The Indonesian Foreign Fighters, Hegemonic Masculinity and Globalisation

The thesis investigated the role of gender in giving the rise of Indonesian Muslim foreign fighters’ networks. It finds that promoting and socialising a specific understanding of masculinity—especially the notion of being a mujahid—as the highest social status for Muslim men, plays a much more important role relative to other factors such as (globalised) religious ideology, impact of state ideology, securitisation and even poverty, to providing an environment conducive for the rise of foreign fighters in Indonesia.