Shanthikumar Hettiarachchi (PhD in majority-minority ethnic and religious conflict, Melbourne College of Divinity, University of Melbourne): Senior Lecturer and Consultant in Religion, Conflict and Social Engagement. He has worked extensively with community groups and social movements in Sri Lanka and studied them in depth both at community and post graduate level. Dr Hettiarachchi is the founder Co-ordinator of the Luton Council of Faiths, Bedfordshire, UK. He worked at St. Philip’s Centre for study and Engagement, Leicester, UK as its World Religions specialist with a focus on conflict and religiously motivated violence. His primary research interests are in Diaspora communities: their settlement processes, religious affiliations, political mobilisation, identity politics, and social and cultural adjustments in the UK, Europe and Australia. Dr Hettiarachchi’s publications are on radicalization of religious faith; land, history and notions of chosen-ness as political tools to define identity. His most recent involvement has been in the rehabilitation, de-radicalisation and community reintegration processes of ex-combatants. He is a senior trainer both for public and private sector bodies on social adjustments, cross cultural competency, policy development and reconciliation in Sri Lanka’s post conflict period.
