The Linguistic Landscape of Mosques in Indonesia: Materiality ‎and Identity Representation

Abstract

During its development, mosques in Indonesia have become a potential place with friction and conflict over the struggle for identity and the infiltration of various Islamic ideologies. This article explores the linguistic landscape in connection to the use of architectural materials in community mosques in Malang, Indonesia. The community mosques of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Non-NU were selected to see their strategies in contesting their identities representation. The research findings demonstrate that the materiality in the mosques indicates an attempt to designate the identity of each subculture group. The use of languages displayed in the mosques also delineates each community mosque’s efforts to maintain their identity representation from attempts to confiscate the mosque by a particular group or ideology. This study points out that in Indonesia, materiality and linguistic landscape in religious sites (mosques) need to be considered as an effort to anticipate the sociopolitical dynamics that develop in the society.

Keywords

• identity representation
• linguistic landscape
• materiality
• mosque management
• religiouscape