Animism: Respecting the Living World.

published simultaneously by C.Hurst & Co. (London); Columbia University Press (New York); and Wakefield Press (Adelaide), 2005.

See Animism.org.uk for more information about this book and for ever expanding discussion of the issues it raises and the communities, worldviews and lifeways it discusses. The website is also new and in need of a lot of work, so keep visiting!

Reviews:
"The strengths of this book are its fluid and engaging ... writing; its openly committed stand on the central question, i.e., whether or not animals, plants, rivers, etc. are people, and its use of major ethnographic sources as evidence, together with conversations with indigenous peoples."
—Stewart Guthrie, Fordham University

"Harvey's insightful and balanced study challenges both earlier studies of animism and more recent critics who argue that scholars should throw out the term altogether. This is a fascinating and passionate study of lifeworlds in which things are 'very much alive' and in which relation to non-human others is considered central."
—Sarah M. Pike, California State University, Chico, author of Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves: Contemporary Pagans and the Search for Community.

The cover of Animism: Respecting the Living World uses the excellent painting, “Kunka Women’s Dreaming’ by Gladys Yawentyne — with the permission of the artist and of Ngurratjuta Art Centre, Alice Springs, Australia.

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Indigenous Religions: A Companion.

published by Continuum (London and New York), 2000.

Synopsis:
Indigenous religions are the majority of the world's religions. This Companion shows how much they can contribute to a richer understanding of human identity, action, and relationships. An international team of contributors discuss representative indigenous religions from all continents. The book is in three parts - Persons, Powers, and Gifts

Review:
"Wide-ranging… The editor ... provides an innovative introduction, framing the essays that follow theoretically and challenging the readers' presuppositions. The essays are relatively accessible to the non-specialist and would make a useful introductory text for an undergraduate course on religions not often covered in standard 'world religions' textbooks."
--Religious Studies Review

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Law and Religion in Contemporary Society: Communities, Individualism and the State.

Co-edited with Peter Edge;

published by Ashgate (Aldershot), 2000.

Synopsis
The relationship between law and religion has traditionally been analysed according to two basic paradigms. One has focused on the relationship between religious communities and the State (the Church/ State paradigm), while the other has concentrated on the relationship between the State and the individual (the liberal-individualist or civil liberties paradigm). This book enriches the analysis of law and religion in society by emphasising a third and complementary analytical dimension involving the relationship between religious communities and religious individuals. In particular, the contributors explore the various facets of the multiple tensions that exist in the legal relationships between religious organisations, State and adherents in the period leading up to the third Christian millennium.

Against the background of the complex and sometimes contradictory responses of religious organisations and the State to the Human Rights Act, this interdisciplinary collection draws on contributions from leading scholars active in the field of religious rights and the interaction of law and religion based in the UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand and elsewhere, and makes a timely and significant contribution to international debates in a variety of academic disciplines. Contributors explore international concerns over religious liberty, focusing particularly on the boundaries of ethnicity and religious community, the status of the 'established' Churches in the UK, and the proper place for religious organisations under generally applicable legal regimes of non-discrimination. Themes discussed are closely related to wider interests within legal and socio-legal studies involving gender, discrimination, equality, community and the nature and limits of individualism and individual legal rights

Reviews
'The content of the book is excellent with all the authors delivering interesting and informative discourses in their specific areas ... a very valuable addition to the lamentably small amount of work in this increasingly important area of study.'
- Journal of Contemporary Religion.

'...this is a very useful book that contains some timely contributions to the emerging debates about religion, law, and human rights...this volume is welcomed as a very relevant contribution to the field.'
- Culture and Religion

'... of interest to scholars of comparative law and judicial politics, including those searching for case studies of the interaction of law and pluralism or the role of the international human rights movement in the legal politics within individual nation-states.'
- The Law and Politics Book Review

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Indigenous Religious Musics.

co-edited with Karen Ralls;

published by Ashgate (Aldershot), 2001.

includes a CD with recordings of some of the musics discussed.

