A Halafoff
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 56142 |
|---|---|
| NOME | A Halafoff |
| PRENOMES | A |
| SOBRENOME | Halafoff |
| ASSINATURA | HALAFOFF A |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Deakin University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4274-5951 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 53 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 47 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 53 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2009 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 4 |
‘ Alone Australia ’, nature connection and spiritual complexity in popular culture
Since the turn of the twenty-first century, scholars of religion have focused considerable attention on the rise of religious diversity and the non-religious, particularly in Western secular societies. More recently, two parallel worldview trends have been increasingly observable and attracting significant scholarly attention. More people are identifying as spiritual, be they religious or not, and reporting a strong connection with nature, which …
Buddhism in Australia
In 2012, Anna Halafoff, Ruth Fitzpatrick and Kim Lam applied Paul Numrich's framework to the study of Buddhism in so‐called Australia, to determine if it constituted a distinct field of study. They concluded that it was an emerging field, according to Numrich's three categories of specialisation, organisation and publication. Thirteen years later, this article extends Numrich's framework, adding a fourth category of ‘diversity’, and applies this …
Spirituality, wellbeing and risks in contemporary societies
Increasing numbers of adults and young people in contemporary societies are identifying as ‘spiritual but not religious’ or as ‘spiritual and religious’ (Fedele and Knibbe 2020; Halafoff, Singleton
The myth of a white, Christian nation versus Australia’s diverse worldview reality
The inclusion of content on religion in Australian curricula has always been a highly contentious issue. Education plays a central role in nation building, and tensions over curriculum content on religion reflect a greater battle waged over the myth of a white, Christian nation, versus Australia’s diverse worldview reality. This article presents an analysis and evaluation of content on worldview diversity – spiritual, religious and secular – in t…
“Aussie Warriors”
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Rhythms dance as lived spirituality
Girl Mossing, Rotting, and Resistance
Living and dying well together in the Anthropocene, in the context of intensifying climate crises, global pandemics, and fast-paced hustle culture, is an increasingly daunting task. While many wellness movements call for strict regimes and vigorous activity, striving for largely unattainable bodily norms and longevity, an emerging trend centres on embracing natural processes and temporalities of resistance focused on relaxation, rest, and even de…
Dying ‘Buddhish’
Buddhism contributes significantly to spirituality and wellness practices in contemporary Australia, influencing a new way of life not just for converts, but also broader society. Less frequently observed, however, is how Buddhism and Buddhist-inspired phenomena contribute to a new way of death or “deathstyle”. This paper examines the position of Buddhism within mainstream end-of-life and death care in Australia, focusing on those phenomena we de…
Decolonising Studies of Religion in So-Called Australia
Studies of religion in the lands now called (by some) Australia have thus far focused mainly on so-called Abrahamic traditions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, the southern states of New South Wales and Victoria and on theories from the global North. This is despite the fact that Australia is a religiously and spiritually diverse nation, and that diverse worldviews in Australia have long been and continue to be shaped by First Peoples, and Sou…
(Non)religion, spirituality, and the multispecies turn
Riotous methodological and methodointuitive reflections on (non)religion, spirituality and the multispecies turn
The 'multispecies turn' in the social sciences and humanities is informing many disciplines including animal studies, anthropology, Indigenous studies and, more recently, sociology of religion. Scholars working on multispecies relations employ various methods and methodologies, many of which are challenging modern, Western, Christian paradigms and practices that are anthropocentric and focus on logos/words/texts/beliefs. This discussion examines …
Spiritual complexity in Australia
The turn of the twenty-first century was characterised by ‘spiritual revolution’, with claims that interest in New Age spirituality was eclipsing religion and would continue to do so in the future. Since then, scholars of religion have been more focused on religious diversity and the rise of the non-religious. While interest in spirituality, uptake of spiritual practices, and identification as ‘spiritual but not religious’ have continued to grow,…
