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

	Cristina Rocha Professor, Director of Religion and Society Cluster Global Pentecostalism; healing, spirituality and the New Age; Buddhism in the West; globalisation of religion; migration and transnationalism.
	Jan Ali HCA-based member Senior Lecturer / Community and Research Analyst Contemporary Islamic revivalism; sociology of migration; identity; diaspora communities and transnationalism; social and religious movements; Islam and modernity.
	Jennifer Cheng Lecturer in Sociology Experiences of Muslim minorities in the West and their interaction with issues of racism and anti-racism, Islamophobia, multiculturalism and citizenship.
	Selda Dagistanli Director of Academic Programs: Criminology and Policing Law and order politics and its effects on sentencing and punishment; ethnicity and the law through cultural defence; representations of (sexually) deviant Muslim masculinities; boundaries of inclusion/exclusion and actor networks and agendas in moral panics; populist victims' rights politics.
	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.
	Mary Hawkins Associate Professor / Director of Academic Programs: Sociology and Anthropology Religious and ethnic diversity in Southeast Asia; cultural traditions of Islam in Indonesia, specifically in Kalimantan; nations, ethnic groups and globalisation.
	Dr Alan Nixon Postdoc Researcher in Sociology of Religion Sociology of Nonreligion, Irreligion and Secular Studies; Digital Sociology ; Sociology of Religion
	Helena Onnudottir Lecturer / Academic Course Advisor: Social Sciences and Anthropology Aboriginal Australia (esp. South-East Australia); Indigenous Peoples (culture, history and rights-based matters); Indigenous Peoples and Religious Changes; Gender and Sexuality/ies.
	Kathleen Openshaw Lecturer Social Sciences Kathleen’s main research interests are Pentecostalisms from the Global South, the spiritual lives of migrants and material religion
	Adam Possamai Professor / Deputy Dean School of Social Sciences Popular Religion, Sociology of Islam, Social Theory and Religion, New Religious Movements, Contemporary Religion and Australian Aboriginal Peoples, Religion in Australia.
	Alphia Possamai-Inesedy Associate Professor / Director, Sydney City Campus Sociology of reproduction; sociology of religion
	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.
	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.

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 Yaghoob Foroutan Adjunct Fellow Muslim Demography, Religious Identity, Religion and Gender
	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.
	Anthony Jinks Adjunct Fellow Psychology of paranormal experience; Psychology of Popular Religion; Research methods and statistics.
	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.
	Dr Firdaus Wajdi Adjunct Researcher Religion and Globalization, Indonesian Muslims in Australia, Transnational Religious Movement, Sufism in Indonesian Context, Islam in Indonesia, and Religion and Local Cultures.

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Religion and Society Research Cluster

Researchers

Members

Adjunct Members

Postal Address