Terrorism, religious fundamentalism, cyber-racism, political separatism and violent extremism are among topics on the agenda at a global conference at The University of Queensland this week.
The Trajectories of Radicalisation and De‑radicalisation conference brings 50 international academics from psychology, political science, criminology, anthropology, and other disciplines to the UQ St Lucia campus.
The two-day interdisciplinary meeting is a closed forum, but is preceded and followed by a number of events that are open to the public, including a panel discussion on the role of gender in violent extremism in Southeast Asia.
Conference organiser Professor Winnifred Louis of the UQ School of Psychology said the aim was to start an open and honest dialogue about how communities and governments can influence and react to both the positive and negative outcomes of collective action.
The keynote addresses at the conference will be from Professor Fathali Moghaddam of Georgetown University who will talk about mutual radicalisation and how groups and nations drive each other to extremes, and Professor Harvey Whitehouse of the University of Oxford who will look at the role of ritual in creating group cohesion and fuelling intergroup conflict.
Some of the other international speakers include:
- Dr Özden Melis Uluğ, University of Massachusetts
- Professor Michele Grossman, Deakin University
- Dr Emma Thomas, Flinders University
- Dr Helena Radke, University of Osnabrück
- Dr Laura Smith, University of Bath
- Professor Claudia Zuniga, University of Chile
- Dr Neil Ferguson, Liverpool Hope University
View the full list of speakers.
