ABSTRACT
Reflecting a global trend, halal-certified commodities have grown in prominence in the Australian mainstream consumer market. Over the past decade, the increased visibility of ‘halal’ has attracted negative attention from some segments of the Australian population, who draw on widely circulating negative discourses of Islam and Muslims to campaign against halal certification. This chapter seeks to understand how this particular social context shapes the meanings that are generated in everyday encounters between Muslims and non-Muslims involving food. To explore this, in-depth interviews were conducted with middle-class Muslims living in a large Australian city. The findings reveal the ways that belonging, inclusion, and exclusion are reflected and produced in everyday interactions and how power relations and social dynamics, as well as religious ideas, are instrumental in shaping consumption for middle-class Muslims.
