Further Particulars

This document includes information about the role for which you are applying and the information you will need to provide with the application.

1.  Role details

Vacancy reference: 7584
Job title: Research Associate
Reports to: Head of Department of Psychology
Salary: £29,972 – £31,798 per annum according to
qualifications and experience
Terms and conditions: Academic and Research Staff
Grade: AC2
Duration of post: Temporary 24 month contract
Working hours: Full-time - 37 hours per week
Location: Walton Hall, Milton Keynes
Closing date: 12 noon on Thursday 01 December 2011
Type of application form accepted: Full version
Number of referees required: 3
Unit recruitment contact: The Recruitment Co-ordinator 01908 654483,
email
2. Summary of duties
Main duties of the post:
To work as a Research Associate on the OU funded project Transdisciplinary Psychosocial Approaches to Paradoxes in the Process of Practice: Transforming tensions between logics of care, justice and health. The project involves a team that includes Professor Paul Stenner and Dr Johanna Motzkau (OU Psychology) and Dr Monica Greco (Goldsmiths College, University of London). The duties will include:
(1) Identifying and mapping a small number (no more than 3) of related practice domains that will provide the objects for a detailed study of practice as process. Broadly, these will be situated in the areas of child welfare and justice and of medically unexplained symptoms. Final decisions on these sites would be made early in the course of the RAship in collaboration with the postholder.
(2) Conducting preliminary scoping research on these domains, including literature reviews (e.g. researching the history of debates, policy provision and intervention relevant to the selected sites) and interviews with key actors.
(3) Sourcing funding possibilities and preparing at least one funding application for the programme (involving up to three sub-projects).
(4) Contributing to the publication of at least one paper on transdisciplinary psychosocial practice research.
Background to the project:
The RA post will contribute directly to consolidating and advancing the Psychosocial Programme of the Centre for Citizenship, Identity and Governance. This will help to enhance the profile of OU Psychosocial research by enabling the integration and strengthening of research within the Psychology Department, by facilitating links with the other social sciences feeding into CCIG, and by developing external collaborations. The contribution would feed into the establishment of a distinctively ‘OU’ dialect of transdisciplinary psychosocial research.
The Psychosocial Programme within CCIG constitutes one of the leading research groups in this emerging international field. An important strand of research is the development of a transdisciplinary psychosocial approach to social psychology, also known as a ‘relational process approach’ (Stenner, 2011, Brown and Stenner, 2009, Stenner and Taylor, 2008, Motzkau, 2009). This approach in turn builds on an empirical body of critical psychological studies concerned with recognising and representing forms of lay knowledge, evidence and experience (and articulating their relationship with ‘expert’ knowledge and evidence) in various contexts. The RA would contribute to developing a programme of research addressing this dimension in practice, in collaboration with a broader network of researchers including Dr Johanna Motzkau (OU) and Dr Monica Greco (Goldsmiths).
The programme would comprise up to three inter-related projects (see below) focusing on fields of practice characterised by stalemates or dilemmas associated with underlying paradoxes or double-binds (see the ‘paradox/paralysis’ dynamic in Stenner, 2005 and 2006). Such stalemates typically result in a polarisation and ossification of positions, but also hold the potential for creative innovation. In short, there are four recognisable moments to the process of practice in these fields: paradox, paralysis, polarisation and pattern shift. The research programme would aim to develop a meta-perspective by documenting the first three and by developing methodologies to facilitate pattern shift in each of the fields of practice under study.
Below are listed three examples of fields characterised by polarised scenarios that suggest the fruitful application of a transdisciplinary psychosocial approach to practice as process. The problems in each are psychosocial in the following senses: they concern the mutual implication of forms of subjective experience and broader societal rationalities of practice mediated by various forms of ‘evidence’; they concern the social life of psychological knowledge in so far as each allocates a contentious yet pivotal role to ‘the psychological’ (attributions of suggestibility and psychosomatics); they involve communities that cohere around the hotspots associated with scenes of troubled recognition and paralysed action trajectories; and they each involve complex affective scenarios. These problems call for transdisciplinary attention since the paradoxes and conflicts involved arise from the gaps, voids or interstices between distinct (disciplinary) rationalities, and hence the limits of disciplinary knowledge. The problems in each case, as it were, hang suspended between rationalities and disciplinary logics (between psychological science and law; between evidence-based medicine and clinical experience; between functions of care and gate-keeping).
1 Motzkau’s (2009, 2011) work has focused on legal practice, where practitioners face the problem of assessing the credibility of witnesses, a problem that is especially thorny in connection with child witnesses due to their supposed ‘suggestibility’. The problem remains acute, despite a long history of policy provisions that attempt to manage it. With the aim of opening up spaces for progressive change, Motzkau has proposed a methodology of mapping the voids, paradoxes and blind-spots that emerge in the relationship between the distinct rationalities (legal and psychological) at play in these practices.
2. Stenner’s research with Christine Dancey and others (2009, 2000, 2000) on the ways in which irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) sufferers make sense of their symptoms points to another field of practice marked by strongly polarised positions and frequent situations of stalemate. Many IBS sufferers characterise health professionals as obstructive and ill-informed, and such judgements are in turn influenced by the perception that health professionals construe IBS sufferers as illegitimate patients with psychological issues. Where Motzkau’s work raises issues of subjectivity and authenticity in relation to memory, Stenner’s work on IBS does so in relation to the contested status and authenticity of symptoms and their provenance. Both cases thus raise questions of how contested credibility plays itself out and gets negotiated in interactions between professionals and patients / witnesses, through the mediation of various forms of evidence.
3. Greco (2011) has recently addressed this phenomenon at the level of the nomenclature and diagnostic categories at play around medically unexplained symptoms (‘MUS’) more generally. She discusses the need to ‘loosen the polemical knot’ that often ties health professionals and people with MUS together in a situation of conflict, and draws attention to the paradoxes which appear to generate this situation (such as the paradox that categories like MUS simultaneously presuppose and disavow psychological attributions). With MUS practice this scenario is compounded by the fact that MUS constitute a limit to authoritative medical knowledge, and it is precisely at such thresholds that psychology typically operates to fill the ‘knowledge void’ (in this case, often compounding the situation with propositions interpretable as a rejection of symptoms as ‘only psychology’).
The Research Associate would be expected to work towards the development of this area of research, as part of a team of collaborators headed by myself and including Dr Johanna Motzkau and Dr Monica Greco (Goldsmiths College). This funded position would contribute directly to work that would strengthen the Faculty’s REF submission, and lay a platform for a longer-term programme of research.

