Spiritual economy as mesoanalytics: An ethnography of a global problem space in Indonesia

Abstract

This essay develops the method of mesoanalysis to comprehend problems shared at divergent sites, but that are not reducible to universal or general forces. Drawing on fieldwork at a state-owned steel factory in Indonesia, the essay describes a specific assemblage of capitalist restructuring and Islamic reform. The essay argues that the term “spiritual economy” conceptualizes the affinities between particular interventions to mobilize religious piety for economic practice with analogous efforts elsewhere.