Conference Presentations by Kathleen Openshaw
As part of a continuing research cooperation between Western Sydney University and Alphacrucis Co... more As part of a continuing research cooperation between Western Sydney University and Alphacrucis College, this symposium will explore the growth, movement and influence of Pentecostal Charismatic Christianities in Oceania. It will consider PCCs as a powerful cultural force within Australasian and Oceanic communities and their role in reconfiguring spatial, social, political and cultural relationships. While the causative influences of PCCs in Oceania are contemplated, the symposium will also look at the overarching cultural, economic and political milieus in which PCCs are embedded. Additionally, a consideration of PCC's broader transnational scope of influence will enrich this crosscultural and interdisciplinary dialogue.
In this symposium we are interested in teasing out the remarkable growth of PCC in Australia, a c... more In this symposium we are interested in teasing out the remarkable growth of PCC in Australia, a country considered largely secular. We are hoping to discuss the following questions: How have PCC grown from their humble origins to become such a force in Australia? What makes Australians join a PCC movement? What is the relationship between PCC and Australian politics? How do migrants and refugees negotiate identity, belonging and home-making in Australia through Pentecostal/Charismatic churches? How can we account for the remarkable rise of PCC in Australia in a post-secular world? How do PCC expand in and out of the country?
Books by Kathleen Openshaw
Editors: Cristina Rocha, Mark P. Hutchinson and Kathleen Openshaw
In Australian Pentecostal and... more Editors: Cristina Rocha, Mark P. Hutchinson and Kathleen Openshaw
In Australian Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements: Arguments from the Margins, Rocha, Hutchinson and Openshaw argue that Australia has made and still makes important contributions to how Pentecostal and charismatic Christianities have developed worldwide. This edited volume fills a critical gap in two important scholarly literatures. The first is the Australian literature on religion, in which the absence of the charismatic and Pentecostal element tends to reinforce now widely debunked notions of Australia as lacking the religious tendencies of old Europe. The second is the emerging transnational literature on Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. This book enriches our understanding not only of how these movements spread worldwide but also how they are indigenised and grow new shoots in very diverse contexts.
In Australian Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements: Arguments from the Margins, Rocha, Hutchinso... more In Australian Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements: Arguments from the Margins, Rocha, Hutchinson and Openshaw argue that Australia has made and still makes important contributions to how Pentecostal and charismatic Christianities have developed worldwide. This edited volume fills a critical gap in two important scholarly literatures. The first is the Australian literature on religion, in which the absence of the charismatic and Pentecostal element tends to reinforce now widely debunked notions of Australia as lacking the religious tendencies of old Europe. The second is the emerging transnational literature on Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. This book enriches our understanding not only of how these movements spread worldwide but also how they are indigenised and grow new shoots in very diverse contexts.
Papers by Kathleen Openshaw
Social Compass, Apr 21, 2021
The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG) is a Brazilian neo-Pentecostal megachurch. Over... more The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG) is a Brazilian neo-Pentecostal megachurch. Over the past 40 years, it has established branches in over 100 countries among the economically and socially marginalised. This holds true in Australia, where congregants are disenfranchised migrants from diverse ethnic backgrounds and (former) refugees. Drawing on 2 years of ethnographic research in the UCKG’s Australian headquarters, this article explores why a Brazilian church, with a seemingly disagreeable character, attracts a multicultural migrant congregation in Australia. I argue that the UCKG is attractive to these congregants because it provides a space where its followers’ ethnicity is accepted; its cosmovision is easily translated to its congregation’s diverse spiritual sensibilities; and it offers ‘pioneering techniques’ to overcome life obstacles for those on the margins of Australian society. This work contributes to scholarly literature concerning Brazilian religiosity outside of Brazil, and the role religion plays in migrant settlement.
Routledge eBooks, Mar 13, 2024
The Australian Journal of Anthropology, Dec 1, 2020
The Australian Journal of Anthropology, Apr 1, 2023
Contemporary Islam
While Ramadan in Western societies has been studied extensively in relation to health issues, no ... more While Ramadan in Western societies has been studied extensively in relation to health issues, no research to date has explored its representation through social scientific lenses. This article uses the Greater Western Sydney region in New South Wales, Australia, as a case study. This agglomeration of suburbs from the outer western suburbs of Sydney to the Blue Mountains has the highest proportion of Muslims in the country. To understand the representation of Islam in this region, this paper first analyses the articles in its major and local newspapers to then contrast them to the way the Ramadan festival is represented by mosques on their websites. This research discovers that Ramadan in Sydney newspapers tends to be reported in a secular fashion with a stronger focus on its public and economic activities. The focus of a large proportion of these articles on the way it attracts business demonstrates that it is a well-accepted event in Australia. In contrast, the pictures provided in...
