdaghaida. Screengrabbed, June 2017.

Other posts feature more flippant or humourous captions. exemplary of a new clutch of Muslim preachers who are
Ghaida Tsuraya, for example, captions an image of herself using digital media to reach transnational audiences, thereby
outside a mosque in Turkey with a passing reference to the delocalising sources of Muslim authority, “generating new
“Keep Calm and Carry On” dictum—in this case amended to producers and locales of religious meaning in Dubai, London,
refer to dzikir (devotional occurences), offered as an appro- Paris and Los Angeles” (Echchaibi, 2011, p. 25; for other
priate remedy for a state of anxiety: “Galau? (Confused?) examples see Alatas, 2017; Scholz et al., 2008).
Keep Calm and dzikir on,” she advises. In Alatas,’ Echchaibi’s and Scholz et al’s studies, males
In her analysis of the Instagram accounts UkhtiSally employ new media to renegotiate existing authority struc-
(Sister Sally) and Duniajilbab (World of jilbab), Eva Nisa tures. But scholars focussing on Indonesian Islam show how
(2018) argues that Indonesian Muslimah are using the plat- gender binaries are also being dismantled as preaching events
form to develop a “soft” form of dakwah—ie a form of pros- increasingly extend beyond the mosque. Millie and Slama
elytizing imparted by way of glossy images, depicting both note the marked feminisation of Muslim audiences, and
women as key actors in the consumer economy, and woven the new roles women are playing in shaping the articulation
into lucrative social media-based businesses (pp. 68-71). The of authority. In Millie’s study of preaching events in West
hijabers’ dakwah efforts may be similarly described as “soft” Java, for example, women commonly constitute 70% of the
for their reliance on images and discourses of consumption, audience. Therefore, they play a pivotal role in sustaining the
and both cases—the hijaber case and Nisa’s study—extend viability of preaching as a vocation, and preachers take care
discussion of the feminisation of Muslim publics proceeding to orient themselves to the women attendees. They craft their
as part of what a the fragmentation of Muslim authority oratory in ways designed to grab the women’s attention, by
(Echchaibi, 2011; Scholz et al., 2008) (Figure 11). telling jokes, singing songs and proffering interpretations of
As mentioned earlier in the essay, recent scholarship on scripture that are sensitive to women’s realities (Millie, 2017,
contemporary developments in Islamic communication has p. 132). And Slama shows how mobile digital devices digital
focussed on such fragmentation, a function of digital uptake social media endow the Muslimah with consumer agency in
and the broader commoditisation of global Islam, both of their dealings with preachers. Discussing the use of
which result in in increased opportunities for undertaking WhatsApp and Blackberry Messenger by middle class
and participating in preaching activities outside of the women in Yogyakarta to seek affective connections and
mosque. Echchaibi chronicles the rise of Baba Ali, a emotional support from ustadz (preachers)—a practice they
US-based preacher who uses humor and everyday language refer to as “charging their hearts,” he writes: “Put simply,
to deliver sermons on Youtube. Echchaibi sees Baba Ali as ustadzs cannot risk ignoring the emotional needs of their
Baulch and Pramiyanti 13

female followers. If they cannot find the right words at the kind of social subject—one who enjoys free access to spaces
right time, their followers will choose to charge their hearts limited to the well-to-do. Frames of reference work to natu-
elsewhere” (Slama, 2017, n.p.). ralize a claim to empowerment that is contingent on class
Milllie’s and Slama’s studies show how the fragmentation privilege; a culture of Instagram’s use deems the perfor-
of Muslim authority affords new roles for women in public mance of advanced consumer power a fit and proper bodily
Islam. As audience members and consumers, women are comportment on the platform. Finally, the hijabers also
positioned to shape preaching practices. But the hijaber case enframe their images through use of captions to interpret the
extends this work attending to women’s expanded role in visual evidence of their bodily agency, independence and
public Islam, because it shows how they exert power not consumer power as key elements of Islamic practice.
