მოხსენებას წაიკითხავს კოპენჰაგენის უნივერსიტეტის მკვლევარი და ლექტორი თომას მადსენი. ის ამჟამად კვლევითი ვიზიტით იმყოფება თბილისის სახელმწიფო უნივერსიტეტის ფსიქოლოგიის დეპარტამენტში, კულტურული პერსონოლოგიის, ფსიქოლოგიური ანთროპოლოგიისა და მიგრაციის კვლევების სადოქტორო პროგრამის ჩარჩოში. მოხსენება შეეხება კულტურული ფსიქოლოგიისა და სოციალური პროცესების აქტუალურ საკითხებს. მომხსენებელი წარმოადგენს საკუთარი მიმდინარე კვლევის შედეგებსაც.

Socio-cultural psychology and immigrant integration policy: The case the ‘parallel societies’

Thomas Madsen

In social policies intending to integrate migrants, refugees and their families, a fundamental tension is typically encountered between fostering social cohesion while acknowledging and respecting human diversity. To investigate how this tension play out in practice, I studied patterns of meaning making around a recent Danish re-integration policy intending to push the assimilation of ethnic minorities into ‘mainstream society’ - a phenomenon with clear significance beyond the Danish context.

Through participatory fieldwork and semi-structured interviews, I studied how this policy was navigated within and between different symbolic contexts - from the political context to the context of affected communities, currently contesting the policy. Drawing on socio-cultural psychology, the research emphasized the heterogeneity of representations circulating in society and culture (Moscovici, 1961; Valsiner, 2014). Applied to the current context, it was not just the utility and consequences of the policy that was being supported or contested, but also the representations of people and places underlining it. I present my preliminary findings, along with an elaboration of the theoretical and methodological framework guiding the research.

Bio

Thomas Madsen is a Psychologist, with a Master’s degree from the Centre for Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University. He is currently employed as a Ph.D. Student at the Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen.

His research is situated within the field of socio-cultural psychology. In his research, he is interested in: (i) psychosocial processes taking place in modern, pluralistic societies in which knowledge, ideas, and meaning are co-constructed and negotiated, and (ii) how these processes are linked to ideals about citizenship, political interests, power and values. Particularly, he is interested in these phenomena in the context of immigrant integration-, housing- and urban policy. In his current research, he explore the Danish context and look at how these issues play out in the policy proposal ‘the parallel society agreement’ and in its repercussions over the course of the past four years.