From the Bazaar to the Masjid: traditionalizing consumers within the currents of modernity

Previous scholarly work in consumer research has focused on sociological consumption from a number of perspectives. Of these the writings of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu have offered insightful guidance into the lives of consumers, their relations with society and struggle for social standing. These understandings have bearing on how, what and why these individuals consume.The current study adds to previous literature developed under the Bourdieusian framework by investigating upper-middle class consumers who transition between the fields of traditional religion and modern social class. The research examines what participation in multiple fields entails for informants at an individual and social level. To achieve its objectives, this thesis looks at participants from the orthodox Islamic and egalitarianism-motivated social movement Tablighi Jamaat (TJ). The investigation uses multi-sited ethnography and participant observation of 10 subjects across a 40-day TJ trip in Pakistan and in-depth interviews with an additional 28 informants. Consumers’ lives in the activities of TJ, at home, at work and in the marketplace are examined.The results indicate that consumers, motivated by the call to advance in the TJ subculture as a mode of traditionalizing resistance against modernity, use multiple subconscious strategies to ameliorate distinct tensions between socio-economic class and religious demands. These strategies are guided by overarching resources called capitals accumulated through individual socio-historic conditioning. Capitals help field consumers negotiate stresses by instigating learned or improvised responses. Consumers may resist to or comply with field pressures depending on the capitals gained from either modern or traditional fields. Such behavior is linked to consumption. The degree to which consumers are able to hold firm onto traditional lifestyles depends on their success in persisting with traditional environments, social settings, repetitive practices, and discourses. Hence, this study concludes that consumer behavior is restricted by the number and strength of social life influences a person develops in his or her life trajectory.This research contributes to existing literature by mapping individuals in their trajectory of social change and providing a framework to show how consumers balance multiple field participation in everyday life