Job Specification

The person appointed will be expected to contribute to the research and academic development of the Department, Faculty and University in the following ways:
·  To contribute, as specified, to the programme of work outlined above, including associated administrative, data management, and liaison duties.
·  More broadly, to contribute to activities and events complementary to ongoing research in the Department, Faculty and associated research centres, and to take an active, productive role in our research community at the OU.

3. Person specification

Essential Characteristics (it will be essential for the successful candidate to be able to demonstrate evidence of the following):

·  A PhD or equivalent research experience in a field relevant to the project
·  Highly developed qualitative research skills
·  An excellent grasp of transdisciplinary psychosocial theory
·  An ability to produce work to agreed deadlines
·  Communication and organizational skills necessary for collaborative work
·  A commitment to equal opportunities policies and practices
·  A commitment to Open University values
Desirable Characteristics (additionally, it will be desirable for the successful candidate to be able to demonstrate evidence of the following):
·  Experience with external grant applications
·  Experience with writing for publication on themes that ‘cut across’ disciplines

4. Role specific requirements e.g. Shift working

None

5. About the unit/department

The Faculty of Social Sciences
The Department of Psychology is located in the Faculty of Social Sciences. This is one of eight Faculties and Schools.
The Faculty of Social Sciences encompasses six social sciences departments: Economics, Geography, Politics and International Studies (POLIS), Psychology, Social Policy and Criminology, and Sociology. Faculty central academic staff consists of around 100 staff based at Walton Hall who have the prime responsibility for research, module production and curriculum planning (supported as necessary by project officers, curriculum managers, research assistants, administrators, secretarial and clerical staff, and technicians). A further 34 regional academics act as staff tutors and are involved in the recruitment, monitoring and support of tutorial staff from bases in all 13 Regional/National Centres, as well as contributing to the module production, curriculum planning and research effort of the Faculty.
The Faculty plays major roles in several of the University Centres of Research Excellence, including The Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance and The International Centre for Comparative Criminological Research.
The Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance (CCIG)
http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/ccig/index.html
The International Centre for Comparative Criminological Research (ICCCR)
http://www.open.ac.uk/icccr/
The Faculty also hosts, jointly with the University of Manchester, the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC). See: http://www.CRESC.ac.uk/
The Faculty made two main submissions in the 2008 RAE in Sociology and Geography, both of which were ranked as having 55% at world class (4*) or internationally excellent (3*).We also made a significant contribution to the cross-faculty submission in Development studies where 45% were ranked as4*or3*.Details surrounding these submissions have now been published on the HEFCE website at http://submissions.rae.ac.uk/submissions/ We are looking to build on this success infuture REF submissions.
There is a vigorous intellectual life in the Faculty fostered by these shared research interests as well as by collaborative teaching. The departments work together and with other Faculties to produce a range of modules. More information about the work of the Faculty of Social Sciences and the range of University research programmes can be found by visiting the following sites:
http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/
http://www.open.ac.uk/research/
The Psychology Department
The current academic members of the Psychology in Social Sciences Department, with their position and current research interests, are:

Central staff (i.e. based at Walton Hall)

