Emergent narratives of religious deconstruction by Saudis on twitter and beyond

Abstract

This thesis explores emergent narratives of the deconstruction of religion in Saudi Arabia. Saudis are increasingly criticising the very fundamentals of religion in public –albeit that the dissemination of their criticism is, for now and for the foreseeable future, limited to non-physical (i.e. virtual) spaces such as Twitter. The type of criticism studied here highlights the ongoing tension between religion and modernity in Saudi Arabia at a time when social media is facilitating the development of heated debates, conversations and controversies about the most fundamental aspects of Saudi society: politics, religion, social justice, gender, sexuality and the future of the country. Among these discussions are critical reviews of religious understanding, some of which focus on reforming religion, while others have evolved into discussions of the concepts of deity, duty to Allahand morality.


Twitter is one of the main sources of the data for this thesis. In Saudi Arabia there are no physical public spaces where critical discussion of religion is allowed, so Saudis have reverted to non-physical interactions on social media, especially Twitter. This form of non-embodied, non-physical interaction facilitates a somewhat free expression of ideas, but limits and sometimes distorts the ideas being expressed. One of the outcomes of this research is to determine how the monopoly of a medium (i.e. Twitter) shapes the outcome of the expressions and the parameters of the discourse.

To complement the limitation of expression via Twitter, my other main source of data is semi-structured interviews with a number of Saudis of various backgrounds who performed their own criticism of religion. While Twitter provides us with a good sense of the range of issues being discussed, the interviews provide insights into the personal experiences that have led some Saudis to venture into criticising religion.

The thesis also explores the backlash to such criticism, and the development of a new form of takfir which is also facilitated by social media.

Date of Award	2016
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	King's College London
Supervisor	Carool Kersten (Supervisor) & Kazuyo Murata (Supervisor)