Popular Culture, Religion and Society. A Social-Scientific Approach, 2020
Every Friday, ‘strong prayers’ and violent spiritual confrontations can be heard coming from the ... more Every Friday, ‘strong prayers’ and violent spiritual confrontations can be heard coming from the Australian headquarters of the Brazilian Pentecostal megachurch The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG). Deliverance services are where the UCKG’s predominantly disenfranchised migrant congregants battle malignant supernatural forces that ‘block’ the flow of prosperity to their lives in Australia. In the UCKG evil is hyper-mobile. Not only do evil forces move across the blurred boundaries between the physical and the supernatural realm, but evil is also personally and locally malleable. It can be inherited through generational curses, travels via routes of migration and through the transnational networks of the UCKG. Drawing on 2 years of ethnographic research in the Australian headquarters of the UCKG, I argue that the UCKG’s global and hyper-mobile supernatural nexus is characterized by spiritual ‘flows’ and ‘blockages’ manifested through the bodies and lives of its local congregants. In this chapter, my discussion of spiritual deliverance will show how local lived and embodied experiences are embedded within the currents and exchanges of globally mobile religions.
Effective community service provision requires multi-faceted approaches when dealing with a commu... more Effective community service provision requires multi-faceted approaches when dealing with a community that is characterised by plurality of ethnicity and socio-economic status. Greater Western Sydney (GWS) is characterised as a vibrant, economically robust region, though one that is also plagued by significant inequalities and social exclusion. The women of this region are the focus of this research as gender is understood as an agent of social stratification – that is, where men and women may have unequal access to property, power and prestige. Although Australia has made many inroads into gender equality, evidence points to persistent inequalities, where overall women are consistently found to suffer higher levels of poverty than men. The research, presented within two reports, attempted to develop an understanding of the level of community service uptake as well as the knowledge and perception of these services by women of Greater Western Sydney (GWS). The goals of the reports ar...
How do material objects accrue spiritual capital? In this podcast episode, Dr. Kathleen Openshaw ... more How do material objects accrue spiritual capital? In this podcast episode, Dr. Kathleen Openshaw shares a poignant story from a member of the Australia branch of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. As we hear about the global journey of a vial of anointing oil, she explains how we invest objects with significance and connect them to sacred spaces. Especially for the migrant community of UCKG members in Australia, these connections work to collapse the false binary between stasis and mobility that seems so stark in our present moment
Irish Journal of Anthropology, 2014
Literature indicates that the diasporic journey undertaken by African Pentecostal migrants can of... more Literature indicates that the diasporic journey undertaken by African Pentecostal migrants can often be remembered through the lens of their faith. This article is based on an ethnographic study conducted with Pentecostal members of three Redeemed Christian Church of God parishes (the vast majority were Nigerian migrants) in North Co. Dublin commuter towns. The aim was to explore their experiences as homemakers in Ireland. This work provided insight into how “being on fire for Jesus”, directly affected the living memory of the research participants in this fieldwork. Pentecostalism provides a lens through which to remember the migrant journey, and is intrinsic to their home-making processes in Ireland. The migrants’ making of home actively engages with a faith memory, within wider temporal, socio-cultural, economic and political spheres at international, national and community level. It is of anthropological value to explore Pentecostal memory production, so often characteristic in reborn African migrants, as a means to better comprehend the relationship between faith and the migrant experiences of making home in a post Celtic Tiger Ireland
Australian Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements
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Conference Presentations by Kathleen Openshaw
Books by Kathleen Openshaw
In Australian Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements: Arguments from the Margins, Rocha, Hutchinson and Openshaw argue that Australia has made and still makes important contributions to how Pentecostal and charismatic Christianities have developed worldwide. This edited volume fills a critical gap in two important scholarly literatures. The first is the Australian literature on religion, in which the absence of the charismatic and Pentecostal element tends to reinforce now widely debunked notions of Australia as lacking the religious tendencies of old Europe. The second is the emerging transnational literature on Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. This book enriches our understanding not only of how these movements spread worldwide but also how they are indigenised and grow new shoots in very diverse contexts.
Papers by Kathleen Openshaw
In Australian Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements: Arguments from the Margins, Rocha, Hutchinson and Openshaw argue that Australia has made and still makes important contributions to how Pentecostal and charismatic Christianities have developed worldwide. This edited volume fills a critical gap in two important scholarly literatures. The first is the Australian literature on religion, in which the absence of the charismatic and Pentecostal element tends to reinforce now widely debunked notions of Australia as lacking the religious tendencies of old Europe. The second is the emerging transnational literature on Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. This book enriches our understanding not only of how these movements spread worldwide but also how they are indigenised and grow new shoots in very diverse contexts.