Introduction to the Special Issue
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Selling (Con)spirituality and Covid-19 in Australia
Conspirituality—the merger of conspiracy theories and spirituality—has attracted significant global media and scholarly attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article expands upon the ‘two core’ conspiritual convictions proposed by Ward and Voas that ‘1) a secret group covertly controls, or is trying to control, the political and social order, and 2) humanity is undergoing a “paradigm shift” in consciousness’. We identify an additional ten …
Whiteness, Religious Diversity and Relational Belonging
OPEN ACCESS CC BY-NC-ND-PAID African communities in Australia reflect the rich cultural and religious diversity of the African continent. Despite their persistence and agency, many members from these communities continue to experience a ‘fractured belonging’ due to persistent issues of racism and exclusion; issues that have been exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Religious community groups and organizations have long played important roles…
Buddhism in the Far North of Australia pre-WWII
Buddhism was first established in Australia through flows of migrants in the mid-nineteenth century, and is currently Australia’s fourth-largest religion. Yet Buddhists have received significantly less scholarly attention than Christians, Jews and Muslims in Australia. Previous research conducted on Buddhism in Australia has also largely centered on the southern states, and on white Buddhists. This article shares findings of archival research on …
Flows and Counterflows of Buddhism ‘South of the West’
Introduction to the JGB Special Focus section, "Flows and Counterflows of Buddhism ‘South of the West’: Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaiʻi." In this special issue, we endeavour to explore horizontal flows and counter flows of Buddhism on ‘paths less travelled’ across the Pacific sea of islands, and ‘South of the West’ (Gibson 1992) rather than the usual ‘from Asia to Europe and the Americas’ story. As such, this special issue fits within the mor…
Worldview complexity
Social science analysis of diversity, and religious diversity in particular, has long struggled to move beyond simple binaries of religious-secular, religious-spiritual, traditional-modern, global north-global south, and so on. Twenty-first century realities test existing terms and find them wanting. While concepts such as the postsecular, multiple modernities, multiple secularities, and non-religion point to new lines of analysis, each still ref…
Women, religion, and digital counter-publics
Even after decades of critical scholarship on religion and the Internet, a rapidly changing field and a febrile global political climate demand renewed questions about the relationships between online spaces and gender-related activism. This is particularly the case, in the post-#MeToo era, in relation to women and religion. While digital activism both promotes and challenges gender inequalities, reflecting prejudices apparent in the offline worl…
Gender equality and digital counter-publics in global Buddhism
Gender discrepancies persist in Buddhist societies and institutions, linked to cultural and religious beliefs and practices that allocate a lower status to women. In some Buddhist traditions, nuns cannot ordain to the same level as monks, most Buddhist archetypes of enlightenment remain male, and men hold positions of power and privilege within the majority of Buddhist organisations. This article focuses on recent controversy surrounding bhikkhun…
Programmes for boys and men
The contemporary #MeToo moment has led to renewed concern about issues of masculinity and gender justice. This moment provides a strong warrant for critically analyzing different programmes for boys and men in relation to their capacity for gender transformation. This paper presents three such programmes located in Victoria (Australia) as case studies (1) an Activist Programme, (2) a Sports Programme, and (3) a Rites Programme. The paper highligh…
Tribute to Professor Gary Bouma, MDiv, MA, PhD, AM (1942–2021)
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A Tribute to Gary Bouma
Emeritus Professor Gary Bouma was many things to many people. He was Australia’s pre-eminent scholar of the sociology of religion. As an ordained Anglican priest, Gary was noted for his pastoral care of his parishioners and others who sought his counsel and spiritual support. He was a loving husband, father and grandfather. Moreover, his deep commitment to social justice and harmony greatly influenced Gary’s participation in interfaith dialogue. …
Earth unbound
