Mapping Halal Economies in the City: Migrant Infrastructures and Cultural Food Adequacy in Lisbon

ABSTRACT There is a growing concern among different stakeholders about the relevance of respecting distinct dietary regimes and supplying food that is not only nutritious but also culturally adequate. This is particularly felt in the most diversified cities where minority groups may not have their needs catered for. This paper aims to explore the translocal halal economies that converge in the city of Lisbon and the tactics used by ordinary Muslim households to access it. Engaging with literature on cultural food adequacy, migrant infrastructures and translocalism, we argue that in this urban context—and beyond—, migrant infrastructures are a way to mobilize shared resources and overcome urban socio‐spatial inequalities. Migrant infrastructures mediate religious observance and the everyday reproduction of migrant life in the city, blurring the lines between formal and informal, religious and economic, mobile and immobile. The empirical research shows, however, that access to these infrastructures is unequal creating cleavages among Muslims along the lines of purchase power, residential patterns and urban accessibility. This differentiated access to resources is also reflected in practices that create bridges linking locales across the Muslim diasporic space at different geographical scales, ranging from the local, to the regional and to the international. Thus, through translocal and transnational practices, Portugal is also being repositioned in the halal product market chain at a global scale drawing on colonial continuities and penetration into new markets.