SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Re-conceptualising zakat in Indonesia: worship, philantropy, and property rights

Speaker Biography

My work focuses on theoretical concerns that I explore both through ethnographic materials collected largely through field research in Java, Indonesia, and adventurous engagements with library texts. My first fieldwork involved an 18th month-long research in the provincial town of Probolinggo on East Java’s coast. This project culminated in a monograph that arranged the materials so produced around the theme of personhood. Taking inspiration from the works of Gilles Deleuze, the monograph advanced the concept of the ‘diaphoron’ person – a person who constantly differs from him/herself and who is always already involved in an unlimited process of becoming – as a new figure for considering the problem of the subject in anthropology. I recently returned to Java for a new project, this time on Islamic economics as seen through zakat practices and, with the generous funding of the Economic and Social Research Council, I spent 12 months in Surabaya and Jakarta working with charities, donors, and recipients. A series of diverse yet closely linked themes have arisen out of these engagements, some of which fall well within the long-standing tradition of anthropological theorising regarding the gift, while others are more directly connected to issues of rights and justice as well as multiplication, profusion, and salvation.