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 Global Pentecostalism; healing, spirituality and the New Age; Buddhism in the West; globalisation of religion; migration and transnationalism. |
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 |
![]() | Kevin Dunn |
![]() | Mary Hawkins Religious and ethnic diversity in Southeast Asia; cultural traditions of Islam in Indonesia, specifically in Kalimantan; nations, ethnic groups and globalisation. |
![]() | Helena Onnudottir |
![]() | Kathleen Openshaw 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 |
![]() | Professor Andrew McWilliam 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 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 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 Muslim Demography, Religious Identity, Religion and Gender Affiliation: Associate Professor at University of Mazandaran & Research Associate at University of Waikato |
![]() | Mark Hutchinson |
![]() | Sherene Idriss Youth subcultures; intersections between religion, gender and identity practices. |
![]() | Dr Pedram Khosronejad (opens in a new window) 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 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 Legal anthropology; Islamic legal theory; law and politics in Indonesian society; comparative constitutional law in Muslim countries; legal practices in Muslim communities. |
![]() | Dr David Tittensor 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). |
![]() | 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. |