Synopsis
Celebrating the diversity of indigenous nations, cultures and religions, the essays which comprise this volume discuss the musics performed by a wide variety of peoples as an integral part of their cultural traditions. These include examinations of the various styles of Maori, Inuit and Australian Aboriginal musics, and the role of music in Korean Shaman rituals.

Indeed, music forms a key component of many such rituals and worldviews, and examples of these are explored amongst the peoples of Uganda, Amazonia and Africa. Through analysis of these rituals and the part music plays in them, the essays also open up further themes including social groupings and gender divisions, and engage with issues and debates on how we define and approach the study of indigeneity, religiosity and music.

With a complimentary CD featuring some of the music discussed in the book and further information on other available recordings, this is a book which gives readers the opportunity to gain a richer experience of the lived realities of indigenous religious musics

Reviews
'This book marks a welcome and innovative addition to a growing list of publications on indigenous religions ...'
-Journal of Contemporary Religion

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Readings in Indigenous Religions.

published by Continuum, 2002.

Synopsis:
Readings in Indigenous Religions brings together classic and recent writings concerned with contemporary indigenous religions. These significant and important works contribute both to expert discussion of important religious and cultural issues and also to on-going debates about improved methods of research. The inclusion of examples of indigenous ideological, legal and fiction writing further enhances the volume's engagement with indigenous and scholarly perspectives, experiences and interests. Readings is divided into four Parts: Ontology, Performance, Knowledge and Land. Editorial introductions make explicit the links, common themes and further ramifications of the seventeen chapters. The four chapters in 'Ontology' argue that relationships are definitive in the formation and maintenance of identities, and that the notion of 'the supernatural' is misleading. 'Performance' contains five chapters that discuss various rituals and their participants, including healing, world-making, magic and shamanising. Six chapters in 'Knowledge' demonstrate the critical importance of attending to indigenous modes of discourse about knowledges. Finally, 'Land' contains two chapters that exemplify the richness of indigenous relationships and engagements with, and knowledges of, particular places. In addition to expert descriptions of aspects of particular indigenous religious lifeways and worldviews, the readings also encourage a reconsideration of academic approaches to the study of indigenous religions. The realisation that researchers and writers are engaged in relationships with indigenous hosts proffers a challenge to academic methodologies that assert objectivity and distance. New dialogical and conversational methods of engagement promise to reconnect academia in building more equitable relationships and a healthier world.

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Shamanism: A Reader.

published by Routledge, 2003.

Synopsis:
Shamanism has been practised amongst communities all over the world for millennia, and continues to survive and sometimes thrive today in both modern and traditional forms. Shamanism: A Reader unites perspectives from disciplines including anthropology, psychology, musicology, and botany to provide an unique overview of recent and contemporary writing on shamanism. Juxtaposing the traditional practices of indigenous peoples with their new and often radically urban reinterpretations, experts including Michael Harner, Milhály Hoppál, Marjorie M Balzer and Piers Vitebsky raise questions about constructions of shamanism, its efficacy, its use and misuse as a cultural symbol, and its various natures.
Locating its material in the encounter between traditional and contemporary, and within many forms of response to the image of the shaman, Shamanism: A Reader is an essential tribute to the vitality and breadth of shamanic tradition both among its original practitioners of Europe, the Americas and Asia, and within seemingly familiar aspects of the modern west. Representing the best of classic and current scholarship, and highlighting the diversity of approaches to shamanism in an accessible and user-friendly way, this clearly introduced and organized collection sets a new standard for shamanic study in terms of the breadth and depth of its coverage.

Reviews:
'Graham Harvey's compilation stands out ... for the ambition and range of his vision ... it is a mark of the care and respect with which Harvey approaches his material that he recognises the existence of no fewer than five different phenomena with the category broadly labelled shamanism ...'
- Ronald Hutton, Times Higher Education Supplement

'A very interesting anthology of shamanic and neo-shamanic thought ... for anyone wanting to understand shamanism form a wider point of view ... it is an excellent and enjoyable read.'
- Sacred Hoop

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Indigenous Diasporas and Dislocations.

Co-edited with Charles Thompson;

published by Ashgate, 2005.

