NEWS

2020.09.29

The 22nd AJI Frontier Seminar on " The Rise of Halal Branding and the Shariah Rules as Normative Values in Muslims' Daily Lives"

On September 15, 2020, the 22nd AJI Frontier Seminar was held online. This time, Dr. Midori Kirihara (Postdoctoral Research Fellow of JSPS, Project Researcher, Kinugasa Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University) made a quite exciting research presentation entitled “The Rise of Halal Branding and the Shariah Rules as Normative Values in Muslims' Daily Lives”. Dr.Kirihara has conducted her research on the process of the transformation of the social function of the religious norm of halal in Islam from the perspective of the transformation of consumption culture and dietary habits brought about by the economic development in contemporary Malaysian society.

First, in her presentation, Dr.Kirihara gave a concise overview of the current situation of halal certification system in Malaysia and focused on the Malays in the multiethnic context in Malaysia who have been increasingly placed in the middle class. Second, she showed detailed statistics of the fact that this socio-economic transformation urbanized the ways of diet consumptions among Muslim people. Alongside these socioeconomic changes, for example, the popularity of fast foods such as KFC has increased, and companies also became active to use Halal as their branding strategies in Malaysia. In the Q&A session, participants shared a lively discussion about how the view that religious norms and consumption culture are dynamically intertwined extends beyond Malaysia.

Dr. Midori Kirihara delivering her presentation