ORCID Profile
0000-0002-2134-0704
Current Organisation
Deakin University
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Publisher: Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies
Date: 02-11-2022
DOI: 10.56311/POZS1016
Abstract: This report presents bias indicators for the Australian context and discusses their concept, uses, benefits and risks. The bias indicators we present are the result of extensive consultations with local experts including academics and practitioners working in law enforcement agencies, government and non-government organisations and community organisations. Trigger warning: this report discusses multiple forms of trauma, hate, and discrimination, including physical violence, racism, and homophobia.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 29-05-2021
DOI: 10.3390/REL12060397
Abstract: The first quarter of the twenty-first century has witnessed the rise of populism around the world. While it is widespread it manifests in its own unique ways in each society, nation, and region. Religious populism, once rarely discussed, has come to take a more prominent role in the politics of a erse range of societies and countries, as religious discourse is increasingly used by mainstream and peripheral populist actors alike. This paper examines the rise of religious populism in Indonesia through a study of the widely talked about, but little understood, Islamic Defenders Front (FPI—Front Pembela Islam). The case study method used to examine the FPI provides a unique insight into a liminal organization which, through populist and pro-violence Islamist discourse and political lobbying, has had an outsized impact on Indonesian politics. In this paper, we identify the FPI as an Islamist civilizationist populist group and show how the group frames Indonesian domestic political events within a larger cosmic battle between faithful and righteous Muslims and the forces that stand against Islam, whether they be “unfaithful Muslims” or non-Muslims. We also show how the case of the FPI demonstrates the manner in which smaller, liminal, political actors can instrumentalise religion and leverage religious rhetoric to reshape political discourse, and in doing so, drive demand for religious populism. The paper makes two arguments: First, the FPI is an ex le of a civilizationist populist movement which instrumentalises religion in order to create demand for its populist solutions. Second, that as Islamic groups and organisations in Indonesia increasingly rely on religio-civilizational concepts of national identity, they become more transnational in outlook, rhetoric, and organisation and more closely aligned with religious developments in the Middle East.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 10-2021
DOI: 10.3390/REL12100822
Abstract: Populism has been on the rise in many countries. As a result, studies on populism have proliferated. However, there are very few studies that investigate and compare different types of populisms in a single nation-state. Furthermore, how these different populists in the same political milieu use cyberspace has not been comparatively studied. This study addresses these gaps by looking at a variety of populist forces within Indonesia that have emerged as major actors and identifying the uses of cyberspace in populist political mobilisation. This paper argues that the three main types of populism that predominate in political rhetoric (religious, chauvinistic, and technocratic) do not exist in isolation but rather borrow from each other. This is reflected in their cyberspace activities.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 29-10-2021
DOI: 10.1111/IJAL.12320
Publisher: European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS)
Date: 14-05-2021
DOI: 10.55271/LP0009
Abstract: Muhammad Rizieq Shihab has been one of the most well-known faces of the far-right in Indonesia since the late 1990s. As a radical Islamist scholar with links to Saudi Arabia, Shihab has spent the last three decades as an anti-state voice of the “pious Muslim majority” in Indonesia. He claims to position himself as a “righteous” and “fearless” leader who is dedicated to defending Islam—the faith of “the people.” In 2020 Shihab was arrested for holding large public gatherings, as part of his ‘moral revolution’ c aign, in the middle of pandemic lockdowns. However, his radical Salafist message continues to inspire thousands to action.
Publisher: Springer Singapore
Date: 02-10-2020
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 13-08-2021
DOI: 10.3390/REL12080641
Abstract: Since independence, Islamic civil society groups and intellectuals have played a vital role in Indonesian politics. This paper seeks to chart the contestation of Islamic religious ideas in Indonesian politics and society throughout the 20th Century, from the declaration of independence in 1945 up until 2001. This paper discusses the social and political influence of, and relationships between, three major Indonesian Islamic intellectual streams: Modernists, Traditionalists, and neo-Modernists. It describes the intellectual roots of each of these Islamic movements, their relationships with the civil Islamic groups Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), their influence upon Indonesian politics, and their interactions with the state. The paper examines the ways in which mainstream Islamic politics in Indonesia, the world’s largest majority Muslim nation, has been shaped by disagreements between modernists and traditionalists, beginning in the early 1950s. Disagreements resulted in a schism within Masyumi, the dominant Islamic party, that saw the traditionalists affiliated with NU leave to establish a separate NU party. Not only did this prevent Masyumi from coming close to garnering a majority of the votes in the 1955 election, but it also contributed to Masyumi veering into Islamism. This conservative turn coincided with elite contestation to define Indonesia as an Islamic state and was a factor in the party antagonizing President Sukarno to the point that he moved to ban it. The banning of Masyumi came as Sukarno imposed ‘guided democracy’ as a soft-authoritarian alternative to democracy and set in train dynamics that facilitated the emergence of military-backed authoritarianism under Suharto. During the four decades in which democracy was suppressed in Indonesia, Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama, and associated NGOs, activists, and intellectuals were the backbones of civil society. They provided critical support for the non-sectarian principles at the heart of the Indonesian constitution, known as Pancasila. This found the strongest and clearest articulation in the neo-Modernist movement that emerged in the 1980s and synthesized key elements of traditionalist Islamic scholarship and Modernist reformism. Neo-Modernism, which was articulated by leading Islamic intellectual Nurcholish Madjid and Nahdlatul Ulama Chairman Abdurrahman Wahid, presents an open, inclusive, progressive understanding of Islam that is affirming of social pluralism, comfortable with modernity, and stresses the need for tolerance and harmony in inter-communal relations. Its articulation by Wahid, who later became president of Indonesia, contributed to Indonesia’s transition from authoritarianism to democracy. The vital contribution of neo-Modernist Islam to democracy and reform in Indonesia serves to refute the notion that Islam is incompatible with democracy and pluralism.