This experimental writing piece by the Earth Unbound Collective explores the ethical, political and pedagogical challenges in addressing climate change, activism and justice. The provocation Earth Unbound: the struggle to breathe and the creative thoughts that follow are inspired by the contagious energy of what Donna Haraway (2016 Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.[Crossref] , [Goo…
Worldviews Complexity in Covid-19 Times
In 2020, as infections of COVID-19 began to rise, Australia, alongside many other nations, closed its international borders and implemented lockdown measures across the country. The city of Melbourne was hardest hit during the pandemic and experienced the strictest and longest lockdown worldwide. Religious and spiritual groups were especially affected, given the prohibition of gatherings of people for religious services and yoga classes with a sp…
Complex, Critical and Caring
Recent scholarly and media perspectives on religion and youth have often depicted young people as being apathetic when it comes to religion. The methods used in research on religion are also typically informed by outdated, fixed idea of religious identity that are no longer applicable, especially to young people. This paper confronts these issues by applying contemporary theories of religious diversity, including lived religion and religious comp…
Media Representations of Religion, Spirituality and Non-Religion in Australia
Despite predictions of decline, religion has featured prominently in the public sphere and the media since the events of 11 September 2001. Previous research on media and religion in Australia post-September 11 has focused largely on its negative impacts, particularly on Muslim communities. This article, in contrast, examines media representations of religion, spirituality and non-religion on an 'ordinary day', of 17 September, over a three-year …
Religious Diversity in Australia
This paper argues for a reconsideration of social cohesion as an analytical concept and a policy goal in response to increasing levels of religious diversity in contemporary Australia. In recent decades, Australian has seen a revitalization of religion, increasing numbers of those who do not identify with a religion (the "nones"), and the growth of religious minorities, including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism. These changes are often und…
A Missing Peace? The Role of Religious Actors in Countering Terrorism
Despite the surge of scholarly interest in terrorism and counter-terrorism in the post-9/11 world, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the role of religious actors (especially faith communities and faith leaders) in combating the threat of terrorism. However, the resurgence of religiosity in contemporary politics should not be viewed as an inherently dangerous force. As Appleby has argued, a new secular-religious model of inter and int…
Decolonising Studies of Religion in So-Called Australia
Studies of religion in the lands now called (by some) Australia have thus far focused mainly on so-called Abrahamic traditions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, the southern states of New South Wales and Victoria and on theories from the global North. This is despite the fact that Australia is a religiously and spiritually diverse nation, and that diverse worldviews in Australia have long been and continue to be shaped by First Peoples, and Sou…
Methodological challenges of designing a survey to capture young people’s (non-binary) affiliations in relationship to religion, sexuality and gender
Large-scale population studies surveying young people in relation to their worldviews have tended to frame their identities in a fixed and limited capacity while also treating the topics of religion/spirituality and sexuality/gender as discrete categories of scholarly analysis. We highlight the affordances and limitations of foregrounding fixed religious, sexual and gender-based identity categories in the process of collecting and analysing data …
Countering Islamophobia
n\t\t\t\t\tIn recent years a heightened awareness of global risks has produced an unprecedented interest in global peace and security initiatives. This article discusses the impact of international crisis events on religiously diverse communities in Australia, in particular rising Islamophobia, migrantophobia and attacks on multiculturalism. Religious communities have been far from passive in their responses to the impact of these events, initiat…
Gender equality and digital counter-publics in global Buddhism
Gender discrepancies persist in Buddhist societies and institutions, linked to cultural and religious beliefs and practices that allocate a lower status to women. In some Buddhist traditions, nuns cannot ordain to the same level as monks, most Buddhist archetypes of enlightenment remain male, and men hold positions of power and privilege within the majority of Buddhist organisations. This article focuses on recent controversy surrounding bhikkhun…
Programmes for boys and men
