Feeling Authentically Islamic: Halal Consumption, Islamic Traditions, and Material Religion in a Gentrifying Philadelphia

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Degree type
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Graduate group
Religious Studies
Discipline
Religion
Religion
Subject
Affect theory
Digital humanities
Halal consumption
Islam in the United States
Material religion
Urban religion
Funder
Grant number
License
Copyright date
2024
Distributor
Related resources
Author
Dugan, Max, Johnson
Contributor
Abstract

What makes a halal object feel Islamic to Muslims in the city of Philadelphia? This dissertation answers that question through a multimodal ethnography that combines twelve months of participant observation and semi-structured interviews with digital mapping of halal brick-and-mortar businesses. This project analyzes how devotion, race, social class, and gender co-constitute Islamic traditions through material and affective processes that are entangled with but not reducible to discourse. The chapters of the dissertation examine this processual co-constitution by tracing the enactment of Islamic traditions across various scales—specifically of spaces, affects, objects, and bodies. The first chapter offers a macro-scale frame of halal consumption, transportation infrastructure, and gentrification in Philadelphia County. Chapter 2 centers around a smell in a halal butcher shop and two divergent affective responses to it that propel Muslim consumers toward different enactments of Islamic traditions. Chapter 3 undertakes a thick description of a halal sandwich and its material transmission of Islamic discourse and ethics. The final content chapter turns to the embodied practices that Muslim small halal business owners use to navigate the financial precarity brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and structural asymmetries, as well as the way that those sustaining activities may stratify Muslims according to their perceived devotion. The Conclusion theorizes how the circulation of affects through spaces, objects, bodies, and discourse orients Muslims in Philadelphia toward different Islamic authenticities. This dissertation contributes to scholarship on Islam, American religion, and material religion by analyzing the ways that feelings and materialities substantiate Islamic traditions in urban North America. Ultimately, this dissertation is as much about the particularities of halal consumption as it is about the felt differences that give Islamic material culture its purchase.

Advisor
Elias, Jamal, J
Date of degree
2024
Date Range for Data Collection (Start Date)
Date Range for Data Collection (End Date)
Digital Object Identifier
Series name and number
Volume number
Issue number
Publisher
Publisher DOI
Journal Issue
Comments
Recommended citation