Negotiating Faith and Tradition: Islamic Acculturation and Local Cultural Practices in Indonesian Muslim Communities

This study examines how Indonesian Muslim communities negotiate Islamic teachings within local cultural practices using a Systematic Literature Network Analysis (SLNA) approach. Drawing on 86 Scopus-indexed publications from 2015 to 2025, the study integrates a systematic literature review and bibliometric network analysis to map research trends, intellectual structures, and thematic clusters in the field. The findings show that Islamic acculturation in Indonesia is best understood as a dynamic and historically layered process in which religious doctrine, ritual practice, cultural memory, and social cohesion continuously interact. The reviewed literature demonstrates that local rituals, customary institutions, and community-based traditions function as adaptive social spaces through which Islamic values are localized and reproduced. At the same time, the field increasingly highlights tensions generated by reformist discourses, transnational networks, and digital religious communication, which reshape the legitimacy of local traditions. The bibliometric mapping indicates that studies are strongly concentrated in Southeast Asia, with thematic clusters focusing on cultural adaptation, identity negotiation, social harmony, and the contestation of religious authority. However, the study finds that much of the existing literature remains descriptive, case-based, and unevenly theorized, with a notable disconnect between localized ethnography and emerging scholarship on digital religion. This article contributes by proposing future directions for more comparative, theoretically grounded, and digitally engaged interdisciplinary scholarship.