Indigenous Nonreligion

Dr Sara Rahmani is the Principal Investigator on a new project: Indigenous Nonreligion in Aotearoa New Zealand and Canada. This Marsden-funded study, which will run for three years, builds upon her earlier collaborative research, Explaining Māori Atheism in Aotearoa New Zealand, expanding it into a larger comparative study of Indigenous nonreligion. Professor Peter Adds (Te Kawa a Māui) and Dr Jonathan Simmons (University of Alberta) are co-investigators, while Dr Justin Tetrault (University of Alberta) will mentor this project.

Indigenous nonreligion is rapidly increasing, surpassing national averages in Aotearoa New Zealand and Canada. In both contexts, this growth coincides with a significant drop in the number of people identifying as Christians. What drives the rise of Indigenous nonreligion, and how does it connect to broader trends of dechristianisation, secularisation, decolonial movements, and societal change?

This project explores the individual, sociocultural, historical, and political processes contributing to the rise of Indigenous nonreligion through a comparative case study of Aotearoa and Canada. The study is informed by Indigenous research methodologies and will involve 60 diary-interviews with religiously unaffiliated Māori in Aotearoa and First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples in Canada. By centring Indigenous expressions of nonreligion and exploring its connection with decolonial activism, the findings of this comparative project will address a critical gap in the cross-cultural study of nonreligion, provide new perspectives on the ongoing debate on secularisation, and advance our understanding of contemporary religious change. Beyond these areas, the study has implications for policy and decolonial theory.