Samrat Kumar
Bio
Samrat Schmiem Kumar is a peace researcher, political scientist and philosopher. Born in India and raised in Europe, he comes from a multi-cultural setting as well as a multi-disciplinary educational and professional background. He holds a MA (Mag.phil.) in Political Science, Contemporary History and Philosophy (from the University of Innsbruck, Austria) and a MA in Peace, Development, Security and International Conflict Transformation (from UNESCO Peace Studies Program in University Innsbruck and Castelln, Spain). Kumar is currently co-editing a Volume on peace work in South Asia, and he is writing a book on the Indian tradition of Bhakti yoga and its understanding of man, peace and divinity, which will be published in affiliation to the UNESCO Peace Studies Program. He is at the moment situated in Oslo, Norway, where he is working as an Academic Project Coordinator for the International BA course in Peace and Conflict Studies hosted by Culture Studies/Hogskolen in Oslo, taking place in Pondicherry, India. Besides his academic and professional background in Peace Studies, Kumar has worked for many years as a human rights and asylum counsellor in Austria. Further, he is on a personal level engaged in studying and practising spiritual and energetical traditions from East and West and is especially re-searching within those narratives on the notions of peace(s).