Welcome

We are delighted to welcome you to the 2021 AVERT Research Symposium. This year’s theme is Violent Extremism at the Crossroads: Persistence, Change and Dynamism 20 Years After 9/11. Since 9/11, the landscape of violent extremist movements has demonstrated both persistence and change. The legitimation of violence as both a strategic tool and existential endgame in achieving terrorist goals remains a constant. Yet the violent extremist landscape is now more ideologically and methodologically diverse, fluid and fragmented, and powered by dynamically evolving digital communications and networks. This includes not only the ongoing challenges of violent Islamist networks and the intensification of globally networked right-wing violent extremism, but also the emergence of violent male supremacists, extremist conspiracy movements and hateful extremism alongside the polarising impacts of misinformation and disinformation. The COVID-19 pandemic has arguably intensified some of these challenges.

For this year’s conference, we have a range of outstanding keynote addresses and conference presentations that, against this backdrop, address issues including:

● How fit for purpose are current preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) architectures of policy and practice for responding to these dynamics?

● What lessons have we learned over the last 20 years, and how can we apply them to existing and future challenges?

● How can we promote genuine community-led P/CVE?

● What resources do we need to help divert and disengage people from violent extremism across different ideologies, platforms and networks, especially in relation to young people?

● Is the ‘violent’ in violent extremism still the primary focus, or does the evolving relationship between non-violent and violent forms of extremism demand new understandings, responses and interventions?

● How should we navigate the boundaries between violent extremism versus democratic social protest and dissent?

The conference is convened by the AVERT Research Network. The AVERT Research Network is a multidisciplinary, multi-university research initiative administered by Deakin University’s Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADI) in Melbourne, Australia, which provides generous funding support to AVERT. AVERT brings together academics across a wide range of disciplines to engage with community and government partners to address violent extremism and radicalisation to terrorism through critical, evidence-based research and scholarship.

This year’s conference will be delivered entirely online. Attendance for invitees to the 2021 AVERT Research Symposium is free of charge thanks to generous sponsorship funding from the Australian Department of Home Affairs. Registration and access information appear on the next page.

A warm welcome to what we know will be three stimulating, exciting and rewarding days of intellectual and practical inquiry and dialogue on the contemporary dynamics of violent extremism!

Michele Grossman (Convenor), Lydia Khalil (Coordinator) and the AVERT International Research Symposium Organising Committee (John Cianchi, Natalie Davis, David Kernot, Aftab Malik, Natalie Pyszora, Debra Smith, Lise Waldek, Andrew Wright)

Our program includes the conference schedule, details of all abstract presentations and speaker biographies.