only as consumers of religious authority. They, like the These multiple enframings reveal HC’s locatedness in
Instagrammers of which Nisa writes, style themselves as reli- two distinct fields, each of which holds distinct implications
gious authorities, interpreting images of their consumerist for analyzing the gender politics inherent to HC. The first is
selves through reference to the Quran and Hadith to offer a global consumer culture, Muslim and otherwise, accessible
Islamically-flavored style and lifestyle advice for a young only to the well-to-do, constructed from a visual grammar
Muslimah middle class public on Instagram. This use of alluding to holidays in Europe and the US, fine dining and
Instagram positions the hijabers as not only a subset of post- white-collar careers. In this, the hijabers reflects a broader
feminist microcelebrity culture on Instagram, but also a fea- culture of Instagram use favoring representations of feminin-
ture of the fragmentation of Muslim authority, entailing the ity in keeping with a mainstream (Duguay, 2016; Marwick,
proliferation of Muslim authority figures whose power rests 2015), and limiting women’s power to their consumer power,
on their ability to command audiences outside of mosque affirming Duffy and Hund’s (2015) argument that microce-
contexts. Advanced concurrently by consumerist ideology lebrity culture reproduces dominant gender norms.
and digital uptake, this fragmenting transforms the gender Nevertheless, with a nod to Abidin’s (2016) “subversive fri-
politics of Muslim public-ness. It feminizes Muslim audi- volity,” we posit that cloaking themselves in middle class
ences, Muslim address and even (in the case of the hijabers) consumer culture enables the hijabers to present controver-
the notion of Muslim authority. sial female subjectivities in a palatable format.
The second is a field of specifically Islamic communica-
tion, rapidly changing as new technologies and new practices
Conclusion for imparting and consuming Islamic knowledge emerge in
In this article, we analyzed the hijabers’ self-images through context of Indonesian society’s increasing Islamicisation.
reference to debates about the implications of the microce- This latter field harbors a more nuanced gender politics than
lebrity phenomenon for women’s power. Using visual analy- the former, partly because of a context of flux in Islamic
sis to understand how meanings of hijaberness are communication, rendering dominant gender norms some-
communicated via combinations of images and captions, we what up for grabs. Therefore, works such as Duffy and
drew on Spyer and Steedly (2013, p. 19) to study the enframe- Hund’s, which presume a settled consensus on what consti-
ment of hijab-wearing in the posts. The analysis shows that tutes “normative feminine discourses and practices” are
any one post undergoes multiple enframements (even prior inapplicable to this context, and for the same reason “subver-
to its circulation—a process that entails the ongoing re- sive frivolity” poorly describes how the hijabers use
enframement of the image through reposts, the addition of Instagram to write themselves into this field. If the hijabers
hashtags and @mentions), rendering the posts polysemic. are to be considered agentive in the shaping if Islamic com-
Hijabers enframe their Instagram images largely by play- munication, it is not for the way they capitalize on post-fem-
ing with borders, depth of field, frames of reference, and cap- inist ideology to extend ownership of the means of producing
tions. Other hijabi celebrity accounts feature self-portraits femininity. Rather, it is for the way they interpret images of
taken at a close range, often with a non-identifiable or out- their consuming selves through reference to the Qur’an or
of-focus background (Jones, 2017; Kavakci & Kraeplin, Hadith, thereby positioning themselves as holders and impar-
2017). In such portraits, the hijab borders the face, accentuat- ters of Islamic knowledge. On Instagram, hijabers adopt the
ing its Muslim-ness, offering the hijabers opportunities to tactics of microcelebrity culture to posit their consuming
demonstrate that hijab-wearing conforms to conventional bodies as those capable of authoritatively addressing
notions of feminine beauty, denoted by the youthful, made- Muslimah in the interpretation of scripture.