Publisher: Equinox Publishing
Date: 04-01-2021
DOI: 10.1558/JASR.20745
Abstract: OPEN ACCESS CC BY-NC-ND-PAID African communities in Australia reflect the rich cultural and religious ersity 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 in assisting new migrants with settlement and belonging in Australia, including African migrants. This article presents preliminary findings from an Australian Research Council project on religious ersity and social cohesion, drawing on census data and interviews with African-Australian community and religious leaders in Melbourne and Hobart, from Mauritian, Ghanaian, Ethiopian, Somalian and South Sudanese communities. It explores the roles that religion and spirituality play in both addressing and perpetuating issues of racism, trauma and displacement. It also examines the development of ‘relational belonging’ and erse, complex and dynamic identities among African migrants in contemporary Australia. It argues the case for retelling the history of African migration to Australia, to subvert the myth of a white Christian nation that excludes non-white Australians. It centres African migrants’ lived experience narratives and theories of belonging developed by African scholars to counter narrow and negative stereotypes perpetuated by political and media discourses.
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 2021
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 18-02-2020
DOI: 10.3390/REL11020092
Abstract: This paper argues for a reconsideration of social cohesion as an analytical concept and a policy goal in response to increasing levels of religious ersity 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 understood as problematic for social cohesion. In this paper, we review some conceptualizations of social cohesion and religious ersity in Australia, arguing that the concept of social cohesion, despite its initial promise, is ultimately problematic, particularly when it is used to defend privilege. We survey Australian policy responses to religious ersity, noting that these are varied, often piecemeal, and that the hyper erse state of Victoria generally has the most sophisticated set of public policies. We conclude with a call for more nuanced and contextualized analyses of religious ersity and social cohesion in Australia. Religious ersity presents both opportunities as well as challenges to social cohesion. Both these aspects need to be considered in the formation of policy responses.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 28-03-2022
DOI: 10.1177/00377686221079685
Abstract: Social science analysis of ersity, and religious ersity 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 refers to binary and thereby limiting terms. This article reviews research on religious ersity, delineating some of the major challenges posed. Building on useful frameworks of super ersity, multiple pluralities, and religious complexity, we argue that the more widely encompassing concept of worldview complexity might represent a better way forward. It has the advantage of acknowledging the intersecting ersity of ersities in multiple, differing contexts, and abiding similarities in what is occurring ‘beneath religion’.
Publisher: Springer Singapore
Date: 2022
Publisher: Springer Singapore
Date: 19-11-2021
Publisher: Springer Singapore
Date: 19-11-2021
Publisher: Springer Singapore
Date: 19-11-2021
Publisher: Springer Singapore
Date: 19-11-2021
Publisher: Springer Singapore
Date: 19-11-2021
Publisher: STAR Scholars Network
Date: 09-09-2021
Abstract: Generations of migrants from Asia since the 1800s have endured challenges in locating their place and belonging in Australia due to systemic racism and discrimination against the cultural and religious ‘other’. These persistent issues have intensified during the pandemic, especially towards Chinese communities, including international students. This paper investigates the impact of the pandemic on Chinese, Indian and Russian international students in Australia. It reveals how, throughout the first year of the pandemic, international student, ethnic and religious community organizations implemented multiple and overlapping coping strategies to assist international students in Australia, who had been left vulnerable by a lack of government support and escalating geopolitical tensions in the Asia-Pacific region. By highlighting the religious dimensions of these strategies of connectedness and belonging, it contributes new insights in an under-explored aspect in studies on international students in Australia, pointing the way for further investigation.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 24-11-2023
Publisher: Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies
Date: 28-02-2021
DOI: 10.56311/YSZP5128
Abstract: In May 2021, CRIS and AVERT members Professor Michele Grossman, Mark Duckworth, Lydia Khalil, Dr Joshua Roose and Dr Mario Peucker appeared as expert witnesses at the public hearings held in Canberra for the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security’s Inquiry into Extremist Movements and Radicalism in Australia. Professor Michele Grossman, Mark Duckworth, Professor Greg Barton, Dr Vivian Gerrand, Dr Matteo Vergani, Dr Mario Peucker, Professor Hass Dellal and Jacob Davey
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 22-06-2021
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 23-03-2021
DOI: 10.1177/01979183211000282
Abstract: This IMR Research Note examines the impact of the level of bonding social capital on access to employment among newly arrived Afghan refugees in Victoria (Australia). Based on a mixed-methods analysis of biographical interviews with 80 Afghan refugees, it examines their use of social capital, year by year, during the first three years after their arrival. Our analysis shows that higher levels of bonding social capital are associated with greater success in finding employment during the first and second year of settlement. In the third year, however, bonding social capital for Afghan refugees in Victoria is no longer a significant predictor of employment. This Research Note helps clarify inconsistent findings in the literature on the effects of social capital on obtaining employment by suggesting that bonding social capital’s impact on refugee employment success changes significantly across the first three years after arrival. This finding has important implications for migration policy and the prioritization of resources toward services for newly arrived refugees.
Publisher: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG
Date: 2020
No related grants have been discovered for Greg Barton.