Religions have always been mobile. Some argue that religion was the first globalising force. However, cheaper and better means of communication and transport in recent history have increased mobility, contact, exchange and negotiation. Scholars in this stream explore the ways in which religions, practices, material culture, and narratives circulate globally, and are creatively re-deployed and cross-fertilised with the local cultures. They are particularly interested in the emergence of new nodes of religious production, circulation, and consumption, such as Brazil, Australia, and East and Southeast Asian countries.
Research projects in the stream include:
- "Sufism: religious pluralism and the alternative narrative in Islam", Researcher Development Strategic Initiative Funding – ECR Award, Dr Milad Milani. AUD$20,000.
This stream also houses the Global Pentecostal Charismatic Christianities Program*,* which will investigate its remarkable rise in the past decade. Research projects in the program include:
- "Pentecostal Connections: Migration, Missionaries, Mobility and Media between Australia and Brazil." ARC Future Fellowship project lead by Associate Prof Cristina Rocha. AUD$ 707,111.
- "'I am Universal': An Ethnographic Study of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Australia." Kathleen Openshaw, PhD candidate.