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Kesi Mahendran is a social psychologist who works on migration-mobility, non-mobility, belonging, integration and citizenship. Her current interests include public perceptions and the dialogue between citizens, public policy and governments. She was a senior analyst in the Scottish Government who joined the Open University in 2007 and currently co-directs the Enactments research programme within the Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance alongside Engin Isin. She is the Mid-Life Review Chair of DD307 Social Psychology: Critical Perspectives of Self and Others.

Qualifications

BSc (Hons) Behavioural Sciences (Huddersfield 1989)
MSc (Econ) in Social Psychology (London School of Economics 1997)
PhD in Psychology (Stirling 2002) entitled ‘Gainful Unemployment: Introducing a dialogical psychology of unemployment’.

Kesi Mahendran has taught adults Psychology since 1991, at Southwark College (Waterloo), University of Stirling, University of Edinburgh and the Open University.

Kesi Mahendran joined the Scottish Government in 2002 carrying out, commissioning and managing social research and analysis in Enterprise & Lifelong Learning (Glasgow 2002-4) and International Relations (Edinburgh 2004-6). She joined the Open University in January 2007.

Professional affiliations

Chartered Psychologist and an Associate Fellow of British Psychological Society
Member of the Social Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society.
Member of the International Society of Political Psychologists
Member of the Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance, Open University

Course development and teaching

I am currently chairing the mid-life review of the third level course Social psychology: critical perspectives on self and others (DD307). I am involved in the pre-production of third level of the new Psychology curriculum. Finally, I am also involved in the production of the new interdisciplinary level two course titled The uses of social science (DD206).

Research interests

Current research projects relate to:

• Migration, Integration & Citizenship within European Union
• Dialogical approaches to understanding the relationship between citizens and governments
• New dynamics in public perceptions
• Social psychological processes relating to self-other relations, categorisation and reification
• Narratives of European citizenship

Placing Ourselves – investigating categories of belonging and integration (2012 - 2013)

Despite decades of research-policy dialogue integration remains a contested concept with very little consensus on how it can be claimed and enacted.

Kesi Mahendran is co-ordinating a MMIIDA Network Collaborative European Project which is developing an understanding of how key categories relating to two concepts - ‘belonging’ and ‘integration’ - are conceptualised, reified and enacted in six European cities. This empirical study is in collaboration with Caroline Howarth, London School of Economics, Ima Jackson, Glasgow Caledonian University, Nicola Magnusson, Dusseldorf – Open University, Catarina Nyberg – Stockholm University, Munirah Olton, Salongo Arts, London, Sarah Scuzzarello, City University, London & Thomas Winman, University-West Trollhatten, Sweden. Fieldwork began in May 2012 taking place in Gothenburg, Dublin, Glasgow and Dusseldorf. Findings from ‘Placing Ourselves’ will be available from mid-2013 onwards.

D-MIC EdinStock - Dialogues on migration, integration and citizenship - Edinburgh & Stockholm (2007-2009)

The D-MIC EdinStock study looked at integration and citizenship explicitly framed within the context of the European Union’s Common Basic Principles (CBPs). According to the European Union’s CPBs (2004) ‘Integration is a dynamic process of two-way accommodation by all immigrants and residents of member states’. The Stockholm programme’s (2010-2014) efforts to consolidate the EU framework on integration point to the need to gather citizen’s perceptions of immigration and integration in order to understand this two-way process. There is a relative paucity of empirical evidence in this area. The D-MIC study aimed to contribute to this understanding. It involved fieldwork with migrants and non-migrants in Edinburgh and Stockholm.

The Migration-Mobility Continuum

Dialogical analysis of D-MIC EdinStock found that, rather than speaking as ‘migrant’ or ‘non-migrant’, participants conceptualised their integration and citizenship from ten positions along a continuum. This has been termed the migration-mobility continuum (Mahendran 2013). The continuum ranges from at one end highly mobile/serial migrants who had not acquired receiving-member-state citizenship and were more likely to talk in terms of global citizenship through single-move naturalised migrants, along to returnees with some experience of temporary migration to ‘second-generation’ non-migrants with migrant parents, to finally, at the other end, settled non-migrants characterised by jus sanguinis citizenship and generational non-mobility. This analytical framework has been used to understand public perceptions of integration and narratives of European citizenship.

Understanding dialogue and enactment using a multi-level dialogical approach

Kesi Mahendran employs a dynamic and relational dialogical analysis that she has been developing on and off since 2003 (Mahendran 2003; 2009; 2012). This systematically analyses dialogue, reification and acts at four levels, (i) the dialogical self, (ii) the situated prosaic dialogue between people in their everyday lives as well as the framing that occurs in the dialogue between researcher and participant. (iii) the dialogics, in the Bakhtinian sense, that exist in people’s use of key concepts or ‘buzz words’ and finally (iv) the dialogical processes in how people make agentic use of social knowledge within public spheres, in the form of discourses and social representations to act, resist and re-work.

The MMIIDA Network – Migration, Multiculturalism, Integration and Identity – Dialogical Approaches

The MMIIDA Network was established in November 2008. This non-hierarchical network brings together a multi-disciplinary group of academics, practitioners & researchers interested in developing dialogical approaches to migration, multiculturalism, integration and identity.

The first scientific meeting of the MMIIDA Network was hosted by The Open University on 25/26 November 2009.

The second scientific meeting of MMIIDA Network was held on 13/14 September 2012 at City University, London co-hosted by City University and the Open University’s Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance (CCIG). Watch the videos of the two keynote dialogues.

