Halal in the United Kingdom and Thailand: Marketization, Politicization, and the Religious Practices of Muslim Minorities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53866/ajirss.v5i1.1518Keywords:
Halal Governance, Muslim Minorities, Halal Certification, Halal MarketAbstract
This article examines the transformation of halal in Muslim minority contexts through a comparative study of the United Kingdom and Thailand. It approaches halal as a multidimensional phenomenon situated at the intersection of religious practice, market relations, and institutional governance. The study aims to explain how halal is practiced, marketized, and politicized within different social and institutional settings. Using a Systematic Literature Review (SLR), the study synthesizes scholarly publications on Muslim minority communities, halal consumption, certification, governance, and halal industry development in both countries. The findings show that halal functions as an identity marker through which Muslim minorities express religious commitment and negotiate their presence within wider society. Halal also operates as a market category through certification, branding, commercial services, and everyday consumption, reflecting the materialization of religious commitments within contemporary market structures. At the institutional level, halal becomes an arena in which religious authority is distributed and negotiated among Muslim communities, certification bodies, state institutions, scientific organizations, and market actors. The comparison reveals two distinctive configurations: the United Kingdom represents a relatively fragmented and negotiated field of halal authority, while Thailand demonstrates a more coordinated institutional configuration linking religious authority, science, industry, and state institutions. The study concludes that halal in Muslim minority contexts operates simultaneously as an identity marker, market category, and field of institutional authority. These findings provide a comparative perspective on how different institutional configurations shape the negotiation of religious identity, economic value, and regulatory authority within contemporary halal governance.
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