Canon Dr Sanjee Perera

Canon Dr Sanjee Perera is a Cognitive Psychologist and Theologian and serves as the lecturer in Mission and Evangelism at Cranmer Hall. She is also an Honorary Canon of Liverpool Cathedral, and holds fellowships In Theology & Religion at the University of Durham, the University of Chester and an associate fellowship at the Open University School of Law. She was previously the Archbishops’ Adviser for Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns in the Church of England and has spent the last couple of decades in academia teaching and researching in Psychology, Sociology, and Philosophy, Theology and Religion departments. She is also trustee and governor of several charities, including the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK), the Overseas Bishopric Fund and the College of Catholic Anglican Women.

She has a BA Combined (Hons) in Psychology & Sociology with Theology from the University of Liverpool and a PhD in Psychology exploring the relationship between ethno-social identity and moral development, judgement, and decision-making in societies experiencing violent conflict.

Missional Engagement

Sanjee brings a rich array of missiological perspectives to offer our curriculum and has experience in teaching missiology, ecclesiology, post-colonial theology, practical theology, science and religion, research methods, and the psychology/sociology of religion in several TEIs in the UK and beyond. Her mission and evangelism experience spans a number of continents from youth and children’s ministry in CPAS camps and in her local churches to mission ventures with CMS in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan in the Afghan border, to beach mission in her native Sri Lanka. She has worked with the Church of England Mission & Evangelism team and was a member of the Church of England Vision & Strategy team in its early iterations.

Research & Teaching Experience

Sanjee has taught across several universities and departments. The first decade of her academic teaching career was based in the faculty of Life sciences within Psychology, with a focus on interdisciplinary teaching across cognitive science, sociology, political science, identity studies, family studies, and PGCE and education studies at the University of Liverpool, Liverpool Hope University and St Edward’s College.

Her more recent research focus has been framed by the scientific study of religious behaviours with a focus on systemic issues that affect religiosity. When she moved to the Philosophy, Theology & Religion Department at the University of Birmingham, her interdisciplinary (UG & PG) teaching included topics in theology and global politics, theology and music, and theology, religion & the digital age, among others. Her teaching there also included curating and developing curriculum for the national Faith Leader Training Initiative, which was commissioned and funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government as a key aspect of the Government’s Integrated Communities Action Plan. Her most recent large scale research project was the Minority Anglicanism Project at the University of Birmingham, investigating how the Church of England navigates race, belonging and inclusion and the cognitive impact of racialised ecclesial spaces on marginalised peoples.

At Coventry University she designed a British Academy funded research project which piloted a venture to identify the human, financial and organisational impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Faith-Based Organisation service sector in Britain. This pioneering project attempted to identify

the causal, consequential, contextual and strategic issues experienced by the sector, and to assess initial and projected short to medium-term impacts on these geo-mapped FBOs and their services.

She has also worked with the Open University Law team and the Citizenship & Governance team in developing four interdisciplinary projects to explore issues around pedagogy in law and the development of ethical traits in clinical law curriculum, Eurocentric patrimony, public understanding of law, racial and moral justice issues and the evolution of English & Welsh law parallel to social justice movements.

Sanjee can be contacted by emailing sanjeevani.perera2@durham.ac.uk