Dr. Alyshea Cummins

Contract Instructor

• BA (Windsor), MA (Wilfrid Laurier), Ph.D. (Ottawa)
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Biography

Alyshea Cummins is an Instructor of Religion in the College of Humanities and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University. Her teaching and research focus on contemporary Islam, the sociology and anthropology of religion, religion and migration, religious identity, intergenerational religious transmission, religious literacy, and the relationship between religion and social change. Her work explores how individuals and communities negotiate meaning, belonging, and identity within contemporary multicultural societies.

In addition to teaching, Cummins is a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, where she is conducting research for the Ismaili Oral Histories Project in Canada and developing a book manuscript on Canadian Ismaili identity for the Living Ismaili Traditions series. She previously held postdoctoral fellowships with the Transmission of Religion Across Generations project and the Nonreligion in a Complex Future project at the University of Ottawa, examining intergenerational religious transmission, nonreligious identities, and migration in contemporary Canada.

Cummins also serves as Associate Editor of Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, and Series Editor for the Rethinking Religion series with De Gruyter.

Publications

Cummins, Alyshea. “Conditional Belonging? Muslim Identity and Public Engagement in Canada.” In Muslim Belonging in the West: The Ethics of Citizenship, edited by Amyn Sajoo. IIS-Bloomsbury Press, 2027 (Forthcoming).

Cummins, Alyshea, and Peter Beyer. “Community, Cohesion, and Family in Religious Transmission across Generations in Canada.” In Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion, edited by Olga Breskaya and Morena Tartari, Vol. 17. Brill, 2026 (Forthcoming).

Cummins, Alyshea, and Linda Hennig. 2025. “Transmission and transformation of religion among Muslims in Canada and West Germany.” Religions 16, no. 10: 1293. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16101293.

Beyer, Peter, Luca Bossi, Alyshea Cummins, Christel Gärtner, Linda Hennig, Roberta Ricucci, Jenni Spännäri, and Zsuzsanna Szvetelszky. 2025. “Comparing religious transmission and transformation across five countries.” In Families and Religion: Dynamics of Transmission across Generations, edited by Christel Gärtner, Linda Hennig, and Olaf Müller. Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag.

Cummins, Alyshea. “Making Space Through Public Engagements: Canadian Ismaili Muslims.” In Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Migration, edited by Rubina Ramji and Alison Marshall. UK: Bloomsbury Press, 2022.

Beyer, Peter, Alyshea Cummins, and Scott Craig. “Religious/Spiritual Identity among Younger Adults in Canada: A Complex Portrait.” In Young People and the Diversity of (Non)Religious Identities in International Perspective, edited by Elizabeth Arweck and Heather Shipley. Springer, 2019.

Beyer, Peter, Scott Craig, and Alyshea Cummins. “Religious Identity Construction among Young Adults in Canada: The Religious, the Spiritual, and the Non-Religious.” In Youth, Religion, and Identity in a Globalizing Context: International Perspectives, edited by Paul L. Gareau, Spencer C. Bullivant, and Peter Beyer, 33–52. Brill, 2018.

Beyer, Peter, Alyshea Cummins, Scott Craig, and Manvitha Singamsetty. “Cultural and Religious Identity among 18 to 45 Year-Olds in Canada: A Survey, Summary and Selected Findings.” Ottawa, Ontario: Religion and Diversity Project, 2017.

Beyer, Peter, Alyshea Cummins, and Scott Craig. “Measuring Religious Identity Differently: A Canadian Survey Study | Beyer | Bulletin for the Study of Religion.” Bulletin for the Study of Religion 45, no. 1 (2016).