Within the last two decades or so there has been increased scholarly focus on the emergence, consolidation and future of the middle class in developing Asia. This is also the case with the Malay Muslim middle class in Malaysia, but how this class is developing over time is not well understood even if the Malays constitute the largest and fastest growing section of the middle class in Malaysia. Based on research projects I have carried out from the mid-1990s to the present, this article argues that an unpacking of the Malay Muslim middle class over time is important in order to understand the broader picture surrounding this class and its relationship to Malaysian national repertoires such as Islamic revivalism, politics, consumer culture, social mobility and the state-market nexus. I understand middle-class projects to be the making of local class culture in Malaysia and explore these in four research projects that each in their own way examine how Malay Muslim informants understand and practice “middle-classness” in different spatial and temporal contexts. In short, my findings show how Malay Muslim middle-class projects such as Islamic consumption shape local class culture in Malaysia.

中文翻译：

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现代马来西亚的中产阶级项目

在过去二十年左右的时间里，学术界越来越关注亚洲发展中中产阶级的出现、巩固和未来。马来西亚的马来穆斯林中产阶级也是如此，但即使马来人构成了马来西亚中产阶级中最大和增长最快的部分，我们也不清楚这个阶级如何随着时间的推移而发展。根据我从 1990 年代中期到现在开展的研究项目，本文认为，随着时间的推移，对马来穆斯林中产阶级的拆解对于了解围绕这一阶级的更广泛的图景及其与马来西亚民族曲目的关系很重要例如伊斯兰复兴主义、政治、消费文化、社会流动性和国家市场关系。我理解中产阶级项目是马来西亚当地阶级文化的形成，并在四个研究项目中探索这些项目，每个项目都以自己的方式研究马来穆斯林线人如何在不同的时空背景下理解和实践“中产阶级”。简而言之，我的研究结果显示了马来穆斯林中产阶级项目，如伊斯兰消费，如何塑造马来西亚当地的阶级文化。