3 - Indonesian Muslims' Halal Consumption Practices in Japan and Questions of Their Acculturation

This paper is about Muslims’ varied practices of consuming halal (i.e., food, beverages, cosmetics, health, and other lifestyle products) and their impact on Muslims’ social interaction with Japanese society. The study departs from two assumptions of religious identity and social integration; first, religious piety that demands a commitment to religious purity, and second, reversely, social integration that requires shared values of different societies that challenge religious purity. Approaching ethnographic methods, the project specifically focuses on the case of Indonesian Muslims’ strategy of halal practices in the Kanto (Tokyo and its surroundings) area and its impacts on Muslims’ acculturation with the local society. The paper finds that Indonesian Muslims have varied conceptions and ways of halal consumption influenced by their “skills”, habits, customs, and lifestyle of halal in Indonesia, as well as influenced by the new “global culture of halal” in Japan. Exclusive halal food conceptions have been major challenges for their acculturation with Japanese society.