"Alone Australia": Spirituality and Nature-Connection in the Anthropocene
Since the turn of the twenty-first century, scholars of religion have focused considerable attention on religious diversity and the rise of the non-religious, particularly in so-called Western societies. There has also been a rise of people identifying as spiritual, be they religious or not, and reporting a strong connection with nature, be they spiritual or not, globally. Both of these trends are certainly evident in Australia, particularly in recent data on the diverse worldviews of young Australians, and are currently being investigated by scholars in the Australian Research Council funded project on ‘Australian Spirituality’ . Spirituality in Australia has strong Indigenous, religious and holistic dimensions, and has been described as a down-to-earth, relational spirituality, informed by Indigenous and Asia knowledges, given Australia’s geographical proximity to Asia and long history of flows of people, trade and ideas between these continents. This paper presents findings of a case study of the reality TV survival program ‘Alone Australia’, set in lutruwita, the Tasmanian wilderness and broadcast in 2023. It explores four contestants’ – one Indigenous, one Christian, one Buddhish, and one holistic spiritual – views on nature and spirituality in the Anthropocene, revealing insights on ‘spiritual complexity’ in this Country that can further inform scholarly understandings of spirituality and nature-connection more broadly.