Christopher R. Fardan holds a PhD from The University of Manchester and is currently a research fellow at The University of Oslo. His doctoral thesis draws on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in Norway, including participant observation and in-depth interviews. Specifically, Fardan explores mobilisation and recruitment into extreme organisations and puts emphasis on the importance of understanding identity formation amongst nationalist actors as well as emotive group-level dynamics and the link between beliefs and action. Today, Fardan works on the EU-funded research project, DRIVE, which explores the role of social exclusion in the light of polarising ideas, values and beliefs in Northwest Europe.
Uzair Ahmed is currently a PhD fellow at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography and an affiliate at the Center for Research on extremism at the University of Oslo. Drawing on fieldwork, including interviews with radicalised Muslims, in his upcoming work, Ahmed elucidates how Muslim men in Norway make meaning about why they adopt, maintain and reject political violence. In his forthcoming work, Ahmed also discusses how racialisation may influence research when studying radicalisation among Muslims. His research interests are race and ethnicity studies, radicalisation, religion, cultural sociology and qualitative methods.
Prof Valerie DeMarinis, PhD (psychology) is Senior Professor in Public Mental Health at the Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine at Umeå University, Sweden; Professor of Public Mental Health Promotion at Innlandet Hospital Trust, Norway; and Emeritus Professor in Psychology of Religion and Cultural Psychology at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research areas include refugee mental health, cultural information in treatment, public mental health and violent extremism. Recent/current research programs include: Director of the Wellbeing and Health section of the nationally-funded IMPACT research programme/Centre of Excellence at Uppsala University; Primary Mental Health Analyst for the EU- Horizon 2020 project RESPOND: Governance of Migration; and, PI for both Swedish and Norwegian projects on medical communication efficacy of the Cultural Formulation Interview (DSM-5). Her applied research and clinical work includes a focus on radicalisation and preventing violent extremism as a public mental health concern, including with young people who have been involved with either white-power extremism or Islamist extremism.