Problematizing Piety: Women’s Agency and the Hijab Practices in Surabaya, Indonesia

Berhijab (to wear a veil) has become a custom of the majority of Muslim women in Indonesia today. The term hijab practices are the common denominator by which to denote the different ways in which Muslim women in Indonesia dress and give meaning to their hijab. Applying Saba Mahmood’s concept of agency, this study aims to explore the numerous varieties of women’s hijab styles in their hijab practices, especially in relation to the ways women understand and interpret piety. Four groups of women in Surabaya are used as data. Participant observations, focus group discussion, and semi-structured interviews are used as techniques of data collection. One important finding indicates that the women have different ideas about how women should dress. The first group contests strict interpretations of Islam with their fashionable hijab preferences. The second group and their Shar’i hijab style (wide, long, loose) has recently won acceptance among Muslim in Indonesia. The third group is confident in their hijab practices as the result of a powerful balancing act between fashion and Islamic clothing. The last group wears the hijab style based the normative frames, internalized through religious teaching in the pesantren (Islamic boarding school). To conclude, all the women’s groups considered themselves as pious to certain extent and they were also concerned about other’s piety.