The contemporary #MeToo moment has led to renewed concern about issues of masculinity and gender justice. This moment provides a strong warrant for critically analyzing different programmes for boys and men in relation to their capacity for gender transformation. This paper presents three such programmes located in Victoria (Australia) as case studies (1) an Activist Programme, (2) a Sports Programme, and (3) a Rites Programme. The paper highligh…
Worldviews Complexity in Covid-19 Times
In 2020, as infections of COVID-19 began to rise, Australia, alongside many other nations, closed its international borders and implemented lockdown measures across the country. The city of Melbourne was hardest hit during the pandemic and experienced the strictest and longest lockdown worldwide. Religious and spiritual groups were especially affected, given the prohibition of gatherings of people for religious services and yoga classes with a sp…
Education about Diverse Religions and Worldviews, Social Inclusion and Countering Extremism
Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the so-called ‘religion in schools debate’ has generated a significant amount of controversy in Australia and arguably impeded progress in both research and education about diverse religions and non-religious worldviews (ERW). This article focuses on the recently released Review of the Australian Curriculum – Final Report and examines why there has been such strong resistance to learning from internatio…
Introduction to the Special Issue “Migrant Youth, Intercultural Relations and the Challenges of Social Inclusion”
This Special Issue on “Migrant Youth, Intercultural Relations and the Challenges of Social Inclusion”, reports recent cutting edge research into the complex nature of migrant youth settlement in multicultural émigré societies. Drawing on multidisciplinary research, it explores the latest intersecting theories on cultural diversity, intercultural relations and multiculturalism in the context of globalised cities where access to and sharing of publ…
Women, religion, and digital counter-publics
Even after decades of critical scholarship on religion and the Internet, a rapidly changing field and a febrile global political climate demand renewed questions about the relationships between online spaces and gender-related activism. This is particularly the case, in the post-#MeToo era, in relation to women and religion. While digital activism both promotes and challenges gender inequalities, reflecting prejudices apparent in the offline worl…
Earth unbound
This experimental writing piece by the Earth Unbound Collective explores the ethical, political and pedagogical challenges in addressing climate change, activism and justice. The provocation Earth Unbound: the struggle to breathe and the creative thoughts that follow are inspired by the contagious energy of what Donna Haraway (2016 Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.[Crossref] , [Goo…
Introduction to the Special Issue
The world is currently gripped by pressing environmental, social, and economic challenges
Women and Ultramodern Buddhism in Australia
Buddhists started arriving in Australia in large numbers during the mid-1800s, and the first Buddhist societies and centres began to be formed in the mid-late 1900s. This paper examines the role of women in bringing Buddhism to and establishing it in Australia. Women have featured prominently in a small amount of scholarship, including Paul Croucher's (1989) Buddhism in Australia: 1848-1988 and Cristina Rocha and Michelle Barker's (eds. 2011) edi…
Sacred Places and Sustainable Development
Religious beliefs are not only profound, some of them are also pervasive, persistent and persuasive. It follows that the cultural and religious experiences of communities often play a central role in determining their worldviews and the ways in which they understand their own circumstances. These worldviews, it follows, can thereby assist in providing narratives for community development in places that have particular meaning to these communities…
A Missing Peace? The Role of Religious Actors in Countering Terrorism
Despite the surge of scholarly interest in terrorism and counter-terrorism in the post-9/11 world, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the role of religious actors (especially faith communities and faith leaders) in combating the threat of terrorism. However, the resurgence of religiosity in contemporary politics should not be viewed as an inherently dangerous force. As Appleby has argued, a new secular-religious model of inter and int…
Netpeace and the Cosmopolitan Condition
The ultramodern era has been characterized paradoxically as one of great fear and great hope. Reactions to the tragic events of September 11, 2001 provide evidence of this ambivalence whereby a politics of fear and exclusion permeated Western societies, accompanied by a growing interest in collaborative cosmopolitan solutions addressing the most pressing global risks of our times. Culturally, religiously and linguistically diverse (CRALD) communi…