The network currently consists of 30 members across 21 institutions and ten different countries, Cyprus, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, UK and the USA. If you would like to become a member please contact me.

Recent publications

A selection of my research publications can be viewed at The Open University's Open Research Online.

Mahendran, K (2013 -In Press) ‘A two-way process of accommodation’ public perceptions of integration along the migration-mobility continuum. In Umut Korkut, Gregg Bucken-Knapp, Aidan McGarry, Jonas Hinnfors & Helen Drake (edits) The Discourses & Politics of Migration in Europe. Europe in Transition Series, New York, Palgrave Macmillan.

Mahendran, K. (2012) Describing Childhood Intimacies. In Mark Banks & Clive Barnett (edits) The Uses of Social Science. Milton Keynes, Open University.

Dixon, J & Mahendran, K. (2012) Crowds. In Wendy Hollway, Helen Lucey, Ann Phoenix & Gail Lewis (edits) Social Psychology Matters. Milton Keynes, Open University.

Taylor S & Mahendran, K (2012) Introduction. In Darren Langdridge, Stephanie Taylor, Kesi Mahendran (edits) Critical Readings in Social Psychology. Milton Keynes, Open University

Mahendran, Kesi (2012). Introducing four psychologies of unemployment and their implications for intervention. In: Kieselbach, Thomas and Mannila, Simo eds. Unemployment, Precarious Work and Health - Research and Policy Issues. Germany: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 53–71.

Mahendran, Kesi and Cook, Deborah (2007) Young People's Views on Participation and Their Attitudes Towards the European Union : Building a Bridge Between Europe and its Citizens - Evidence Review Paper Three. Scottish Executive, Edinburgh, UK.

Mahendran, Kesi and Cook, Deborah (2007) Participation and Engagement in Politics and Policy Making:Building a Bridge Between Europe and its Citizens - Evidence Review Paper One. Scottish Executive, Edinburgh, UK.

Mahendran, Kesi and McIver, Iain (2007) Attitudes Towards the European Union and the Challenges in Communicating 'Europe': Building a Bridge Between Europe and its Citizens - Evidence Review Paper Two. Scottish Executive, Edinburgh, UK.

Mahendran, K (2004) Mapping Welfare to Work in Glasgow, unpublished report: Scottish Executive. Edinburgh.

Mahendran, Kesi (2003) The transition of a Scottish Young Persons Centre — a dialogical analysis. In: Rethinking Communicative Interaction: New Interdisciplinary Horizons. Pragmatics and Beyond New Series. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, pp. 235-256. ISBN 90-272-5358-7 & 978-90-272-5358-3.

Recent Conference Papers

Mahendran, K. Magnusson, N., Howarth, C., Scuzzarello, S. (2012) Reification and the Refugee: unsettling, resisting and re-working narrative categories. Paper to be presented at Narrative Matters, Paris 29 May -1st June 2012.

Mahendran, K (2011) ‘A two-way process of accommodation’ – perceptions of integration along the migration-mobility continuum in Scotland and Sweden. At The Politics of Migration: Citizenship, Inclusion and Discourse in Europe. November 10-11, 2011. A Joint Workshop of GCU Institute for Society and Social Justice, PSA Comparative European Politics, and French Politics Specialist Groups.

Mahendran, K. (2011) I-Positions on integration and positional capacity along the migration-mobility continuum. The British Psychological Society Social Psychology Section Conference Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, 6-8^th September 2011.

Mahendran, K. (2011) Being a European Union citizen: narratives of mobility along the migration-mobility continuum.  International Society of Political Psychology – 34th Scientific Meeting Cooperation and Human Societies: Towards a Multidisciplinary Political PsychologyBilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey 9-13 July 2011.

Mahendran, K. (2009) Keynote: Interculturality and mobility: the relevance of an intercultural approach in our globalising world. Intercultural competence: Adaptation and co-operation in multicultural environments – International Conference, Budapest, Hungary, November 18, 2009.

Mahendran, K.(2009) Dialogics of citizenship – migrant and non-migrant conceptions of citizenship in Edinburgh and Stockholm. At International Society of Political Psychology – 32nd Annual Scientific Meeting Overcoming Political Violence, Injustice and Deprivation: Perspectives from Political Psychology, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland 14-17 July 2009.

Mahendran, K.(2009) Conceptualisations of citizenship and integration along a migration-mobility continuum in Sweden and Scotland. At AHRC Diasporas, Migration and Identities Programme / CRONEM Conference 2009 Diasporas, Migration and Identities: Crossing Boundaries, New Directions. University of Surrey, 11-12 June 2009.

Mahendran, K.(2009) Conceptualisations of citizenship and integration along a migration-mobility continuum in Sweden and Scotland. At Implications of Migrant Citizenship Acquisition - IMISCOE B3 Workshop Malmö, Sweden, May 14-16, 2009.

Mahendran, K. (2008) Dialogues on migration, integration and citizenship & the spirited capacities of the self. The Fifth International Conference on the Dialogical Self, Queen’s College, University of Cambridge, 26-29 August 2008.

Mahendran, K & Magnusson, N. (2008) Encounters between migrants and non-migrants – dialogical I-positions of identification and disidentification in Edinburgh and Stockholm. Encounters & Intersections, St Catherine’s College, Oxford. 9-11 July 2008.

A repository of research publications and other research outputs can be viewed at The Open University's Open Research Online.

Last updated: 12 April 2013