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 separable from 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.

Introduction–Gail Moloney & Iain Walker * Moving People and Shifting Representations. Making Immigrant Identities–Kay Deaux & Shaun Wiley *
Social Representations of Alterity in the United States–Gina Philogène * Identity Representations within Israeli Society: A Kaleidoscope of Minority Phenomena–
Emda Orr *Social Representations and the Politically Satirical Cartoon: The Construction and Reproduction of the Refugee and Asylum-Seeker Identity–Gail Moloney * A Narrative Theory of History and Identity: Social Identity, Social Representations, Society and the Individual–James Liu & Janos László *
Representing ‘Us’ and ‘Them’: Constructing White Identities in Everyday Talk–
Martha Augoustinos  & Damien Riggs * “It’s Not Their Fault that They Have that Colour Skin, Is It?” Young British Children and the Possibilities for Contesting Racializing Representations–Caroline Howarth * Conceptions and Misconceptions: Social Representations of Medically Assisted Reproduction–
Iain Walker, Pia Broderick & Helen Correia * Inviolable Versus Alterable Identities: Culture, Biotechnology and Resistance–Nicole Kronberger & Wolfgang Wagner * Self-Control, Identity and Risk–Helene Joffe * Social Identities and Social Representations: How Are They Related?–Ivana Marková