Netpeace
Multifaith initiatives have been increasingly implemented to counter global risks—such as terrorism and climate change—and advance common security in Western societies. This paper examines the rise of multifaith engagement in the twenty-first century, drawing on 42 semi-structured interviews with leading multifaith practitioners in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Building upon Brodeur’s (2005) typology, I identify …
With guarded optimism? Evidence from focus groups of ‘mainstream’ Australians' perceptions of Muslims
Studies of Australian perceptions of Muslims and Islam tend to be based on research into media representations of these themes. Additionally, most research on attitudes pertaining to social cohesion and security in the post-9/11 environment concentrates on the opinions of minority groups on these matters. The following study is drawn from materials extracted from focus group discussions relating to Islam, multiculturalism and security that took p…
Countering Islamophobia
n\t\t\t\t\tIn recent years a heightened awareness of global risks has produced an unprecedented interest in global peace and security initiatives. This article discusses the impact of international crisis events on religiously diverse communities in Australia, in particular rising Islamophobia, migrantophobia and attacks on multiculturalism. Religious communities have been far from passive in their responses to the impact of these events, initiat…
The Multifaith Movement, Global Risks and Cosmopolitan Solutions
Education about Religions and Beliefs in Victoria
While the role of religion in Australian schools has been vigorously debated since the 1870s, it has recently generated considerable controversy, particularly in the state of Victoria. This article provides a historical analysis of religious instruction (RI) in Victorian schools, particularly drawing on the 1974 Russell Report’s review of RI programs. It then focusses on more recent developments, notably the 2010 Victorian Civil and Administrativ…
The Multifaith Movement
Antisemitism and Jewish Children and Youth in Australia’s Capital Territory Schools
Issues pertaining to religion and Australian schools have generated a significant amount of controversy and scholarly attention in recent years, and much of the attention in the religion and schools debate has focused on Muslim and non-religious children’s experiences (Erebus International, 2006; Halafoff, 2013). This article, by contrast, explores the manifestations of antisemitism as experienced by Jewish children and youth in Canberra schools.…
Introduction to the Special Issue “Migrant Youth, Intercultural Relations and the Challenges of Social Inclusion”
This Special Issue on “Migrant Youth, Intercultural Relations and the Challenges of Social Inclusion”, reports recent cutting edge research into the complex nature of migrant youth settlement in multicultural émigré societies. Drawing on multidisciplinary research, it explores the latest intersecting theories on cultural diversity, intercultural relations and multiculturalism in the context of globalised cities where access to and sharing of publ…
Sakyadhita International
The nexus between religion and violence has been widely debated in the public sphere at the turn of the twenty-first century. Much of these discourses have centered on direct violence, and on terrorism in particular. Yet, structural violence also remains endemic within many religious traditions, including Buddhism. Buddhist women, and men, continue to challenge these gender inequalities in various ways, notably Sakyadita, the International Associ…
Education about Diverse Religions and Worldviews, Social Inclusion and Countering Extremism
Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the so-called ‘religion in schools debate’ has generated a significant amount of controversy in Australia and arguably impeded progress in both research and education about diverse religions and non-religious worldviews (ERW). This article focuses on the recently released Review of the Australian Curriculum – Final Report and examines why there has been such strong resistance to learning from internatio…
Education about Religions and Worldviews
Education about religions and worldviews: promoting intercultural and interreligious understanding in secular societies
Australia’s Changing Religious Profile—Rising Nones and Pentecostals, Declining British Protestants in Superdiversity
The 2016 Australian Census reveals continued change in Australia’s religious diversity. While reviewing some of the highlights of this development–the continuing increase in the ‘no religion’ category, the first ever decline in Catholic numbers, and the rise of Hindus and Sikhs–several religious groups, which are not usually combined in the census, actually when grouped together represent most of the Pentecostal and charismatic churches and form …
“Whatever”? Religion, Youth, and Identity in 21st Century Australia
