Unlikely Actors: Religious Organizations as Intermediaries in Indonesia

Fathul Wahida, b, Maung K. Seina, Bjørn Furuholta

aDepartment of Information Systems, University of Agder, Kristiansand, NorwaybDepartment of Informatics, Universitas Islam Indonesia, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011

Introduction• For ICT4D initiatives to succeed actors/intermediaries play a

vital role• Individuals• Organizations

• Previous literature reported various actors (such as one-stop shop, telecenters, or even friends and family members)

• Who are the possible actors/intermediaries in Indonesia?

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ICT4D in Indonesia• The world's fourth most populous

country (population ≈ 238 million)

• The world's largest population of Muslims

• Consists of 17,508 scattered islands that demand for a good transportation and communication infrastructure, including ICT

• Low Internet penetration (12.1% of the population)

• Digital divide within the country is huge

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INDONESIA

Data

• Informal discussion with ICT4D players

• Authors’ previous research in Indonesia on relevant

topics

• Secondary data

• The literature

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Possible intermediaries in Indonesia

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• Internet cafes• 40% of users access the Internet from 10,000 Internet cafes

• One-stop services• E.g., to improve their public services and transparency

• Private sectors• E.g., increasing Internet accessibility and developing e-Government

application• Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)

• E.g., providing ICT training, taking part in emergency responses during natural disasters

• Post offices• Pos Indonesia runs ISP, operates Internet cafes, and manages 30,000

payment points for various services• Religious organizations (ROs)

The current picture of ROs in Indonesia• ROs have embarked on using ICT to support their operations in

giving services to the society

• Some masjids (mosques) provide free Internet connection to their jama'ah (constituents)

• Telecenters or Internet cafes in pesantren (Islamic boarding house)

• Madrasahs, schools, and universities are powerful channels to disseminate ICT related awareness, knowledge, and skills

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Evaluating ROs: possible rolesRoles Example in the Indonesian contextFacilitating/providing access

Pesantrens run Internet cafes; masjids provide free Internet access to their jama'ah.

Transforming Schools/madrasahs and universities run by ROs include ICT in their curricula. Masjids organize ICT training to their jama'ah.

Information processing

Pesantrens run their websites to provide aggregated information and consultation. Internet in many cases is also a source of information for face-to-face Islamic teaching/preaching.

Provide help and support

Operators in Internet cafes and telecenters run by ROs usually are very keen to help the users to access the services provided.

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Evaluating ROs: sustainability• Majority of ROs have a steady flow of financing

• ROs providing services (including ICT related ones) that are useful and fulfill the need of the society has attained the trust from the society

• Most ROs are strongly attached to the local societies that make the offered service are highly localized and contextual (e.g., telecenter, Internet training)

• ROs envelop any offering around socio-religious as well as educational aspects where ICT is simply a means of achieving their larger goal – propagating the faith

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Based on the framework developed by Sein et al. (2008)

Examining ROs as intermediaries (1)• ROs as development and socio-political organizations

• The two largest Islamic organizations in Indonesia, namely Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah are good illustrations

• NU (established in 1926) has 35 million followers and manages 7,000 pesantrens and other schools/madrasahs or universities

• Muhammadiyah (established in 1912) manages 7,000 schools/madrasahs, 67 pesantrens, 150 universities, and 900 hospitals, orphanage houses, and elderly houses

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Examining ROs as intermediaries (2)• Islamic values are used as an instrument of modernization

• The pesantrens have been serving both as places for religious teaching and as community centres (Rao, 2004)

• Local ROs, i.e., masjids, have played significant role in culture and community-driven development in Indonesia (Bebbington et al., 2004)

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The “other side” of ROs as intermediaries

• Intermediaries do not operate in vacuum and are not value free

• An example: the recent Moluccan conflict between Muslim and Christian communities provides evidence that ROs can use the Internet to propagate hate, where both Muslim and Christian ROs used the Internet to disseminate their one-sided opinions, often by insulting each other

• ROs may also manifest as illegal or terrorist organizations ICTs become a powerful weapon in the hand of trained and highly skilled terrorists

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Contribution• Identifying the possible actors/intermediaries in Indonesia

• Internet cafes, one-stop services, private sectors, NGOs, post offices, ROs

• Examining ROs as ICT4D intermediaries which has not received much attention in the literature

• Identifying trust as an important character for ICT4D intermediaries, and ROs seem to fulfill this role

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Future research directions• Empirical verifying and validating of the concepts and postulations

made from our analysis

• Investigating the balance between the positive and negative aspects of ROs as intermediaries

• Grounding the conceptualizations on theoretical premises

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Thank you for the attention!

Questions and [hopefully] answers

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