Malaysia. The halal frontier: Muslim consumers in a globalized market. By Johan Fischer. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Pp. 186. Plates, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

Abstract

The halal frontier: Muslim consumers in a globalized market By JOHAN FISCHER New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Pp. 186. Plates, Notes, Bibliography, Index. doi: 10.1017/S0022463414000198 This book is among a handful exploring the contemporary role of halal. The halal frontier: Muslim consumers in a globalized market provides fascinating insights into the consumer choices, adaptation strategies, and pragmatic decisions among members of the Malaysian-Malay diaspora in Britain, living in the interface between revivalist Islam, the sending state's efforts to institutionalise and standardise 'halal', the recipient state's difficulties in embracing notions of halal, and global market forces which have discovered Muslims as consumers. Johan Fischer traces the encounters between the very Malaysian conceptions of halal of his informants and their navigation of the sheer endless and often challenging diversity of the British capital. The author followed his informants into 'halal restaurants, butcher shops, grocery stores, supermarkets and hypermarkets' (p. 25). Even though private homes, sadly, appear to have been excluded from his list of fieldwork sites, The halal frontier is able to provide important and fresh insights into the dynamic interaction between competing halal discourses, between producers and consumers, and between Malaysian 'state' Islam and the diasporic realities of London's Muslim minority. Locating his study in the British capital, a Western metropolis that has become an integral part of the Muslim world and whose economy profits strongly from these connections, enables Fischer to explore life on the 'halal frontier', an interesting concept he develops throughout the book. Fischer's exploration of Malay-Malaysian consumers in London focuses on a field of inquiry that has until now not received much attention from either Southeast Asianists or from students of contemporary Muslim societies. Beyond its relevance in describing at great depth the negotiation of halal among a particular British Muslim community, The halal frontier adds to the overall still equally small body of works exploring contemporary Southeast Asian diasporas, complementing recent works by Tim Bunnell, Michael Laffan and Tony Milner. It is hoped that the work may help stimulate an expansion of serious academic enquiries of diasporic Southeast Asian Muslim communities in places as diverse as Bloomington, Melbourne, Stockholm and Cairo, and of their engagement with what it means to be Malay, Javanese or Patani; Indonesian, Singaporean or Malaysian outside of the region. In that it continues Fischer's path-breaking previous work on 'halalisation' in Malaysia and the Malaysian state's role in giving rise to and fostering a group of Malay-Muslim middle-class shoppers and consumers, The halal frontier makes for a fascinating and engaging read. Most of Fischer's 14 key informants are products of, or are individuals strongly influenced by the Malaysian state's hyper-capitalist modernisation project of the 1980s and 1990s. He is able to explore well their sometimes fraught negotiation of British realities and religious discourses from their youth or from 'back home'. Two notable drawbacks, however, are that The halal frontier does not seek to locate the Malays of London and their choices, pragmatic or otherwise, in the particular historical trajectory of Islam as it emerged in the Malay world. …