This chapter interrogates the prevalent view that young Australians are religiously ambivalent and disengaged, displaying a “whatever” approach to religious diversity. It draws on data gathered from the first scholarly research project to have been conducted on InterAction, an Australian multifaith youth organization founded and directed by young people with both religious and non-religious worldviews. The research project’s primary aim was to in…
Women and Ultramodern Buddhism in Australia
Buddhists started arriving in Australia in large numbers during the mid-1800s, and the first Buddhist societies and centres began to be formed in the mid-late 1900s. This paper examines the role of women in bringing Buddhism to and establishing it in Australia. Women have featured prominently in a small amount of scholarship, including Paul Croucher's (1989) Buddhism in Australia: 1848-1988 and Cristina Rocha and Michelle Barker's (eds. 2011) edi…
Sacred Places and Sustainable Development
Religious beliefs are not only profound, some of them are also pervasive, persistent and persuasive. It follows that the cultural and religious experiences of communities often play a central role in determining their worldviews and the ways in which they understand their own circumstances. These worldviews, it follows, can thereby assist in providing narratives for community development in places that have particular meaning to these communities…
Worldviews education
Since the mid-2000s soft power approaches to counter and prevent violent extremism (C/PVE) have increasingly been implemented by civil society, state actors and UN agencies internationally. Education is a critical and previously undervalued component in PVE, as it has only recently begun to attract significant scholarly and policy attention. This article briefly reviews the emerging field of education and PVE, and argues that it could benefit fro…
Education and Religious Diversity
A Personal and Scholarly Reflection on Sociology of Religion, Peacebuilding and Spaciousness
This invited paper is a personal and scholarly reflection on how I, AnnaHalafoff, became a sociologist of religion in Australia and also presents anoverview of my and my colleagues' contributions to this field. I begin withproviding some background about my upbringing in a Russian household,and my education at Methodist Ladies College and Wesley College, in Melbourne,Australia. I then recount my formative early adult years of exploringspiritualit…
Diverse worldviews education and social inclusion
Ongoing global issues relating to the decline of the popularity of institutional religions, the rise of numbers of non-religious persons, and new models of spirituality in superdiverse societies have resulted in the need to reconceptualise religious diversity as worldviews diversity, and to critically examine increasing calls for the provision of worldviews education in schools. This paper first examines the key concepts of superdiversity and rel…
Religious literacy of Australia’s Gen Z teens
Australia is a culturally, religiously and linguistically diverse country, however, learning about the religious dimensions of this superdiversity is inadequately reflected in the national school curriculum, notwithstanding recent attempts to address this at the state level in Victoria. Debates regarding the role of religion in school have raged across the country for decades and have impeded the introduction of learning about diverse worldviews …
Multifaith Third Spaces
Multifaith spaces typically imply sites where people of diverse faith traditions gather to participate in shared activities or practices, such as multifaith prayer rooms, multifaith art exhibitions, or multifaith festivals. Yet, there is a lack of literature that discusses online multifaith spaces. This paper focuses on the website of an Australian multifaith organisation, the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC), which we argu…
Methodological challenges of designing a survey to capture young people’s (non-binary) affiliations in relationship to religion, sexuality and gender
Large-scale population studies surveying young people in relation to their worldviews have tended to frame their identities in a fixed and limited capacity while also treating the topics of religion/spirituality and sexuality/gender as discrete categories of scholarly analysis. We highlight the affordances and limitations of foregrounding fixed religious, sexual and gender-based identity categories in the process of collecting and analysing data …
Introduction to the Special Issue
The world is currently gripped by pressing environmental, social, and economic challenges
Sociology (45 obras) · Political science (33 obras) · Law (27 obras) · Gender Studies (22 obras) · Religion and Society Interactions (21 obras) · Anthropology (19 obras) · Philosophy (18 obras) · Social science (18 obras) · Religion, Society, and Development (17 obras) · Politics (14 obras)