The Whole Thing

Components of Introduction

• Background information
• Problematize your topic: why does this need further investigation? Also, why should readers be interested?
• Mention of your theoretical framework (optional here)
• Thesis (tentative)

Methods

• Location of field site, duration of your fieldwork, community you are working with
• Methods for collecting data (interviews, participant observation, etc.) and how you implemented them
• Justification of methodology

Literature Review

• Organized by topics, themes, or approaches
• Includes the summary and synthesis of key sources pertaining to your topic
• Include how your work interacts with each topic/theme

"Scholars of Southeast Asia have interpreted the blend of Islam and capitalism in urban Indonesia as a locally spe-cific expression of self-improvement (Gade 2004), corpo-ratism (Fealy 2008; Hoesterey 2008), or neoliberalism (Rud-nyckjy 2009). The literature builds on a regional history in which Islam and commerce have been profoundly inter-woven, rather than mutually exclusive. What Anthony Reid (1993) called a “religious revolution” occurred first in In-donesia during the 13th century when Islam arrived with Hadrami traders to the archipelago (cf. Ho 2006). More recently, the popularity and critique of Islamic consumer culture is apparent in a number of arenas, reflected, for in-stance, in the boom in ustadzs, or preachers, especially via mass media and related business empires..." (Jones, 2010, 620).

"In identifying these ambivalences, this article joins a growing literature asking how religiosity and consumption intersect, much of which shares the questions posed by the-ological and critical discourse in Indonesia itself but which also interrogates the impulse to identify a single “Muslim consumer” (Fischer 2008; Starrett 1995). Johanna Pink has called for analyses of the “Islamization of consumption” (2009:xiv) to extend beyond the view of religious consump-tion as simply capitalism with a religious fac¸ade. The arguments Pink critiques position the effect of exchange on devotion as totalizing...Paul Silverstein describes...anxiety about difference that envisions “a capitalist Islam ... [that] could purchase its beliefs on the free religious market” (2000:31) by transforming immi-grant Muslim athletes...into public advertising" (Jones, 2010, 620).

Vignettes

• Illustrates and describes observable phenomena
• Can be based on either participant observation or interviews
• Can include narrative and dialogue

Analysis/Synthesis

• Connect theories to the phenomena you've observed
• Analyze the phenomena you've observed
• Synthesize your own analysis with existing theories