Dr Meg Barker Senior Lecturer. Sexualities and relationships, particularly bisexual, SM and non-monogamous sexual communities. Existential and mindfulness psychotherapy. Visual research methods.
Dr Nicola Brace Senior Lecturer: Developmental and theoretical aspects of face processing, witness identification evidence including facial composite construction.
Dr Gemma Briggs Lecturer: Attention, perception and dual-tasking abilities. The role of expectations in perception.
Dr Jovan Byford Senior Lecturer: Relationship between social psychology and history; Social psychological exploration of historical issues and historical material; social remembering and forgetting; antisemitism; cross-cultural analysis of conspiracy theories.
Dr Rose Capdevila Lecturer: The construction and transgression of identity (particularly gender and political identities), political psychology, qualitative approaches and the politics of methodology.
Prof John Dixon Prejudice, conflict and racism; intergroup contact and desegregation; everyday understandings of socio-political change (notably in Northern Ireland and South Africa); the relationship between place and identity; spatial boundaries and intergroup relations.
Dr Alison Green (Psychology Programme Director) Senior Lecturer: Theoretical and applied research on thinking, problem solving and skill acquisition, including practice learning. Applications for verbal protocol analysis. Cognitive psychometrics. The OU Psychology Virtual Participant Panel.
Dr Virginia Harrison Lecturer: Applied and theoretical aspects of face perception and recognition, including the development of expertise, the role of motivation and attention, and in-group/out-group effects.
Dr Catriona Havard Lecturer: face recognition, face matching, and the more applied aspect of eyewitness identification, especially with children, adolescents and older adult witnesses. Also perceptual biases in face recognition.
Dr Claire Hewson Lecturer: Folk psychology, lay theories and beliefs, internet research methods, e-learning.
Dr Mary Horton-Salway Lecturer: Discursive psychology as applied to medical discourse, illness narratives, self-help group discourse and tutorial talk.
Dr Helen Kaye Lecturer Cognitive learning theory, contextual effects in Pavlovian conditioning, spatial learning
Dr Darren Langdridge Head of Department, Senior Lecturer: Construction of sexualities and masculinities, phenomenological/narrative psychology and existential-phenomenological psychotherapy.
Dr Gail Lewis Reader: Psychosocial perspectives on racialised gendered subjectivities, discourses of citizenship, welfare and nation, psycho-dynamics of group process, ‘experience’ and embodiment as a site and source of learning.
Dr Jean McAvoy Lecturer: Discourse analysis, subjectivities, moral orders, and the management of trouble and dilemma.
Dr Kesi Mahendran Lecturer: Young people and the labour market. Unemployment, citizenship and governance. Dialogue and self. Dialogue between practice, evidence and policy.
Dr Johanna Motzkau Senior Lecturer: Discursive psychology, methodology, theoretical psychology (process philosophy, Deleuze, Stengers), suggestibility, memory, childhood, sexual abuse, child witnessing, psychology and law (international perspectives on evidence/expertise).
Dr Hayley Ness Lecturer: Applied cognitive psychology: perception of and memory for faces, particularly in eyewitness settings; facial composite construction; issues concerning visual evidence and juror decision-making.
Volker Patent Lecturer: Innovation in e-learning, emotions and learning, support of learning, formative and developmental assessment, graduate employability and skills, organisational trust and HR, assessment centre evaluation
Prof Graham Pike Applied cognition and forensic psychology, particularly face perception and eye-witness identification.
Dr. Rosalind H. Searle Senior Lecturer: Team composition and behaviours, trust in teams, innovation and creativity, the impact of technology on selection.
Prof Paul Stenner Critical, discursive, theoretical and historical psychology and psychosocial studies. Social affectivity (especially jealousy and envy). Active ageing and critical aspects of health related quality of life. Ordinary understandings of human rights. Relational process ontology. Q methodology.
Dr Stephanie Taylor Senior Lecturer: Narrative-discursive constructions of identity, including creative identities and place-related identities.
Dr Jim Turner Lecturer: Face perception and memory; eyewitness identification and evidence; facial composite construction in police settings.
Dr Andreas Vossler Lecturer. Counselling psychology.

Regional Staff

Dr Jane Barrett (London) Research methodology including systematic review
and questionnaire design; action research in the
context of online teaching; social relationships
Sue Carter (Manchester) Relationships at work and how they affect
performance and satisfaction/happiness
Dr Troy Cooper (Cambridge) Social psychology of illness, especially eating disorders and addiction.
Dr Anastasia Economou (Oxford) Anxiety, depression, eating disorders, counselling adults with disabilities, psychodynamic counselling, cross-cultural counselling, online counselling, mindfulness based therapy, conservation psychology.
Karen Hagan (Belfast) Autism. Construction of personal identity using techniques such as PECs (picture exchange communication system)
Dr Caroline Kelly (East Grinstead) Social identity, intergroup relations and participation in collective action.
Madeleine Knightley (Bristol) Adult learners' personal identity; Adult students’ experiences of learning using new technologies
Dr Bianca Raabe (Newcastle) Young people, identity and the study of citizenship, role of counselling in the workplace
Dr Mark Smith (West Midlands) Syntax; the unity of the proposition; language and thought.

6. How to obtain more information about the role or application process