Religion versus social relationships: how Chinese Muslims deal with Halal taboos in social eating

ABSTRACT The halal concept is an essential religious belief of Muslims but brings difficulty to cross-cultural social eating. Dealing with the incompatibilities is a problem that Muslims in multicultural societies must face. Based on fieldwork involving social gatherings of Chinese Hui Muslim students and employing a relational perspective, the research showed that food is given multifaceted symbolic meanings both by Islam and by Chinese guanxi culture, which in turn changes network structures and interactional rules for Muslims. Social actors are supposed to maintain the conviviality of social eating, thereby establishing or maintaining potential relationships with others; however, the food eaten at these gatherings might be suspicious or even prohibited religiously for some. Therefore, these Muslim students strategically surrendered to the consumption of specific foods. These findings demonstrate how guanxi’s maintenance mechanisms and unequal relational positions affect Muslim minorities’ reflexivity toward their religious choices in daily interaction.