Boycott or Buycott? Malay Middle-Class Consumption Post -9/11

Much current anti-consumerist and anti-globalisation discourseidentifies boycotting as an immensely powerful force. Religious and secular activists alike promote consumer boycotts as a type of practised resistance that promises to break US economic, military and culturalhegemony. Obviously, consumers' supportis essential for the success of such boycotts, and I argue that insufficient anthropological attention has been paid to the micro-sociallogics of modern forms of boycotting. This article examines the political and cultural effects of the Islamic opposition's call to boycott US goods in Malaysia in the wake of 9/11. I shall show how this issue evokes a wide range of contestations and paradoxesin the everydaylives of suburban Malay Muslim middle-class families. Most of all, the boycott confronts divergent Malay middle-class groups with the problem of how to translate intentionality into practice.