University of California, Santa Cruz

Faculty Member, Psychology

Assistant Professor

College 10

About

My research broadly investigates identity development in cultural, social, and political contexts. I am also interested in larger paradigmatic issues in cultural, social, and political psychology and seek to contribute to theory development in these fields of social science inquiry.

I have three active research programs that speak to these interests:

Narrative, Identity, and Political Conflict

This area of research focuses on identity in settings of intractable political conflict, with an emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Based on several years of field research with Israeli and Palestinian youth and their families, I have contributed to the growing body of social science research that examines the role of personal and collective narratives in the maintenance and reproduction of conflict. This program of research has also been concerned with the process and outcome of peace education programs for Israeli and Palestinian youth modeled upon intergroup contact theory. Thus in this research I have sought to integrate an applied approach to producing knowledge that can be used in practical settings with a commitment to theory development in psychology and the social sciences more broadly.

Sexual Identity and Society

My second area of research examines the social and political context of sexual identity. A major interest in this work is in the historical and cultural specificity of sexual identity. In other words, I am interested in variability in sexual identity development based on time and place. I am particularly interested in the way in which contemporary same-sex attracted youth make meaning of desire and engage with a received taxonomy of sexual identity.

Paradigm and Theory in the Social Sciences

A third area of systematic inquiry examines the use of paradigms in social science research, with a particular focus on the concept of “culture” in psychological research. I identify as a cultural psychologist and am thus interested in how psychology has used the idea of culture as a theoretical and empirical tool to investigate diversity in thought, feeling, and action. I am also interested in issues of theory and paradigm within the interdisciplinary field of political psychology.

Other Research Areas

In addition to these primary areas of research, I am interested in supporting emerging scholarship on issues related to social justice and social psychology, youth and political violence, cultural psychology, narrative psychology, critical psychology, liberation psychology, the psychology of oppression, the psychology of colonialism, pluralism and intergroup relations, and person-centered or idiographic approaches in psychology. I am also interested in historical studies of the discipline of psychology and in the use of qualitative methods in psychology (particularly ethnography, discourse analysis, and interpretive or hermeneutic approaches to narrative analysis).

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