Kesi Mahendran's OpenLearn Profile

I am a social and political psychologist, based in the School of Psychology, who joined the Open University in 2007. I am a social and political psychologist interested in the dialogue between citizens and theirgovernments onvexed political questions where it is not always possible to arrive at a consensus.To research this I use a dialogical approach, inspired by the Russian ethical philsopher Bakhtin, which enables me to go beyond public opinion surveys and towards public dialogue.In this sense I am interested in working towards a more dialogical democracy. To develop a dialogical psychology Idraw from a wide range of political science and social and polititcal psychological fieldsincluding deliberative democracies studies, post-humanity, sexualisation studies, crowd psychology, motivated reasoning, social representations and social identity studies. Myresearchlooks atmigration-mobility, non-mobility, citizenship and belonging - mostly but not exclusively - within an European context. OnefieldI have focused on, which has become highly topicial, isthe public's relationshipwith the parameters of the European Union Project. Here I look at European and global citizenship, as well as Cityzens (city identities), national identities, post-national identities and post-human identities. I'm on Twitter @DrKesiMOpen