Maintaining Sacred Identities: How Religious Anti-Consumption Conflicts with Culture

Abstract

Drawing on in-depth interview data from an Islamic orthodox social movement in Pakistan, we investigate how participants invoke religious ideology to forge anti-consumption behaviour in opposition to prevailing cultural norms. We identify anti-consumption behaviour fuelled by foreign values, foreign lifestyles, Islamic values, and Islamic lifestyles. Coloured by a value system that steers them toward a distinct Islamic lifestyle and away from alternatives, our religious participants effuse sensibilities of spiritual propriety into their (anti-)consumption choices. Our study contributes to the understanding of how religious anti-consumption, in the face of countervailing alternatives, reinforces a specific religious identity in consumers.