Land, Home and Belonging: Interpreting Sacred Text through Diverse Lived Experiences: A Roundtable

We invite students and academics in religious studies, biblical studies, interfaith studies and related fields, as well as those who engage with sacred traditions beyond or at the margins of the academy, to express their interest in participating in an interfaith roundtable on land, home, belonging and hospitality across sacred traditions, texts, and ritual practice.

Spiritual traditions from many diverse parts of the world wrestle with fundamental questions like who belongs, who is welcomed, who is displaced, and who decides? While scholarship on exile, diaspora, borders and identity has grown considerably, these conversations have often been shaped by North American and European contexts and have less frequently centred the lived experiences and interpretive authority of First Nations peoples, migrants and refugees. There is also considerable scope to bring Jewish, Christian, Muslim and other religious traditions into closer conversation on these questions.

Australia is a distinctive place to ask these questions. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, as the First Peoples of these lands and waters, hold diverse, ancient and continuing relationships with Country, grounded in their own histories, cultures, laws, knowledges and understandings of belonging. Pasifika peoples bring distinct histories, cultures and understandings of land, ocean, kinship, migration and belonging, shaped by their connections across the Pacific and their experiences of colonialism and displacement. Alongside these communities, people from many nations have come to call Australia home, through histories of migration, refuge and settlement, in ways that continue to raise complex questions about belonging, sovereignty, hospitality and justice.

The roundtable will bring together participants from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds to explore how sacred traditions, texts, and ritual practice are interpreted through personal experience, community perspectives and different traditions. We welcome contributions from Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, migrants and non-migrants, and those working within, across or beyond particular religious traditions.

Why a roundtable?

A roundtable is a facilitated, small-group conversation in which every participant speaks as an equal and the discussion is shaped by those present rather than by prepared papers or a fixed agenda. Some questions we might ask on the day include:

• When you think about land, home and belonging in your sacred traditions, texts, and ritual practices, what matters to you?
• Which texts, questions or silences do your experiences of Country, hospitality, displacement, settlement or homecoming bring into view?
• What questions should a future project ask, how should it go about asking them, and who should be shaping that? What should it attend to, and what should it avoid?

We particularly want to make room for people who don’t often have the opportunity, the comfort, or the means to bring their experience to the biblical text in academic settings. This includes students from migrant and refugee communities and First Nations, Torres Strait Islander, and Pacific Islander participants. These voices are central to the conversation, and the conversation will in turn shape what we do next.

What to expect

• A small, relaxed, facilitated conversation
• No preparation required, though you are welcome to bring a text, a story, or a question

Date and location

15 December, 12:30pm (Location TBC)

Format

Facilitated roundtable conversation (20 participants)

Facilitators

Naomi Wolfe, Barbara Deutschmann, Natalie Mylonas and Megan Turton

Please apply to join us

If you would like to take part, or know someone who should be invited, please fill out this form by 26 November.