Nation-State-izing Religion: Bureaucratic Islam in Southeast Asia
Tuesday, April 10, 201812:00 PM - 1:30 PM (Pacific)
Encina Hall, Third Floor, Central, C330
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305
Co-sponsored by the Southeast Asia Program and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies
Transnational Islam lacks the centralized leadership and institutions associated with Catholicism. Yet hierarchical and authoritative bodies do make decisions regarding Islam in various contemporary settings, including within the institutional frameworks of states. What happens when Muslim faith and practice are adapted to the terms and procedures of bureaucracy and the modern nation-state?
Dr. Müller will present an original conceptual framework for studying the bureaucratization of Islam. He will apply it to five Southeast Asian cases—Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore. State bureaucracies in these countries vary widely, but generally they aim to influence or control trends and meanings in local Islamic discourse. Drawing on current debates in the anthropology of the state, with particular reference to Brunei and Singapore, Müller will offer an original analytic framework to explain similarities and differences in bureaucratized Islam in Southeast Asia. Possible implications beyond the region will also be explored.
Dominik Müller