Researchers
The group brings together academics from the Social Sciences and Humanities who have a shared interest in the empirical study of contemporary religious and spiritual communities.
Follow the links below for information on individual staff and members.
Members
Professor Cristina Rocha FAHA
Professor, Director of Religion and Society Research
Global Pentecostalism; healing, spirituality and the New Age; Buddhism in the West; globalisation of religion; migration and transnationalism.
Associate Lecturer in Social Sciences
Sociology of Islam; Middle Eastern Politics; Politics of Knowledge and Representation of the Arab and Muslim Worlds; Dynamics of Gender, Culture, and the Question of Human and Women’s Rights; Migration, Identity, and Border Studies; Policy and Advocacy; and Decolonial Thought.
Lecturer in Sociology
Islamophobia, migration, multiculturalism, racism and anti-racism, and approaches using critical discourse analysis.
Professor Kevin Dunn
Professor / Pro Vice Chancellor Research
Professor in Human Geography and Urban Studies, and commenced at Western in May 2008. He was formerly at the University of NSW (1995-2008), and the University of Newcastle (1991-1995). His areas of research include: immigration and settlement; Islam in Australia; the geographies of racism; and local government and multiculturalism. Recent books include Landscapes: Ways of Imagining the World (2003) and Introducing Human Geography: Globalisation, Difference and Inequality (2000). He is Lead Dean for Global Rankings at Western, Pro Vice Chancellor Research and Provost of the Penrith campus.
Dr Rhonda Itaoui
Lecturer in Geography
Dr Rhonda Itaoui is a human geographer and social research interested in geographies of diversity and multiculturalism in urban spaces. Rhonda is passionate about using research as a tool to advocate for the needs and aspirations of underrepresented and disadvantaged communities through collaboration and meaningful engagement.
Professor Andrew McWilliam
Professor of Anthropology
His research focuses on the multi-dimensional aspects of rural livelihoods and adaptive traditions in the context of globalization and the pluralist embrace of religious faith practice.
Associate Professor in Criminology & Policing
His research examines police training, police education, police staffing, and police engagement with diverse communities. His research interests also include: Policing – Religion and Cultural Practices, Policing – Domestic Violence, Threat and Victimisation, Gender, Sexuality, Victimisation and Crime, Prejudiced Motivated Crime (Hate Crime), and International Security.
Dr Alex Norman
Senior Lecturer
Tourism Studies, Sociology of Religion, Contemporary Spirituality, Anthropology of Pilgrimage, Photography Theory, New Religious Movements, Women Studies in Religion, History of Religion and Meditation.
Dr Kathleen Openshaw
Lecturer in Social Sciences
Kathleen’s main research interests are Pentecostalisms from the Global South, the spiritual lives of migrants and material religion
Professor Awais Piracha
Professor in Urban Planning
Geography of Religion, Liveability of Cities, Spatial Analysis of Cities and Regions and Land Use and Transport Planning
Professor / Deputy Dean School of Social Sciences
Popular Religion, social theory, contemporary religion and Australian Aboriginal Peoples, and Muslim laws and society
Professor Alphia Possamai-Inesedy
Associate Professor / Director, Sydney City Campus
Sociology of reproduction; sociology of religion
Dr Sharlotte Tusasiirwe
Lecturer in Social Work
African spirituality, culture, and social work; decolonisation; indigenous African knowledges and philosophies like Ubuntu/obuntu; migration and mental health; international students experience
Adjunct Members
Professor James Cox
Honorary Professorial Fellow at Edinburgh University (School of Divinity)
Phenomenology of Religion; Theory and Method in the Study of Indigenous Religions; Area specialisations in Indigenous Cultures in Southern Africa, Alaska and Central Australia.
Dr Steven Douglas
Visiting Fellow
Environmental sociology, human ecology, environmental psychology, environmental ethics, farming, behavioural change, religious environmentalism, Landcare, stewardship, custodianship, social marketing, restoration ecology, private land conservation.
Dr Yaghoob Foroutan
Adjunct Fellow
Muslim Demography, Religious Identity, Religion and Gender
Affiliation: Associate Professor at University of Mazandaran & Research Associate at University of Waikato
Mark Hutchinson
Professor of History and Vice President (Development), Alphacrucis College
History of higher education; globalisation of Pentecostal and Charismatic movements; history of global Evangelicalism; Italian migration history; studies in comparative evangelicalism.
Sherene Idriss
Adjunct Researcher
Youth subcultures; intersections between religion, gender and identity practices.
Dr Pedram Khosronejad (opens in a new window)
Visiting Adjunct Associate Professor
Research and teaching has been interdisciplinary in scope, crosscutting sociocultural anthropology, visual anthropology and Shiite Islam. Interests include questions of war, martyrdom, and memory; sanctity, sacred topography, and pilgrimage; sacred art, material religion, and visual piety; gender, sexuality, and race. In particular, explore the ways in which religion, rituals and ceremonies, and material culture are bound up in as well as influenced and changed by wider political, social, and cultural trends.
Geir Presterudstuen
Adjunct Fellow, University of Bergen , Department of Social Anthropology
Anthropology of Religious and Ritual Practice; Fiji; Pacific Island Communities; Ethnography; Gender and Sexualities; Post-Colonial Theory; Economic Anthropology; Monster anthropology. (former WSU Lecturer in Anthropology)
Arskal Salim
Senior Research Lecturer
Legal anthropology; Islamic legal theory; law and politics in Indonesian society; comparative constitutional law in Muslim countries; legal practices in Muslim communities.
Adjunct Fellow, Research Interests: Religion and society, Muslim movements, religion and development, Turkish politics, and the wider Middle East.
Dr David Tittensor is an Adjunct Fellow in the School of Social Sciences at Western Sydney University. His research interests are religion and society, Muslim movements, religion and development, Turkish politics, and the wider Middle East. He is a co-author of Religion and Change in Australia (Routledge, 2022), author of The House of Service: The Gülen Movement and Islam’s Third Way (Oxford University Press, 2014) and is co-editor of the series Muslims in Global Societies (Springer).
Adjunct Researcher
Religion and Globalization, Indonesian Muslims in Australia, Transnational Religious Movement, Sufism in Indonesian Context, Islam in Indonesia, and Religion and Local Cultures.
Mark Jennings
Associate Professor (Wollaston Theological College and University of Divinity)
Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity; secularisation and post-secularisation; sexuality and discourse; and religion and LGBTQ+ people and issues