Lori G. Beaman, Ph.D., F.R.S.C., is the Canada Research Chair in Religious Diversity and Social Change, and a Professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa.
She is the author of The Transition of Religion to Culture in Law and Public Discourse (Routledge, 2020), Deep Equality in an Era of Religious Diversity (Oxford University Press, 2017), which received the 2018 CSSR Book Prize and has been translated into Italian (Eguaglianza profunda in un’era di diversità religiosa, Ariele, 2018), and the co-author of Beyond Accommodation: Everyday Narratives of Muslim Canadians (University of British Columbia Press, 2018), with Jennifer A. Selby and Amélie Barras. Recent articles include “Religious Diversity in the Public Sphere: The Canadian Case,” Religions 8(12): 1-18, and “Living Well Together in a (non)Religious Future: Contributions from the Sociology of Religion,” Sociology of Religion, 78(1): 9-32. Beaman collaborates on numerous international projects, including “Religious Diversity in Australia: Strategies to Maintain Social Cohesion” (Douglas Ezzy, PI, Tasmania University), and “A Transcultural Approach to Social Inclusion and Engagement among Migrant Youth” (Fethi Mansouri, PI, Deakin University), both funded by the Australian Research Council and sits on the Advisory Boards of several national and international research networks and programmes, including “The transmission of religion across generations: a comparative international study of continuities and discontinuities in family socialization”, PI Christel Gärtner. She led a global team of 37 researchers as Principal Investigator of the 7-year SSHRC funded Religion and Diversity Project and is the principal investigator of Nonreligion in a Complex Future, a SSHRC-funded Partnership grant.
Her research interests include examining how nonreligious and religious people can coexist in an increasingly diverse and complex world; the concept of deep equality as an alternative to tolerance and accommodation in responding to religious diversity; and the idea of reclaiming enchantment as a way to reformulate our relationship with the environment and address issues of climate change and human/non-human animal relations.
Beaman is co-editor for the International Studies in Religion and Society (Brill); she is the senior editor of Boundaries of Religious Freedom: Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies (Springer); and is a member of the editorial board of the Religion and the Social Order book series (Brill) and the Religion, State and Society journal (Taylor & Francis). Beaman is the recipient of the 2017 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Impact Award in the Insight Category and holds an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University.