This dissertation investigates the apostate: those who have given up the beliefs of their birth religion; and apostasy: the process of foregoing said religion. Beyond empirically derived determinants of religious defection often provided by conventional investigations in the sociology of religion, this thesis treats apostasy as a potential signifier of societal change. It attempts to see apostasy as a window for examining the location, of not only apostasy, but of socialisation, religion, and religiosity as constructs of modernity. It provides an investigation beyond a traditional analysis of apostasy as an aberration or problematic rupture in religious socialisation. Rather, apostasy is explored as a potential signifier of resistance to modernistic constructions of socialisation, religion and religiosity. It asks whether, commensurate with an emerging postmodern condition, there has been a transformation in Foucauldian 'technologies of the self' (1988:18) that allows more agency in the negotiation of the self, religion and religiosity. Chapter One introduces and contextualises the argument. It lays the theoretical framework for the thesis and situates the work in the literature. Chapter Two presents the methodology, reviews preliminary statistical findings, and offers the apostasy typology. Chapters Three and Four examine religious socialisation and epistemological orientation of religious disaffiliation. Chapter Five discusses post apostatic re-formations of the self and Chapter Six concludes the thesis with a discussion of the potential need for post apostatic religiosity. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/181979 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Creators | O'Leary, Zina, University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury, Faculty of Arts, Education and Social Sciences, School of Humanities |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Source | THESIS_FARSS_HUM_Oleary_Z.xml |
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