The last week of my fieldwork in Bengkulu coincides with the first week of Ramadhan – the Muslim fasting month. Given that I have more time for reading (for pleasure) in the last one month or so, I somehow managed to come up with this reading list:

On Political Islam

• Michael Buehler’s (2016) “The Politics of Shari’a Law: Islamist Activists and the State in Democratizing Indonesia” which discusses the proliferation of religious local ordinances in post-authoritarian Indonesia.
• Azzam S. Tamimi’s (2001) “Rachid Ghannouchi: A Democrat within Islamism,” a carefully-researched and nuanced intellectual biography of the leading thinker and leader of Tunisian Ennahda – the whole book can be accessed here. For some interesting reviews on the work, see here and here.

On Labor Politics

• Michael Burawoy’s Series: “Manufacturing Consent,” “The Politics of Production,” and “The Radiant Past,” among others. These are excellent works on production politics and workers’ consciousness “from below” from one of the leading Marxist sociologists of our time. I read them in preparation for my role as a discussant for the ISRSF Arryman Fellow’s Presentation on June 16 in Jakarta.

Having something to read on the side while working on your dissertation project is fun. It keeps your sanity too.