Social Representations and Identity

Power, social positioning, identity, and social knowledge construction underpin most contemporary social issues. However, in many instances the topic of study is the issue itself which can lead to an implicit conceptualization of the issue as static, distinct and separablefrom the identity, and relationships, of the groups to whom the issue pertains. Explicitly drawing from the non-individualistic perspective offered by social representations theory, this book presents an alternative view of social identity by articulating the inseparable dynamic relationships that exist between content, process and power relations when social identity is embedded in social knowledge.
Social representations and Identity: Content, Process, and Power is an integrated collection of theoretically driven applied research by authors from United Kingdom, Europe, Israel, Australia, and North America that addresses salient social issues such as: immigration, refugees, ethnic and minority relations, national and supranational identity, health, and techno-political rationality.

Gail Moloney is a lecturer at the Department of Psychology at the Coffs Harbour campus of Southern Cross University, NSW, Australia. Her primary research interests are in social representations theory and social identity, community and the re-settlement of forced migrants, inter-group relations and social understandings of organ donation and transplantation. Her publications appear in internationally reviewed journals.

Iain Walker is a Professor of psychology at Murdoch University, in Perth, Western Australia. His research interests are diffused across several areas, including relative deprivation theory, prejudice, social representations, and social identity. He co-authored Social cognition: An integrated introduction (2nd ed., 2006) with Martha Augoustinos and Ngaire Donaghue, and co-edited Relative deprivation theory: Specification, development, integration (2002) with Heather Smith.