EN 
ID Neoliberal economic restructuring has created fertile ground for precarious labour markets, while promoting the marketisation of basic social services throughout the developed and developing worlds. In Muslim majority countries, including Indonesia, the resultant rampant inequalities have provided the setting for mobilisations of the precarious urban poor under Islamic banners against perceived oppression or marginalisation of the ummah (community of believers). However, such narratives based on a religious lexicon have not always produced a collective will to resist the neoliberal agenda effectively.
We argue instead that there has been a coupling of Islamism and neoliberalism in Indonesia in a way that conditions consent to, and compliance with neoliberal precepts. Clues are provided, for instance, in the way private enterprises, and faith-based organisations, have referred to Islamic values to promote productivity among middle-class Muslim workers.
Little, however, has been said about the precariat and neoliberalism in Muslim-majority societies. This article, therefore, delves into the influence of Islamist appeals on responses to growing precarity in Indonesia. The study on which it derives was undertaken during the Covid-19 pandemic (from April 2021 to October 2022), employing semi-structured interviews with twenty-five precarious gig workers who make a living as app-based motorcycle taxi (online ojek) drivers in Jabodetabek (Jakarta-Bogor-Depok –Tangerang-Bekasi).
Read the article in Indonesian at The Conversation.