Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance

The Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance (CCIG) is a University designated Centre of Research Excellence

CCIG › Research

Psycho-Social

© oscurecido - Fotolia.com

© oscurecido - Fotolia.com

We see the social and the psychological as both inseparable and individual forces that produce each other and our research gives equal emphasis to both.

About the programme

We map out the ways in which social, cultural, historical, and material factors help to produce and are part of subjective and psychological phenomena and, conversely, look at how social, cultural and material worlds are made up from phenomena that are, in some measure, subjective and psychological.

This makes for a diverse set of topics and methodological approaches that delivers work of real value and direct relevance to the lived reality of people in communities, families, and practitioners.

The issues we address are wide ranging, covering: sexualities, individual and collective identities, affects and emotions, memories and remembrances. Examples include:

  • psychoanalytic perspectives on creativity
  • learning and knowing
  • discursive approaches to memory in historical contexts (holocaust) and in relation to trauma and witnessing
  • paradoxes confronted by medical or legal practitioners in decision making
  • The interrelation between racialised/gendered subjectivity and material and policy object.

The programme also has strong international links and we host, co-host or are closely involved with a number of leading journals, such as the European Journal of Women’s Studies, Feminism and Psychology, Journal of Visual Culture, Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, Psychology & Sexuality, Studies in the Maternal. 

We are also actively involved in a range of national and international research networks, including: the Psychosocial Studies Network, the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society, Critical Sexology, and the International Research Group for Psycho-Societal Analysis.

Programme Directors

Johanna Motzkau and Paul Stenner (assisted by Megan Clinch)

Research highlights

CCIG welcomes Ana Varela-Rey

Ana Varela-Rey is a visiting PhD student from Barcelona working on ETA and the legitimization of violence.

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Being in the Zone: funded by an AHRC Research Network Grant

A new AHRC Research Network Grant for Prof Kath Woodward (The Open University) together with Dr Tim Jordan (King’s College London) on the theme of ‘peak experience’ or ‘being in the zone’ in music, sport and work.

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The Bisexuality Report

The Bisexuality Report, by Meg Barker and Rebecca Jones

The Bisexuality Report summarises national and international evidence and draws out recommendations for future bisexual inclusion in many different settings.

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