Emerging Moral Economies in Southeast Asia. Exploring the Symbolic & Material Dimensions of “New Economies”

Like other regions of the world, South-East Asia has, since the mid-1980s, seen the rise of a new “spirit of capitalism”, linked to the growth of a middle class. Various religious mass-organizations have developed new discourses on wealth and innovative techniques of financing. At their helm, we often find charismatic figures who are responding to the demands of those in search of meaning in an increasingly de-structured modern urban life setting. In doing so, these actors operate on a “spiritual marketplace” characterized by great fluidity and competition. This conference is to look at the different ways through which tensions between religious ethics and economic rationalization are negotiated, both ideologically and institutionally