The Promise: Islamic Micro-finance and the Synthesis of Time

Main author: Retsikas, Kostas
Format: Journal Article           
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id eprints-20290
recordtype eprints
institution SOAS, University of London
collection SOAS Research Online
language English
language_search English
description The article explores a particular mode of time synthesis as carried out in the field of Islamic micro-finance in Indonesia. It approaches this financial experiment through Deleuze’s tripartite division of time and the concept of promise advanced here. I argue that the analytical promise the concept of promise holds is partly related to its ability to circumscribe a field of practice that is at once theological and economic and partly to its privileging of the time of the future. What the study of Islamic micro-finance offers to studies of Deleuze is a timely reminder that this explicit privileging is not adequate in and of itself for ‘relativizing’ the effects of habit and memory on time, thought and politics. This is primarily because promising has a dual, ‘schizoid’ and distressed constitution: it is motivated as much by the affirmative ‘will to power’ as by the negative ‘will to improve’.
format Journal Article
author Retsikas, Kostas
author_facet Retsikas, Kostas
authorStr Retsikas, Kostas
author_letter Retsikas, Kostas
title The Promise: Islamic Micro-finance and the Synthesis of Time
publisher Edinburgh University Press
publishDate 2015
url https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/20290/