Spirituality and Nature Connection in Australia: Wellness, Wellbeing and Risks

Waters Joshua, Anna Halafoff

Spirituality and Nature Connection in Australia: Wellness, Wellbeing and Risks

Joshua Waters and Anna Halafoff

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, sociologists of religion have been largely focused on religious diversity and the rise of the non-religious, particularly in so-called Western societies. Two parallel trends are increasingly observable and currently receiving significant attention, namely the rise of interest in spirituality and in nature connection globally. While spirituality has typically not been taken as seriously as religion, in political and academic spheres, this is changing as a result of growing recognition of First Nations cultures and the nexus of spirituality with personal, social and planetary wellbeing. There has also been significant media coverage and scholarship on risks posed by ‘alternative’ spiritual communities in recent years, including spiritual abuse and ‘conspirituality' at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. This presentation examines these trends, focused on current Deakin ARC project research on Indigenous spirituality and holistic spirituality in Australia.  

Joshua Waters is an Australian First Nations Gamilaraay Doctoral Candidate (third year) and Senior Research Fellow with the School for Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University. His work explores the critical role of Indigenous Knowledges in global higher education and institutional contexts. Joshua is also a core member of Deakin University's Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) Lab founded by Dr. Tyson Yunkaporta and a Director of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Collective (IKSC) where he supports a number of regional, national and international partnerships and research projects aimed at utilising Indigenous systems knowledge and complexity for global systems innovation and change.

Anna Halafoff is Professor in Sociology of Religion in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University, Australia. She is a Chief Investigator on three recent Australian Research Council Discovery Projects on Australian Spirituality, the Worldviews of Generation Z Australians and on Religious Diversity in Australia. Her other research interests include interreligious relations, religion and education, preventing violent extremism, and Buddhism in Australia. Anna is the author of The Multifaith Movement: Global Risks and Cosmopolitan Solutions, co-author (with A. Singleton, M.L. Rasmussen, and G. Bouma) of Freedoms, Faiths and Futures: Teenage Australians on Religion, Sexuality and Diversity and co-editor (with Douglas Ezzy, Rebecca Banham, and Greg Barton) of Religious Diversity in Australia: Living Well with Difference.