Moral Economies

Abstract

Chapter 6 "Moral Economies" of _China and Islam: The Prophet, the Party, and Law_, examines the financing of Islamic revival as one dimension of the minjian (popular, unofficial), specifically through Hui (Chinese Muslim) exchange, allocation of material assets, and investment in resources. Whereas Hui practice local forms of barter in the sheep hide markets of Linxia as well as engage in charitable giving mostly beyond state regulation, the state has sought to control (i.e., make "official") emergent Islamic banking services in Ningxia, with their potential to create channels for funds from the Middle East into China. Hui moral economies consist of uses of money and property that are shaped by, but not wholly reducible to, "Islamic," "socialist," or "capitalist" models of economic behavior. Sources of money and the purposes to which they are put fund China's Islamic revival and the forms it is taking, whether "official," neoconservative, mystical, or so on. The flow of such resources within Northwest China and across borders further rests the boundary between the Hui social field and the security state.

Keywords: Moral economies, business networks, investment, Islamic finance, economic anthropology, law and finance, material exchange, charitable giving, sheep markets, Ningxia, Gansu, Yiwu

JEL Classification: K11, K40, K42