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Past Conferences
Symposium: Religious Change and Indigenous Populations in the Antipodes
13 March 2012. This symposium explored some of the religious and spiritual changes which have been taking place among Indigenous populations in Australia, New Zealand and some Pacific Islands. It focused on changes in religious affiliation over the last 15 years. The analytical focus draws on both local social and political debates on these matters, while contextualising the discussion in a wider global discourse on changing religious affiliation, especially the growth of Islam.
Sufism for a New Age: Twenty-first Century Neo-Sufism, Cosmopolitan Piety and Traditionalist Responses
29-30 September 2011. This conference sought to survey innovation in contemporary cultures drawing on the Sufi heritage, both in its strictly and self-consciously Islamic contexts and among non-Muslims drawn to it as a personal practice and source of ethical inspiration. It was open to both empirical studies of innovation in the Sufi heritage in the Muslim world, and to studies of Sufism among non-Muslims today. It also provided a forum for the exploration of the potential of the Sufi heritage to inspire new forms of spiritual humanism and cosmopolitanism as a counter to religious and ethnic exclusivism.
Shari' a and Legal Pluralism
7 July 2010. Legal pluralism has often been associated with post-colonial legal developments especially where common law survived alongside tribal and customary laws. Focusing on Sharī‘ah, this conference examined the legal policies and experiences of various societies with different traditions of citizenship, secularism and common law. Where large diasporic communities of migrants develop, there will be some demand for the institutionalisation of Sharī‘ah at least in the resolution of domestic disputes. This one-day event was aimed at testing the limits of multiculturalism by exploring the issue that any recognition of cultural differences might imply a recognition of legal differences.
