Current Projects

 

Shari’ a in Australia and the US

Researchers: Selda Dagistanli, Adam Possamai, Bryan Turner and Malcolm Voyce

Where large diasporic communities of Muslim migrants develop, there are demands for the practice of Shari’ a in the resolution of domestic disputes. This research explores, for the first time, how Shari’ a is lived by these communities across three Western states: Australia, the USA and France. By exploring Muslim experiences of Western and Shari ’a courts, and the understanding of Shari' a within Western courts, this study will make innovative conceptual and empirical contributions to the debate about post-secular societies through the study of legal pluralism in the West. This research will form an appropriate empirical base for a more complex and informed engagement with Shari' a.
This project is funded by the Australian Research Council through its Discovery Projects grants scheme.


Varieties of Contemporary Indonesion 'New-Sufism': Cosmopolitan and Parochial         

Researcher: Julia Howell

Some of the most influential modernist movements sweeping across the global Islamic community in the twentieth century have been hostile to Islam’s devotional and mystical tradition, Sufism. Muslim modernists, who wanted Islam to meet contemporary standards of rationality as well as classical standards of orthodoxy, baulked at the supposedly irrational states of religious emotion and mystical insight aspired to by Sufis, and condemned the way devotees supposedly ceded control over their spiritual lives to old fashioned masters of Sufi orders. But towards the end of the twentieth century cosmopolitan Muslims across the world – urbanites, for the most part, educated for the tasks of economic development and societal modernization, which required engagement with global culture – began to reassess the ‘bad press’ Sufism had been receiving and to search out new ways of enriching their religious practice with Sufi devotions, regimes of ethical cultivation, and inspirational literature.

This project seeks to document this diversity of sentiment and to understand its social distribution, as innovations in Sufi practice and organization spread from the upper tiers of society to less privileged urban workers and the countryside at large. 

 

'Commercialised Lay Evangelism in Indonesian Islam: Televangelism and Training Enterprises'

Researcher: Julia Howell


Like Christian heritage countries, Muslim-majority countries have their televangelists. Since the 1990s when Indonesian television was substantially privatised, commercial stations have carried new, popular styles of Islamic preaching  incorporating entertainment routines, elaborate staging and talk-show formatting.Some of the most famous of the new-style celebrity preachers have also recast  spiritual disciplines as personal development programs highly popular with audiences wanting to be good Muslims and achieve ‘success’ in their rapidly modernising world. The CSCMS research program in this area is currently investigating the cross-selling of spiritual development programs by celebrity preachers through ‘training’ workshops for upwardly mobile Muslims and business managers. The program also surveys the mushrooming Islam-tinged ‘spiritual  training’ businesses set up by entrepreneurial business management specialists and others now styling themselves as ‘trainers’ rather than preachers to cater for the new market in Islamic personal development for ‘success’.

 

'Muslim Organisations in Indonesian Society and Politics, 1950-1980'

Researcher: Steven Drakeley     

This research project is a study of the role of Islamic organisations and leaders in Indonesian political and social affairs during this historically significant period. There have been many recent studies focusing on contemporary Islam in Indonesia, and on the period since 1980. These studies quite rightly implicitly recognise the central role of Islam in contemporary Indonesia. There were also some fine earlier studies of Islam in Indonesia that dealt with the earlier post-independence period. But little has been written on this period lately and the earlier studies, naturally, lacked the historical perspective that can now be brought to bear given the passage of time. In particular, for example, in earlier works, there was a prevalent but unacknowledged assumption that secular forces were of primary importance in the construction of independent Indonesia and would increasingly be so. Islam, while not ignored, was generally regarded as something of an obstacle to modernity and to Indonesian progress, rather than being seen as a contributor.

This study will aim to re-align the balance, recognising the under-appreciated contributions that Muslim organisations and Muslim leaders made to development and social cohesion in Indonesia, which helped to lay the foundations for the contemporary Indonesia of today. The study will also explore the period’s impact on Islam in Indonesia and on Indonesian Islamic organisations, examining the thesis that contemporary Islam in Indonesia was very much shaped by the developments and experiences of these three tumultuous decades.


'Islam and Indigenous Populations in Australia and New Zealand'

Researchers: Helena Onnoduttir, Adam Possamai and Bryan Turner

This project initially set out to explore – through comparative analyses of the 1996-2006 censuses in Australia and New Zealand – the nature and extent of conversion to Islam among Aboriginal people in particular, and Indigenous people in general. The findings, so far, point to an increase of Islam and decrease of Christianity among the focus population, but there is also an indication of more complex changes in religious identification and expressions of spirituality. Currently, the project is extending its quantitative ‘mapping’ of religious and spiritual affiliation among Aboriginal Australians, and initiating the collection of qualitative data on religious conversion and changing affiliation.


Publications from this project include:
   Onnudottir, H., A. Possamai, and B. Turner (2010) ‘Islam: A New Religious Vehicle for Aboriginal Self-Empowerment in Australia?’ (opens in a new window) International Journal for the Study of New Religions 1 (1): 49-73.
   Populations in Australia and New Zealand” in F. Mansouri and V. Marotta (eds.) Muslims, Multiculturalism and the Challenges of Representations and Belonging, MUP, Melbourne.
   Onnudottir, H., A. Possamai, and B. Turner (forthcoming) 'Australian Aboriginal Muslims in Prison' Journal of Intercultural Studies.
   Onnudottir, H., A. Possamai, and B. Turner (forthcoming) Religious Change and Indigenous People in the Antipodes, Ashgate.

 

Chaplaincies at Australian Universities  

Researchers: Alan Black, Ellen Brakenreg and Adam Possamai

Following the findings from a preliminary survey of the student and staff population at UWS on the use of chaplaincies (published as Possamai, A. & E. Brackenreg (2009) “Religious and Spiritual Diversity at a Multi-Campus suburban University: What Type of Need for Chaplaincy?" Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 31 (4): 355-366), the research team recently conducted focus groups on the use of chaplaincy services by students. Two articles based on the analysis of this qualitative data are currently going through a refereeing process.

Using a social scientific approach, the research team is expanding on its initial research in order to examine the level of religious beliefs, practices and commitment, and/or lack thereof, among students and staff at a ‘multi-faith pragmatist’ university. This research seeks to explore academic issues surrounding the notion of spirituality and diversity within the university context, a field of research which to date has been poorly addressed. This case study is also intended to assist universities to accommodate and provide fair and equitable access for all students and staff to practice their beliefs. In gathering information about the range of beliefs and faiths among persons on campus, it may further assist Australian Universities in their commitment to supporting religious diversity.


The team is currently preparing a grant application in order to conduct nationwide research on chaplaincies at Australian universities.

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