This study aimed at revealing how religious identity is formed and maintained among Islamic student activists in higher education. The implications of the religious identity on their social relations to other students and larger society were also discussed. A qualitative approach with a phenomenological method was employed. Four participants were recruited based on their long engagements in Da'wa movements in campus and significant roles they played in the movement. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The results show three dominant themes, namely motivation to join the Da'wa movement, the process of religious identity formation, and strategies to maintain the identity. In general, this study concluded that the initial factors that encourage the participants' involvements in Da'wa movement in higher education is the desire to feel an emotional bond of kinship based on religious values. After joining the movement, most participants developed their self-perception as a 'minority' with all its consequences. Furthermore, the need to recruit as many common Muslim students as possible for joining in their 'minority community' raise the tension between maintaining their 'exclusive' identity or answering the requirement of making relations inclusively in order their religious messages to be received by wider students.

Author Name: Muhammad Syafiq

URL: View PDF

Keywords: Religious identity, Identity strategies, Islamic student activists

ISSN: 2087-1708

EISSN: 2597-9035

EOI/DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26740/jpt

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