Religion and Non-Religion among Australian Aboriginal Peoples

Offering a significant contribution to the emerging field of 'Non-Religion Studies', Religion and Non-Religion among Australian Aboriginal Peoples draws on Australian 2011 Census statistics to ask whether the Indigenous Australian population, like the wider Australian society, is becoming increasingly secularised or whether there are other explanations for the surprisingly high percentage of Aboriginal people in Australia who state that they have 'no religion'. Contributors from a range of disciplines consider three central questions: How do Aboriginal Australians understand or interpret what Westerners have called 'religion'? Do Aboriginal Australians distinguish being 'religious' from being 'non-religious'? How have modernity and Christianity affected Indigenous understandings of 'religion'? These questions re-focus Western-dominated concerns with the decline or revival of religion, by incorporating how Indigenous Australians have responded to modernity, how modernity has affected Indigenous peoples' religious behaviours and perceptions, and how variations of response can be found in rural and urban contexts.

"This book presents a rich ethnographic insight into the changing world of Aboriginal society in Australia. It shows that Indigenous ways of life persist despite the blending of Indigenous beliefs with other religions such as Christianity and even Islam. This book will be a core text for everyone working on Indigenous religions today." – Bettina Schmidt, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, UK"In these highly original essays the authors describe how Australia is becoming a less Christian society, as a result of both the rise of non-Christian faiths and the less well known rise of 'non-religion', as individualism, self-autonomy and relativistic values strengthen among people to whom spirituality, of some kind, remains important. These trends are shaping twenty-first century Aboriginal culture and by making Aboriginal non-religion visible and comprehensible this volume makes a strikingly original contribution, not only to Australian studies, but to our understanding of Indigeneity as a global culture." – Tim Rowse, University of Western Sydney, Australia

James L. Cox is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh and Adjunct Professor in the Religion and Society Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney. Adam Possamai is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Religion and Society Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney.