Westminster Political Psychology Conference

The School of Social Sciences invites you to join its first conference on Political Psychology.

Location

University of Westminster, Pavilion, New Cavendish Street, London W1W 6UW

Conference programme

• 9–9.15am: Registration, coffee
   
• 9.15-9.30am: Welcome: Dr Peter Bonfield, Vice Chancellor, Professor Dibyesh Anand, Head of School of Social Sciences, Professor Catherine Loveday from the University of Westminster
   
• 9.30–11am: Round table: What political psychology do we need? Concepts methods and questions allowing reflexivity and critical revision
  
  Chair: Alan Porter, Assistant Head of School of Social Sciences and Dr Thalia Magioglou (University of Westminster)
  
  Speakers:
  • Professor Helen Haste (Emerita, University of Bath): Where to with Political Psychology?
  • Dr Thalia Magioglou (University of Westminster): Justice and Democracy as Hegemonic Social Representations generating controversy
  • Dr Farhang Morady (DEN, University of Westminster): The Democratic Education Network (DEN) at UoW, a staff-student extra-curricular project with a new approach to democratic practices in higher education. (TBC)
  • Ilyass Jalloh (University of Westminster): How political psychology has tied into the Rwanda Asylum Plan announced by Boris Johnson. A personal perspective as a Second-Generation immigrant
  • Dr Francesca Esposito (University of Westminster): Gendered Violence and Border Regimes: when the perpetrator becomes the state
  • Luca Tateo (University of Oslo) (Online): Tools and methods from Cultural Psychology
  • Dr Pina Marsico (University of Salerno): The perspective of Developmental Psychology
  • Reflection from Dr Kyoko Murakami (Bath University) and Jishan Udin (University of Westminster)
     
• 11–11.15am: Coffee break
   
• 11.15am–12pm: Chair: Bryan Bonaparte (University of Westminster)
  
   a) Truth, (Dis)Information and Authoritarianism
  • Dr Rotem Perach (UoW): Reasons given by Twitter users for sharing false political information
  • Laura Joyner, Professor Tom Buchanan, Dr Orkun Yetkili (UoW): Ideology, not partisanship, may explain differences in moral evaluations of disinformation
  • Dr Nitasha Kaul, Professor Tom Buchanan (University of Westminster): Authoritarianism, Misogyny, Climate Change
  • Reflection: Karen Farhat (University of Westminster), Lise Moawadli (Humboldt Universitat zu Berlin, Germany) and Dr Kevin Carriere (Washington & Jefferson College, USA)
• 12-1pm:
  
  b) Political stakeholders and hegemonic representations in diverse cultural and political contexts
  • Professor Pippa Catterall (University of Westminster)
    Title: Are Prime Ministers extroverts? Does it matter?
  • Professor Gerda Wielander (University of Westminster)
    Title: Happiness as Coercion in Contemporary China
  • Dr Orkun Yetkili (University of Westminster)
    Title: Common Ingroup Identity and Intergroup Relations in Cyprus
  • Dr Nur Agdelen | Bahçeşehir Cyprus University 
    Title: Common Ingroup Identity and Intergroup Relations in Cyprus 
  • Reflection: Kevon Jones (University of Westminster) and Dr Benjamin Bowman (Manchester Metropolitan University)
     
• 1–2pm: Lunch
   
• 2–3pm: Workshop with conversation on three main Political Psychology questions
  • What should a future Degree in Political Psychology include?
  • ​​Online connection with the international network of the Kitchen Seminar (coordinated by Professor Luca Tateo and Dr Pina Marsico. Link to Join on Google Meet (from 1.50pm)
     
• 3–3.15pm: Coffee break
   
• 3.15–4.45pm: Roundtable: Challenging Contemporary Cultures of Othering
  
  Chair: Dr Nitasha Kaul (University of Westminster)
  
  Speakers:
  • Professor Miriam Dwek (University of Westminster) – Agendas of diversity and inclusion
  • Professor Dibyesh Anand (University of Westminster) - Queer vulnerability as strength
  • Professor Damien Ridge (University of Westminster) – From stigmatisation to care in health
  • Dr Nitasha Kaul (UoW) - Reasons, passions and contradictions in democracies
     
• 4.45-5pm: Closing remarks: Professor Dibyesh Anand (University of Westminster)

Speakers

Dr Nur Agdelen

Dr Nur Agdelen (PhD, Istanbul University) is a lecturer in Psychology at the Bahcesehir Cyprus University, Cyprus. Her research interests include social identity, intergroup relations, Cyprus issue. 

Professor Dibyesh Anand

Professor Dibyesh Anand is the Head of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Westminster. He has been elected as the nominee for Staff Governor by academic colleagues. He is the author of monographs "Geopolitical Exotica: Tibet in Western Imagination” and “Hindu Nationalism in India and the Politics of Fear” and has spoken about, and published on, varied topics including Tibet, China-India border dispute, Hindu nationalism, Islamophobia, and conflict in Kashmir. He is the Co-Chair of Westminster BME Network and identifies as queer in personal and political terms. He is also a co-chair of University's EDI (Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion) Committee.

Bryan Bonaparte

Bryan Bonaparte is a Senior Lecturer in Social Education and Clinical Psychology at the University of Westminster. His research interests include exploration of toxicity in the ways in which masculinity is defined and socially constructed. He is co-investigator on the Society for Research in Higher Education project ‘Developing Compassionate Pedagogy with Students as Co-researchers’. Bryan is co-founder of Psychology at the Movies where psychology is discussed via the subjective lens of popular films.

Dr Peter Bonfield

Dr Peter Bonfield is the Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Westminster.

Dr Benjamin Bowman

Dr Benjamin Bowman is Senior Lecturer at the Manchester Centre for Youth Studies. Benjamin is an interdisciplinary researcher with an interest in young people’s politics, young people’s activism and the place of young people in democratic society. His ESRC-funded PhD in young people’s everyday politics was awarded in 2016 at the University of Bath.

Professor Tom Buchanan

Professor Tom Buchanan is Professor of Psychology at the University of Westminster. Much of his research has centred on how people present themselves in various online spaces, factors affecting how they engage with online technologies, and potential influences of online stimuli on our behaviour. Most of his current work deals with factors influencing interactions with false material online.

Dr Kevin Carriere

Dr Kevin Carriere is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, PA, USA. He was the James Marshall Public Policy Postdoctoral Fellow for the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, working as a Policy Advisor for then Congresswoman Deb Haaland of New Mexico’s 1st District. His research interests include increasing intergroup contact through disrupting meta-perceptions, effects of intergroup threat and perceived control on restricting human rights, the motivations and identity formation of collective action, and the perception and reactions to performative and structural activism. His most recent book, Psychology in Policy: Redefining Politics Through the Individual (Springer) examines how an individual focused psychology can inform public policy. His edited books include Where culture and mind meet: Principles for a dynamic cultural psychology and imagining collective futures: Perspectives from social, cultural, and political psychology. He is the Editorial Director of Culture & Psychology, Editor of the Virtual Series Issues for the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and an Associate Editor of Current Psychology.

Professor Pippa Catterall

Professor Pippa Catterall is Professor of History and Policy at the University of Westminster, Editor of National Identities, and Chair of the George Lansbury Memorial Trust. She has written extensively on British political, diplomatic and business history, including editing Harold Macmillan’s diaries for publication in two volumes in 2003 and 2011. She is currently working on a monograph about Macmillan, strategy and statecraft.

Professor Miriam Dwek

Professor Miriam Dwek read a BSc in Applied Biology, in part-time mode, whilst working at Smith & Nephew Medical, Hull. On graduation she joined the biotech company Oxford Glycosystems as a Manufacturing Scientist. Oxford Glycosystems was the first spin-out company from the University of Oxford and subsequently became part of the CellTech group. Her PhD was undertaken at UCL Medical School in the Department of Surgery. After two periods of post-doctoral work she moved to the University of Westminster and set up her own lab where she has been based since 2002. Miriam established the Cancer Research Group at the University of Westminster in 2011 and the MSc Biomedical Sciences Cancer Biology Pathway. She has been a passionate exponent of equality and diversity issues having juggled her career whilst having children and both herself and partner working full time. She established and led the Diversity and Inclusion Research Community for the University of Westminster from 2019–21. In this endeavour she brought together researchers working on this topic across the entire University of Westminster. Miriam is the Director for the College for Research and Knowledge Exchange.

Dr Francesca Esposito

Dr Francesca Esposito completed her PhD in community psychology at the ISPA University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal, and is currently a Lecturer at the School of Social Sciences at University of Westminster. Her research focuses on immigration detention in Italy, Portugal and the UK, and, in particular, on the gendered and racialised experiences of women confined inside detention sites. Francesca is also a member of the feminist NGO BeFree (Rome, Italy), as well as of other anti-detention and noborder collectives. She worked several years as an advocate for women survivors of gendered violence, including women confined inside Rome’s immigration detention centre. 

Karen Farhat

Karen Farhat is studying for a Master’s in Multimedia Journalism at the UoW. She has majored in Media and Communication at the American University of Beirut (Lebanon) and has trained at Publicis Media Group and in Programmatic and offline Media as well as at the Radio Liban Station. 

Debs Harris

Debs Harris is the Psychology Administrator at the University of Westminster. 

Professor Helen Haste

Professor Helen Haste is Professor Emerita in Psychology at the University of Bath and was a Visiting Professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education 2003–2018. Haste also holds honorary visiting positions at the University of Exeter, the Hong Kong Institute of Education, and the University of Jinan China. She is a British social, developmental, and cultural psychologist and a writer and broadcaster. Her work is based on a theory of culture and the individual that addresses language, rhetoric and metaphor. She uses both qualitative and quantitative methods. Her data sources are international, including the UK, China, South Africa and Europe. She is the author or editor of six books and over 150 scholarly papers. Haste is a recipient of two of the International Society of Political Psychology's career awards, the Sanford Award and the Knutson Award, and the Association for Moral Education's Kuhmerker Award for her lifetime contribution to the field of moral development. She is a Fellow of the British Academy of Social Science, the British Psychological Society and the Royal Society of Arts. She has been a frequent contributor to broadcasting and public media.

Ilyass Jalloh

Ilyass Jalloh is a second year Psychology student at the University of Westminster, who has a keen interest in global affairs and Political Psychology. As a second-generation immigrant, she has dedicated a lot of her spare time into researching how political psychology has tied into the Rwanda Asylum Plan.

Laura Joyner

Laura Joyner is a third year Doctoral Researcher in Psychology at the University of Westminster, and former marketing and communications professional. Her PhD research looks at why people might spread disinformation on social media platforms, with a focus on social identity and moral reasoning.

Ilyass Jalloh

Ilyass Jalloh is a Second Year Psychology student at the University of Westminster, who has a keen interest in global affairs and Political Psychology. As a second-generation immigrant, she has dedicated a lot of her spare time into researching how political psychology has tied into the Rwanda Asylum Plan. 

Kevon Jones

Kevon Jones is a second year PhD researcher at the University of Westminster. His research looks at Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the struggle for African Liberation and Self-Determination in the UK.

Dr Nitasha Kaul

Dr Nitasha Kaul (PhD, MSc, BA Hons) is a multidisciplinary academic, novelist, poet, artist, and economist. She holds a joint doctorate in Economics and Philosophy (2003) and an MSc in Economics with a specialisation in public policy (1998) from the University of Hull, and a BA (Honours) in Economics from SRCC, University of Delhi. She is an Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster. She has previously been an Associate Professor in Creative Writing in Bhutan and an Assistant Professor in Economics at the Bristol Business School.

She has published on themes concerning international relations, democracy, political economy, technology/AI, identity, rise of right-wing nationalism, feminist and postcolonial critiques, small states, Bhutan, India and Kashmir.  She is the recipient of multiple research grants and awards for her research and writing. She is the author of over 140 publications, including seven single-authored or edited scholarly and literary books, book chapters in numerous critical and ground-breaking edited collections, plus peer-reviewed original research articles in numerous journals across humanities and social science disciplines. She has wide recognition as a public intellectual and has delivered invited lectures and keynotes at universities, institutions, and policy-making bodies around the world, addressing diverse audiences within and outside academia.  For more information on her work and to connect with Nitasha read Nitasha Kaul's CV.

Professor Catherine Loveday

Professor Catherine Loveday is a lecturer and teaching fellow on the Cognitive Neuroscience BSc and Psychology BSc programmes at the University of Westminster. Her particular teaching interests lie in neuropsychology, neuroscience, neuropharmacology, cognitive psychology and psychology of music. She has a keen interest in innovative assessment practices and an enthusiasm for the effective use of technology to enhance learning. Following a PhD in the neuropsychology of memory and ageing, Catherine has continued to focus on the nature of normal and impaired memory and much of her current research focuses on the neuropsychology of autobiographical memory. She has a passion for public engagement with science and is regularly invited to give public lectures at festivals, community events and in schools. Catherine is author of "The Secret World of the Brain" and frequently appears as an expert psychologist on BBC Radio 4's All In The MInd, as well as many other radio and television programmes. Catherine recently founded Centre for Psychological Sciences at the University of Westminster.

Dr Thalia Magioglou

Dr Thalia Magioglou is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Westminster. She works on Democracy, Justice and Human Rights as Hegemonic Social Representations as well as young adults’ conceptions of future aspirations and challenges from a qualitative research perspective. Her work has been published in Culture and Psychology, European Psychologist and Cahiers Internationaux de Psychologie Sociale. She has created a network of political psychology in the FMSH, Paris, and co-authored the collective volume “Culture and Political Psychology: a Societal Perspective”, Infoage Publishers in 2014.  

Dr Pina Marsico

Dr Pina Marsico is Associate Professor of Development and Educational Psychology at the University of Salerno (Italy), Visiting Professor at Ph.D Programme in Psychology, Federal University of Bahia, (Brazil), Visiting Professor at East China Normal University and Associate Professor II at University of Oslo. She is President Elect of the American Psychological Association-Division 52 International Psychology and President Elect of the European Society of Psychology Learning and Teaching (ESPLAT).

She is a 20 years' experienced researcher, with a proven international research network. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Book Series Cultural Psychology of Education (Springer), Latin American Voices - Integrative Psychology and Humanities (Springer), co-editor of SpringerBriefs Psychology and Cultural Developmental Sciences (together with Jaan Valsiner) and Annals of Cultural Psychology: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind and Society (InfoAge Publishing, N.C.,U.S., together with Carlos Cornejo e Jaan Valsiner). She is also co-editor of Human Arenas. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Psychology, Culture and Meaning (Springer) and of Trends in Psychology (Springer), Associate Editor of Cultural & Psychology Journal (Sage) and Social Psychology of Education (Springer), and member of the editorial board of several international academic journals (IPBS- Integrative Psychological & Behavioural Science, Springer). Her academic tracks and list of publications include two complementary lines of investigations: 1) an educational-focused research activity where Professor Marsico is the leading figure of the new field of Cultural Psychology of Education; 2) a cultural oriented interdisciplinary perspective based on both theoretical and empirical investigation, focusing on the borders as a new ontogenetic perspective in psychology and other social sciences. Professor Marsico has established a new research field called Developmental Mereotopology.

Lise Moawad

Lise Moawad finished her studies in Politics and Public Administration (M.A.) at the Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris I) and the Universität Konstanz as well as her M.A. in German Studies at the Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV). Her two master's theses focused on federalism - whether it has been understood as a principle of state organisation or as a historical fact - through the example of German cultural and educational policy. She then worked for two years for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MEAE) as Policy Officer for Language and Education Cooperation at the French Embassy in Berlin. Since November 2020, Lise Moawad has been working for the project "Diversity and Adaptability of Peer Review" at the Robert-K.-Merton Centre (HU Berlin).

Dr Farhang Morady

Dr Farhang Morady is a Principal Lecturer in International Relations and Development at the University of Westminster, with multi-award winning teaching and research experience of 28 years. He has pioneered and directed various extra-curricular, staff-student projects, including the Democratic Education Network (DEN). DEN was a runner-up for the Students' Experience Award at the prestigious Guardian University Awards. His general research interest is international political economy and development, particularly the interplay between the global economy and politics and its impact on the state and development in the Middle East. He is currently working on the effects of the recent transition in the international political economy on the role and behaviour of the Iranian state at the regional and international levels.

Dr Kyoko Murakami

Dr Kyoko Murakami has worked as Associate Professor in Psychology at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.  Her research focuses on aspects of cognition such as learning, identity and memory, examining language use and social relations in practices of education and discourses of remembering. Her research draws on Discursive Psychology, Cultural Psychology and Discourse Analysis and other qualitative approaches including ethnography. Dr Murakami’s recent projects and publications relevant to educational research include internationalisation in a Danish University and an edited book titled Dialogic Pedagogy (2016). Since 1998 she has been researching on international reconciliation practices such as war grave pilgrimages by British veterans (e.g., 2014, under review), family reminiscence as memory practice (2017), materiality of memory (2017) and intergenerational succession of memories of catastrophes and disasters in Japan (in progress).  She is an editorial board member for Culture & Psychology and a review editor for Dialogic Pedagogy and Frontier in Psychology.

Dr Rotem Perach

Dr Rotem Perach is an applied social and health psychology researcher whose research interests include misinformation, facemasks, decision-making, self-regulation, and public health. RP received his PhD from the University of Kent, and worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Goldsmiths, University of London, and University of Sussex. Currently, he is a Senior Research Fellow in the University of Westminster. 

Alan Porter

Alan Porter is the Assistant Head of the School of Social Sciences. His main research interest is in the genealogy of psychological theories. He is currently working on a textbook that will help undergraduate psychology students understand the historical/philosophical background of current theoretical and methodological disputes and controversies in the social/behavioural sciences. He is particularly interested in trying to understand where social psychology is positioned in these disputes and controversies. He also has a long-standing interest in the psychology of learning and teaching, conducting research in the areas of learning styles, student expectations and student approaches to studying.

Professor Damien Ridge

Professor Damien Ridge specialises in user/patient experiences of mental health and chronic health conditions, with a strong background in researching and developing NHS interventions. He has previously worked at the University of Oxford, where he fleshed out for the first time what recovery from depression entailed for patients. The National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (NICE) subsequently adopted Ridge & Ziebland's (2006) research on recovery extensively in their guidance on the treatment and management of depression in adults in the UK (2010, 2021). His Atlas model for treating men in distress in the NHS was a finalist in the BMJ Awards 2015 (Primary Care). With 18 doctoral completions, over 100 publications, and i10-index of 61 and h-index of 32, he is a former Trustee of the CALM male anti-suicide charity. He is currently funded by the NIHR to investigate new NHS psychological treatments for living with cancer, Long-Covid and chatbots for sexual health.

Professor Luca Tateo

Professor Luca Tateo is a Professor in Theory, Epistemology and Methodology of Qualitative Research at the Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo, Norway. His research area is cultural psychology; with particular focus on human development and education; decolonizing and epistemic injustice; imaginative processes, art and affect. He is also affiliated professor at the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil. He is Co-Chair of the International Environmental Justice Committee and the Webinar Committee of Division 52 International Psychology, American Psychological Association. He is co-editor in chief of the Journal “Human Arenas. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Psychology, Culture, and Meaning”, Springer, and he is Editor-in-Chief of the book series “Innovations in Qualitative Research”, Information Age Publishing, USA.

Jishan Uddin

Jishan Uddin is a PhD student at the University of Westminster. His research aims to incorporate stories of how those at the lower end of the migrant division of labour in London - Uber drivers and University of London cleaners - won their respective industrial action to claim better employment rights and statuses. It will specifically examine the role that collective identification played for these populations that are seemingly distinct but connected by commonalities of their stories of marginalisation within the wider context of globalised neoliberalism. His own journey to the intersection of Psychology and Politics has been a quarter of a century in the making - from psychometric testing strongly suggesting forging a career in either discipline as a school leaver to many years as a language teacher, teacher trainer and educational content producer with quite a bit of political activism thrown in the mix. Happily, challenging power imbalance, racial injustice and dominant narratives of 'business as usual' have all been ever present companions along the way.    

Professor Gerda Wielander

Professor Gerda Wielander is a Professor of Chinese Studies and Associate Head of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Westminster, providing leadership across Humanities, Social Sciences, Law, and Life Sciences in relation to Employability, Global Engagement, and Knowledge Exchange, working closely with heads of school and professional service teams to implement the University’s strategy in relation to these key areas. She is also devising strategies for outreach work and public and community engagement and contribute to new interdisciplinary course development. Her research focuses on the link between the personal and spiritual to wider social and political developments in China. She has published on various different aspects of Christian thought and belief in contemporary China, on social organisations, and on the meaning of socialism in the Chinese context. Her current projects include an exploration of happiness and the Chinese socialist project (including Chinese understandings of the mind in a historical perspective), the use of "faith" in contemporary Chinese political discourse, and signifying practices in post-socialist China. Together with colleagues at the University of Westminster and the Westminster International University in Tashkent, she is also working on a project on the reception and effect of the Belt Road Initiative in Uzbekistan. She is editor of the British Journal of Chinese Studies as well as Director of Westminster's Contemporary China Centre.

Dr Orkun Yetkili

Dr Orkun Yetkili (PhD, University of Kent) is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Westminster, UK. His research interests include the social psychology of deviance, attachment, and developing interventions to reduce prejudice and discrimination.