Explaining Māori atheism in Aotearoa New Zealand

Dr Sara Rahmani is the Principal Investigator on a major new project: Explaining Māori Atheism in Aotearoa New Zealand. This study will run for two years and is part of the global Explaining Atheism project funded by the Templeton Foundation. Professor Peter Adds (Te Kawa a Māui) and Associate Professor Geoff Troughton are co-investigators.

Between 2006 and 2018, the percentage of Māori identifying with “no religion” on the national census increased from 36.5% to 53.5%. This change coincided with a substantial decline in Māori affiliating with Christianity (from 46.2% to 29.9%) as well as a smaller decrease in Māori identifying with “Māori religions, beliefs, and philosophies” (from 11.5% to 7.7%) in the same period.  Similar patterns were observed among Māori immigrants in Australia.  Despite these dramatic shifts, we know little about Māori atheism, or the individual, sociocultural, and historical processes contributing to Māori deconversion.

Taking “atheism” as non-belief in the existence of god(s) and other supernatural phenomena, the aim of this project is to provide a well-evidenced causal account of how and why some Māori became or remain atheists.  In-depth interviews with Māori a/theist will be conducted to identify key causal factors of atheism at the individual and societal levels.

Given the complicated post-colonial and bicultural context of Aotearoa New Zealand, the project team’s analysis will also pay a close attention to the intersectionality between the history of colonisation, Christianisation, Māori cultural revitalisation policies, and the impact of online social media on the emergence of Māori atheism.