up, fair-skinned face. Some such portraits appear in the cor- As a conceptual tool, composite habitus is therefore use-
pus we collected, but the hijabers favor self-portraits that ful because it affords access to the complex gender politics
emplace them in a deeper field: broader “everyday” settings inherent to the hijaber phenomenon, at once problematic
revealing of her bodily and mental agency, and identify her from a feminist perspective because it makes empowered
as more than just an object of a gaze. Consistently, such womanhood contingent on elite modes of consumption, and
everyday settings enhance the hijabers’ performance of yet perhaps to be championed for their role in feminizing
empowerment on Instagram by identifying her as a certain Muslim authority. But, as touched on earlier, this approach
14 Social Media + Society

can also provide a framework for exploring digital cultures’ 3. The Indonesian hijabers aspire to be global, but the cultural
multiple provenances—that is, those that stretch beyond the contexts they inhabit shape the meanings of their dress styles in
Euro-American trajectory of techno-social change. The ways that distinguish them from the hijabis in Muslim minority
hijabers certainly adhere to norms governing “proper” bodily contexts studied by Lewis (2015), Tarlo (2010) and Tarlo and
Moors (2013). Tarlo and Moors (2013), for example, aver that
comportment on Instagram, and such adherence constructs
Muslim women use Islamic fashion to “disrupt and challenge
them as a subset of a global cosmopolitan elite, Muslim and
public stereotypes about Islam, women, social integration and
otherwise. We can understand this mode of self-presentation the veil, even if their voices are often drowned out in politi-
through reference to existing work on cultures of Instagram cal and legal debates in these issues” (p. 3). But the picture of
use, and its implications for women’s media power. But the hijabis as those who defy or resist a prevailing Islamophobia
way the hijabers use captions to enact dakwah is also instruc- does not apply to the Indonesian hijabers, and our study of them
tive. This draws the posts more squarely into a realm of spe- shows how global Islamic fashion is unfolding in distinct ways
cifically Islamic communication, which cannot be understood at various conjunctures, Islamophobic and otherwise.
without referring to the transformation of that field, and its 4. Publics are virtual social entities arising from the circulation of
gender implications, in recent times. texts, and the qualities of which are shaped by an ever-evolving
A dual interpretation is therefore crucial to the agenda for relationship between modes of address and the semiotic values
of the technologies that circulate that address (Warner, 2002).
internationalizing digital media studies because it retrieves
5. Brenner discusses how such a discourse was invoked in a
non-Western digital cultures from the lowly scales of local
debate taking place in the late-1,990s at a workshop organized
specificity to position them as part of global histories, albeit by women’s organization Rifka Annisa:
sorely understudied, being forged in and through platforms.
The “composite habitus” framework is useful because it opens At [the seminar] some women in the audience voiced their
space for acknowledging both the powerfully homogenizing skepticism toward the organization’s methods and goals.
One middle-aged woman accused Rifka Annisa of advo-
effects of platforms’ cultures of use, and their important varia-
cating divorce as the answer to domestic violence, even
tions. As argued above, more innovative understandings of
though Islam urges people to avoid it. Others in the audi-
such variations are needed; they cannot always be accounted ence saw Rifka Annisa as interfering with the God-given
for through reference to ‘local specificities’; and may well hierarchy that places husbands above their wives. In sup-
result from other global historical processes that sit outside the port of one attendee’s remark that “men’s nature/destiny is
well-rehearsed Euro-American trajectory. “Composite habi- to be above women” (kodratnya pria ada di atas perem-
tus,” we aver, advances the agenda for internationalizing digi- puan), another woman in the audience reminded those
tal media studies by retrieving digital cultures evolving in the present that, during the obligatory daily prayers, “women
Global South from conceptual frames that relegate them to the are always behind men”—in other words, that men have a
catacombs of derivation and particularity. divine right to be leaders over women. A number of peo-
ple in the mostly female audience applauded in response.
(Brenner, 2011, p. 482)
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect 6. Captions promoting products are not entirely absent from the
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. posts, but they usually appear as “parasitic” comments that
take advantage of key hijabers Instafame to advertise hijab-
related wares.
Funding
7. Note how the hashtags also enframe the caption, providing the
This article was produced with funding from the Australia Research reader with more information about her trip. By way of the
Council (“Mobile Indonesians: social differentiation and digital lit- hashtags, we learn that she undertook the trip as a solo back-
eracies in the 21st century” DP130102990) and the Indonesian packer, and that it was related to a government scholarship to
Directorate General of Higher Education study overseas (“lpdp”). Leeds is mentioned because Wanda
undertook her Masters degree in Leeds, UK.
Notes
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