Maintaining Sacred Identities: How Religious Anti‐Consumption Conflicts with Culture

Abstract

AbstractDrawing on in‐depth interview data from an Islamic orthodox social movement in Pakistan, we investigate how participants invoke religious ideology to forge anti‐consumption behaviour in opposition to prevailing cultural norms. We identify anti‐consumption behaviour fuelled by foreign values, foreign lifestyles, Islamic values, and Islamic lifestyles. Coloured by a value system that steers them toward a distinct Islamic lifestyle and away from alternatives, our religious participants effuse sensibilities of spiritual propriety into their (anti‐)consumption choices. Our study contributes to the understanding of how religious anti‐consumption, in the face of countervailing alternatives, reinforces a specific religious identity in consumers.