Punk is in the heart : The role of religion in the evolving punk identity in Makassar punk scene

Abstract Punk and religion are often seen as antagonistic. Yet in the Makassar context (Indonesia) in which religion is omnipresent members of the punk scene need to negotiate the role of reli-gion in their everyday ways of being punk. Punk is constantly evolving through its interaction to the changing social and political context. Punk members experience such evolution throughout their life course thus give impacts to their perception of their punk identity in each stage of their life. In each stage of their life, religion comes into contact with their punk identity through various means and institutions. As a response, they projected the interaction by giving meaning to their religiosity and punk identity. The projection then differs in its relation to generation that embedded in specific historical and social temporal location in the punk scene. They began to internalize these projection overtime and making a different in-terpretation on their punk identity and religion both in individual and collective practices. This marks the negotiation in self to accommodate the feeling, thought, and behaviour that attached to punk and religion in each moment of change in their life course. Thus, the changes are located on the process of becoming, being, and unbecoming punk to clearly locate what role religion has in their punk identity processes. This paper is the result of an ethnography research complemented by life history ap-proach in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia punk group. This paper illustrated the com-plexities of a small circle of punk group in experiencing changes in giving meaning to religion as they grew older in Makassar punk scene. The changes happen due to the social trajectories that they enter throughout their life course that is embedded in their social and cultural con-text. In response, some of the punk view religion and punk as separate practices, some con-templates practices related to their age and role in their social circle, and other began to leave the scene to pursue religion. the different responses are expression of internalization to his self by negotiating the meaning of religion and punk in the development of their identity.