This essay argues that the convergence of religious ethics and business management knowledge illustrate the formation of what are termed spiritual economies. Spiritual economies conceptualize how economic reform and neoliberal restructuring are conceived of and acted on as matters of religious piety and spiritual virtue. The spiritual economy described consists of producing spirituality as an object of intervention, reconfiguring work as a form of religious worship, and inculcating an ethic of individual accountability and entrepreneurial responsibility among workers. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic research, the majority of which took place at Krakatau Steel in Banten, Indonesia, this essay describes a moderate Islamic spiritual reform movement active in state‐owned companies, government bureaucracies, and private enterprises in contemporary Indonesia. Proponents of spiritual reform consider the separation of religious ethics from economic practice as the root of Indonesia's economic crisis because this disjunction resulted in rampant corruption, inefficiency, and a lack of discipline at the workplace. The essay analyzes these efforts to inculcate Islamic ethics in combination with western management knowledge that is expected to enhance economic productivity, reduce endemic corruption, and prepare employees of state‐owned enterprises for privatization.
This article develops the concept ‘economies of affect’ to argue for increased anthropological attention to the roles of affect in facilitating economic transformations. The article draws on evidence from two ethnographic field projects, one in Mexico and the other in Indonesia, to show how affect was mobilized to create subjects commensurable with neoliberal norms. We show how embracing and crying and discourses about love and grief were conjoined to transformations that entailed the cessation of state guarantees and the introduction of market norms. In posing affect and its articulation with questions of economic change as an object of anthropological inquiry, the article argues for the utility of a notion of affect in contrast to other approaches that have stressed emotion. We argue that affect is useful because it is inherently reflexive and intersubjective. Affect refers to relations practised between individuals, in contrast to emotion, which still bears the spectre of a psychological individualism. Résumé Cet article développe le concept des «économies de l'affect» pour attirer l'attention des anthropologues sur le rôle de l'affect dans la facilitation des transformations économiques. Il s'appuie sur les résultats de deux projets de terrain ethnographiques, l'un au Mexique et l'autre en Indonésie, pour montrer comment l'affect a été mobilisé pour créer des sujets pouvant être appréhendés selon les normes néolibérales. Les auteurs montrent comment l'étreinte, les pleurs et les discours sur l'amour et le chagrin ont été associés à des transformations impliquant la cessation de prestations de l'État et l'application des lois du marché. En faisant de l'affect et de son articulation avec le changement économique un objet d'étude anthropologique, l'article affirme l'utilité d'une notion d'affect se démarquant d'autres approches qui mettent l'accent sur l'émotion. Les auteurs affirment que l'affect est utile parce qu'il est, par nature, réflexif et intersubjectif. L'affect renvoie aux relations pratiquées entre les individus, à la différence de l'émotion, toujours marquée par le spectre d'un individualisme psychologique.
This paper examines the techniques and networks that enable the transnational movement of migrant laborers from Indonesia. Theoretically, the paper argues that governmentality is an effective concept through which to understand political economic relations across national borders and outside state institutions. The concept is useful not only in analysis of abstract policy prescriptions, but also in the apparently mundane methods that are intended to rationalize the training, delivery and security of migrant laborers. The intervention herein is in part methodological, in so far as the paper argues that the concept is useful in analyzing the everyday practices that are a frequent focus of ethnographic fieldwork. Empirically grounded in interviews and observational fieldwork in Indonesia, the paper describes the networks that facilitate transnational labor migration from the country and demonstrates the interconnection of the "global" economy with localized moral economies. Thus, the paper argues that transnational flows of migrant laborers are in fact dependent upon supposedly traditional patron-client networks. Furthermore, I suggest that some NGOs advocating for the rights of migrant workers are not inimical to state power, but in fact work to enhance it. Strategies to protect the rights of migrant laborers may bring about greater state intervention in their lives. The paper proposes two technologies deployed by non-state entities, specifically human resources companies and NGOs, that facilitate transnational labor migration. The first are termed technologies of servitude and are intended to impart the skills and attitudes necessary to conduct domestic labor. The latter are technologies for rationalizing labor flows to wealthier countries of the Indian and Pacific Ocean regions.
This paper argues that in contemporary Indonesia development is increasingly being posed as an ethical, rather than a political and economic, problem. I demonstrate this change by describing one of several moderate Islamic ‘spiritual reform’ movements that are active in state‐owned enterprises, government offices, and private companies. These initiatives combine business management principles and techniques from popular life‐coaching seminars with Muslim practice. I term this assemblage ‘market Islam’ and contrast it with what has been labelled ‘civil Islam’. I argue that market Islam seeks less to create commensurability between Islam and democracy and is instead designed to merge Muslim religious practice and capitalist ethics. Market Islam is thus less concerned with state power and the articulation of politics and religion, and more focused on eliciting the ethical dispositions conducive to economic liberalism. It is thus designed to create a form of effective self‐management by making ‘people better from the inside’ and ‘breaking boundaries’ that are seen to afflict Indonesian development, such as those between Indonesia and other countries, between religion and work, and between individuals and the corporations for which they work. I conclude that market Islam is neither fundamentalist nor conservative, but rather involves breaking a series of boundaries that were constitutive of Indonesian modernity. Résumé Le présent article soutient que dans l’Indonésie contemporaine, le développement est de plus en plus présenté comme un problème éthique plus que politique et économique. L’auteur met en évidence ce changement en décrivant l’un des multiples mouvements de « réforme spirituelle » islamiques modérés à l’œuvre dans les entreprises d’État, les administrations et les sociétés privées. Ces initiatives combinent les principes et techniques de gestion d’entreprise issues de séminaires de coaching populaires avec la pratique de l’islam. L’auteur désigne cet assemblage par l’appellation « islam de marché» et le confronte à l’islam dit « civil ». Il affirme que l’islam de marché essaie non pas de créer des repères communs entre l’islam et la démocratie, mais de fusionner pratique religieuse musulmane et éthique capitaliste. L’islam de marché s’intéresse donc moins à la puissance de l’État et à l’articulation de la politique et de la religion qu’à la mise en place des dispositions éthiques conduisant au libéralisme économique. Il est donc conçu pour créer une forme d’autogestion efficace, en « rendant les gens meilleurs de l’intérieur » et en « brisant les barrières » qui grèvent le développement de l’Indonésie : barrières entre l’Indonésie et les autres pays, entre religion et travail, entre les individus et les entreprises pour lesquelles ils travaillent. L’auteur conclut que l’islam de marché n’est ni fondamentaliste ni conservateur, mais vise plutôt à abattre diverses cloisons inhérentes à la modernité en Indonésie.
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