Methodologies in Peace Psychology

Diane Bretherton was the founding director of the International Conflict Resolution Centre in the Pyschology Department at the University of Melbourne and for many years chaired the Committee for the Psychological Study of Peace of the International Union of Psychological Science. She is currently an Honorary Professor in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Queensland.  She is also a Visiting Professor at the Zhou En Lai School of International Relations at the University of Nankai in Tianjin, China.  She has previously contributed to the Springer Series in Peace Psychology as a co-editor of Peace Psychology in Australia and is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Peace and Conflict. She has conducted conflict resolution and peace building workshops in many countries in the world, her most recent project being to facilitate a dialogue between indigenous (Mapuche) and non-indigenous people in Chile. She was awarded the Morton Deutsch Award for Research in Conflict Resolution by the American Psychological Association, Washington, in 2011. She has also been made a member of the Order of Australia for theoretical contributions her discipline and for the practical prevention of violence through promoting conflict resolution in the community. Her extensive experience of supervising the research of under-graduate and post-graduate psychology students who wished to make a contribution to the prevention of violence and promotion of peace, within the Psychology Department at the University of Melbourne, informs the proposed book.

Siew Fang Law is of Chinese Malaysian descent and received her education in four continents. She is a Senior Lecturer and teaches in conflict resolution and peace at Victoria University, Australia.  Her doctoral education was in culture and conflict resolution at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. She completed her Masters of Science in Social Psychology at the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK and Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at St Marys University, Canada.  Prior receiving her tenure position at Victoria University, she worked a consultant for international organizations such as UNDP and UNESCO in Southeast Asia and had taught at RMIT. She researches in cross-disciplinary issues that fall into the intersections of  culture and conflict resolution, identity, post-colonialism, community development and peacebuilding. She is a nationally Accredited Mediator in Australia and a committee member of the Committee for the Psychological Study of Peace