Synopsis:
Indigenous religions are now present not only in their places of origin but globally. They are significant parts of the pluralism and diversity of the contemporary world, especially when their performance enriches and/or challenges host populations. Indigenous Diasporas and Dislocations engages with examples of communities with different experiences, expectations and evaluations of diaspora life. It contributes significantly to debates about indigenous cultures and religions, and to understandings of identity and alterity in late or post-modernity. This book promises to enrich understanding of indigeneity, and of the globalized world in which indigenous people play diverse roles.

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Ritual and Religious Belief: a Reader.

published by Equinox (London) and Routledge (New York), 2005.

In the series: Critical Categories in the Study of Religion

Synopsis:
Rituals are among the most obvious and common religious activities, but their relationship with other aspects of religion, especially ‘belief’, has been a problem both for religious people and for scholars. In many religions leaders have worried that people are ‘just going through the motions’, doing without understanding. People are often accused of ‘vain repetition’ as if it were possible to perform significant religious acts without repeating oneself. Even the word ‘performance’ is difficult, because it might imply pretence rather than sincerity. Yet it is not at all clear that religious actions, rituals, are meant to be understood. They may even appear contrary to rational and thoughtful statements of what a religion teaches.

This Reader brings together material that illustrates the problem of ritual as a type of religious behaviour, in relation to belief and thought, and as ‘vain repetition.’ The material presented here seeks an understanding of ritual as performances that may have a logic different to ‘belief’ or as actions that are not meant to be understood. The contributors discuss recent questions about the fluid performance of all identities and the inherent permeability of critical categories such as ritual. An introduction to the various debates is also provided.

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Vitality of Indigenous Religions.

Ashgate Monograph Series.

Co-editors: Lawrence Martin, Chair of American Indian Studies Program, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, USA, and Tabona Shoko, University of Zimbabwe.

Series commenced in 1999.

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Religion, Culture and Society.

Ashgate. A focused cluster of high profile titles exploring the critical issues of contemporary society and culture, and relationships to and within living religions.

Co-editors: Peter Edge, Reader in Law, Oxford Brookes University, and Lois Lorentzen, University of San Francisco

Series commenced in 1999.

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Member of editorial panel of Ecotheology

published by Equinox.

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Member of editorial panel of The Pomegranate: The Journal of Pagan Studies

published by Equinox.

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Member of editorial panel of Australian Religious Studies Review

published by Equinox.

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Guest Editor issue of Ecotheology 8.1 ‘Nature Constructing Societies’, 2003.

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‘Introduction’ and 'Art Works in Aotearoa’ in Indigenous Religions: a Companion (ed.: Graham Harvey; London / New York: Cassell, 2000). pp.1-19, 155-72.

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‘Performing identity and entertaining guests: Maori diaspora in London’ in Graham Harvey and Charlie Thompson, Indigenous Diasporas and Dislocation. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. pp.121-34.

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‘Performing and Constructing Research as Guesthood’ in Lynne Hume and Jane Mulcock (eds), Anthropologists in the Field. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. pp.168-82.

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'Shamanism in Britain Today’, On Ritual (ed. Günter Berghaus; London: Routledge, 1998) Performance Research 3.3: 15-23.

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‘Sacred Places in the Construction of Indigenous Environmentalism’, Ecotheology 7.1 (2002) 60-73.

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‘Guesthood as ethical decolonising research method’, Numen 50.2 (2003): 125-46.

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‘Environmentalism in the construction of indigeneity’, Ecotheology 8.2 (2003) 206-23.

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‘Endo-cannibalism in the making of a recent British Ancestor’, Mortality 9.3 (2004): 255-67.

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‘Animals, Animists and Academics’, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 41.1 (2006): 9-19.

Click here for the paper’s abstract

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'Maori diaspora spirituality, global indigeneity and the construction of academia' at http://www.cesnur.org/2001/london2001/harvey.htm

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‘Maori Religion’ in World Religions, London: Times Books, 2002. pp. 70-3.

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‘Indigenous Religions’ in Chris Partridge (ed.), The World’s Religions: A Lion Handbook, Lion, 2005.

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