Market Islam in Indonesia

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.