‘Forging New Malay Networks’:Imagining Global Halal Markets

This article explores Malaysia’s bid to become the world leader in rapidly expanding halal (literally, “lawful” or “permitted”) markets on a global scale through the embedding of a particular global Islamic imagination. The Malaysian state has become central to the certification, standardization, and bureaucratization of Malaysian halal production, trade, and consumption. The vision is now to export this model, and for that purpose the network as a strategic metaphor is being evoked to signify connectedness and prescriptions of organization visà- vis more deep-rooted networks. I argue that an imagined global halal network conditions the halal commodity form. This imagination is at least as important as halal commodities themselves for the emergence of a novel form of globalized halal capitalism.</jats:p

Looking for Religious Logos in Singapore

Within the last couple of decades, new types of religious logos have emerged. Notably, halal (in Arabic, halal literally means “permissible” or “lawful”) logos are increasingly appearing on products, certificates, websites as well as in restaurants, shops, and advertisements globally. However, little empirical attention has been paid to these religious logos as elements of visual systems, or to their effects. This article fills that gap. I argue that religious logos are not well understood theoretically, conceptually, or empirically and that they signify a new phase in logo development characterized by forms of religious regulation, certification, and standardization on a global scale. Building on empirical research on halal logos in Singapore, this paper shows that modern religious logos can fruitfully be explored at the interface between archive studies and ethnography.</jats:p