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Dr. Aisalkyn Botoeva is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology. Her research addresses the interaction of the state, economy, religious organizations and social movements. In her dissertation she investigated how and why moralized markets emerge and expand. Specifically, by focusing on Islamic economy in the post-Soviet Central Asian context, Aisalkyn explains its expansion as a political process of contestation among various social movements and their allies, rather than simply a state-driven or a bottom-up identity project. Aisalkyn’s past research has been funded by the Aga-Khan Foundation, Open Society Foundations as well as Hazeltine Fellowship of the Business, Organizations and Entrepreneurship Program at Brown University. The results of her past individual and collaborative projects have been published in Theory & Society, Families, Relationships and Societies and Central Asian Survey, among other journals.
Piety and Profession: Transnational Valuation Circuit of Private Halal Certifiers
This essay discusses private halal certification agencies, which have come to serve as a source of moral authority. The certificates that these agencies issue serve as “judgment devices” that allow entrepreneurs and consumers to transcend doubt about the quality and value of the products offered in the market. But what explains the authority of these agencies, which were able to turn pious aspirations into professional pursuit of analyzing and attesting to a business’s halal status? The argument here is that the authority of the certifiers is partly derived from transnational valuation circuits, through which local certification agencies draw on the authority of more established accreditors.
