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Research
Coordinating theme: Contemporary Muslim Societies
From its inception, the Centre’s research orientation has been to combine comparative interdisciplinary research on Muslim cultures with events and projects that serve local needs and interests. Through studies of the global, the regional and the local, the Centre’s research is committed to understanding the future of multicultural and multifaith societies and the place of Muslims within that cultural diversity. The Centre’s research streams flow from this focus on the interaction between global and local conditions, especially as they are manifest in city life.
Under the coordinating theme of Contemporary Muslim Societies, the trajectory of the Centre’s research agenda is driven by the following four research streams:
1. Law and Religion (Legal Pluralism)
2. New Religious Movements, Politics and Popular Culture
3. Cosmopolitanism (Youth, Religion and the City)
4. Religion, Work and Family Life
Research Stream 1: Law and Religion (Legal Pluralism)
Convenors: Professor Bryan Turner and A/Professor Adam Possamai
Although legal pluralism has often been associated with post-colonial legal developments, especially where common law survived alongside tribal and customary laws, more recently legal pluralism in general and Shari‘ a specifically, have been connected with religious fundamentalism on the one hand, and multiculturalism on the other. In Australia, for example, whilst Islamic law is not officially codified, it informs the ideas and conduct of Australian Muslims in various ways. This would imply an emergent legal pluralism rather than a formalisation of a particular relationship between secular and religious legal systems. The process by which this relationship is negotiated, defined and understood is the focus of the Centre’s research in this stream.
Research Stream 2: New Religious Movements (NRMs), Politics and Popular Culture
Convenors: Professor Julia Howell and A/Professor Adam Possamai
NRMs have been a controversial subject in the West since scholars first began writing on the subject in the 1970s. Investigation in this area has tended to focus on those main groups that are either schism from, for example Christianity and Hinduism, or those emergent from a long tradition of the occult-esoteric culture of Europe. Academic research is now expanding to include groups emerging from Islam in the Asia-Pacific region and it is this area where the Centre’s work is focused. As part of this regional focus, the Centre is also studying the involvement of these new and established Islamic groups with the state, and how these movements are expressed in popular culture.
Research Stream 3: Cosmopolitanism (Youth, Religion and the City)
Convenor: Professors Julia Howell and Bryan Turner
The growing sociological interest in the possible emergence of cosmopolitan cultures is broadly understood as the 'openness' to diverse and different cultural experiences. Cosmopolitanism is seen to be a positive celebration of the cultural difference that emerges with migration, multiculturalism and diversity. If popular culture and consumerism are pervasive, then research on how young people consume global popular culture becomes especially relevant to our understanding of the celebration of difference, or cosmopolitan cultures.
Research Stream 4: Religion, Work and Family Life
Convenors: TBA 2012
This research stream focuses on the lived experiences of Muslims with regards to their work and family in Australia and in the Asia-Pacific region. It explores how differences, for example in education and gender, can affect Muslim’s life trajectories, and how governments respond to these different work and family patterns.
