Events

CHAIRPERSON

Assoc Prof Jamie S. Davidson, Asia Research Institute, and Department of Political Science, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

Never before in human history have vegetarianism and a plant-based economy been so closely associated with sustainability and the promise of tackling climate change. Nowhere is this phenomenon more visible than in India, which is home to the largest number of vegetarians globally and where vegetarianism is intrinsic to Hinduism. India is often considered a global model for vegetarianism. However, in this book Vegetarianism, Meat and Modernity in India, which is the outcome of eight months of fieldwork conducted among vegetarian and non-vegetarian producers, traders, regulators and consumers, I show that the reality in India is quite different, with large sections of communities being meat-eaters. In 2011, vegetarian/veg/green and non-vegetarian/non-veg/brown labels on all packaged foods/drinks were introduced in India. Paradoxically, this grand scheme was implemented at a time when meat and non-vegetarian food production, trade and consumption were booming. The overarching argument of the book is that a systematic study of the complex and changing relationship between vegetarian and non-vegetarian understandings and practices illuminates broader transformations and challenges that relate to markets, the state, religion, politics and identities in India and beyond. The book’s empirical focus is on the changing relationship between vegetarian/non-vegetarian as understood, practiced and contested in middle-class India, while remaining attentive to the vegetarian/non-vegetarian modernities that are at the forefront of global sustainability debates. Through the application of this approach, the book provides a novel theory of human values and markets in a global middle-class perspective.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Johan Fischer is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde University, Denmark. His work focuses on the interfaces between human values and markets. He is the author of Proper Islamic Consumption: Shopping among the Malays in Modern Malaysia (NIAS Press 2008), The Halal Frontier: Muslim Consumers in a Globalized Market (Palgrave Macmillan 2011), Islam, Standards and Technoscience: In Global Halal Zones (Routledge 2015), Halal Matters: Islam, Politics and Markets in Global Perspective (Routledge 2015), Religion, Regulation, Consumption: Globalising Kosher and Halal Markets (Manchester University Press 2018), Kosher and Halal Business Compliance (Routledge 2018), Muslim Piety as Economy: Markets, Meaning and Morality in Southeast Asia (Routledge 2019) and Vegetarianism, Meat and Modernity in India (Routledge 2022). He is Editor of the Routledge book series Studies in Material Religion and Spirituality and on the editorial boards of International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies, Contemporary Islam as well as Research in Globalization. Currently, he works on a research project that explores veg(etari)anism in a global perspective.

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed, and instructions on how to participate in this hybrid event has been sent out to registered attendees. Please write to aritm@nus.edu.sg if you would like to attend the talk.