Dr Suzanne Owen

I focus on the critical analysis of ‘indigeneity’ and other categories, such as ‘religion’, and their contested usages by different groups, combining anthropological research methods with discourse analysis. By raising questions about religion as a constructed category, the study of indigenous religions challenges colonial frameworks that have historically informed it.
Email: | suzanne.owen@chester.ac.uk |
Qualifications
MA (Edinburgh), MSc (Edinburgh), PhD (Edinburgh), PGCE (Bath Spa), FHEA
Overview
My PhD from Edinburgh University focussed on the significance of protocols in the sharing of Native American ceremonies derived from Lakota and other Plains Indian traditions and debates about non-native ‘appropriations’ of them. This research also included fieldwork among Mi'kmaq in Newfoundland, Canada. More recently, I have been researching British Druidry in relation to indigeneity and religion.
My next project has taken me back to Newfoundland to research visual representations of the Beothuk, an indigenous group now culturally extinct due to the impact of colonisation. However, they continue to be remembered and made present through art, literature and museum exhibitions, often at the expense of the Mi’kmaq and other First Nations.
I am also interested in shamanism as a cross-cultural category and have maintained an interest in Indic and Buddhist traditions, which I specialised in during my undergraduate studies at Edinburgh University. I started working at Leeds Trinity University in 2008 and remain part-time there since joining Chester’s TRS department in September 2013.
I am co-chair of the Indigenous Religious Traditions Group at the American Academy of Religion and coordinating editor of DISKUS, the journal of the British Association for the Study of Religions.
- Shortcuts
- Teaching
- Research
- Published Work
Teaching
Undergraduate Modules
TH4042 - The Study of Religion: an Introduction.
TH5045 - Anthropology of Religion
Postgraduate Modules
TH7040 - Indigenous Religions
Research
Research Interests
- Indigenous Religions
- Native Studies
- Contemporary Paganism
- Representation and identity
- Methodological and theoretical debates
PhD Supervision
I welcome enquiries for research at doctoral level in any of my research areas listed above or from students wishing to explore other areas within:
- Religious Studies, Contemporary Spiritualities and Religion and Society
External Funding
2013 British Academy Small Research Grant for fieldwork and workshop in Newfoundland on ‘Indigeneity, memory and representation of the Beothuk in Newfoundland’, in collaboration with Dr John Harries, University of Edinburgh (£2480)
2008 British Academy Overseas Conference grant to present a paper at the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) conference in Athens, Georgia, USA (£400)
2007-8 Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, to research ‘self-disclosure in the study of indigenous religions’ (£5000, six months)
2005 Carnegie Trust (£750) and Moray Endowment Fund (£1400) awards for fieldwork in Newfoundland
2003 University of Edinburgh Alumni Fund: Small Project Grant for preliminary fieldwork in Newfoundland (£500)
1996 Spalding Trust grant for fieldtrip to South India (£500)
Published work
Books
2017 | Forthcoming: Contemporary Druidry: A Native Tradition? (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017) |
2008 | The Appropriation of Native American Spirituality (London; New York: Continuum, 2008) |
Other Select Publications
2013 | ‘Prayer with Pain: Ceremonial Suffering among the Mi’kmaq,’ in J. Fear-Segal & R. Tillett (eds) Indigenous Bodies: Reviewing, Relocating, Reclaiming (New York: State University of New York Press, 2013) |
2013 | ‘Druidry and the Definition of Indigenous Religion,’ in James L. Cox (ed.) Critical Reflections on Indigenous Religions (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013) |
2011 | ‘The World Religions Paradigm: time for a change,’ Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 10.3 (July 2011), 253-268 |
2010 | ‘Production of Sacred Space in the Mi’kmaq Powwow,’ DISKUS 11 (August 2010) http://www.basr.ac.uk/diskus/diskus11/owen.htm |