Religion and non-religion among Australian Aboriginal peoples / edited by James L. Cox (University of Edinburgh, UK), Adam Possamai (Western Sydney University, Australia).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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.

Machine generated contents note: part I SETTING THE CONTEXT -- 1.Introduction: The Australian Census, Religious Diversity and the Religious Ǹones' among Indigenous Australians / Adam Possamai -- 2.The Study of Religion and Non-religion in the Emerging Field of Ǹon-religion Studies': Its Significance for Interpreting Australian Aboriginal Religions / James L. Cox -- part II NON-RELIGION AMONG ABORIGINAL PEOPLES -- 3.Urban -- Rural Geographies of Aboriginal Religious and Non-religious Identification / Kevin Dunn -- 4.Going with the Flow: Indigenous Non-religion, not Atheism / Alan Nixon -- part III HYBRIDITY AND RELIGION AMONG ABORIGINAL PEOPLES -- 5.Altjira, Dream and God / David Moore -- 6.The Strehlow-Hermannsburg/Ntaria Perplex: Translation in a Lutheran-Aboriginal Community / Hart Cohen -- 7.New Songs and Old Songlines: Aboriginal Christianity and Post-mission Australia / Steve Bevis

Note continued: 8.The Ties that Bind: The Importance of Religion and Community to the Non-religious / Theresa Petray -- part IV CONCLUSION -- 9.Religion, Cultural Hybridity and Chains of Memory / Adam Possamai.