Key details
Dr Amena Amer
Lecturer in Psychology
Amena joined the university as a Lecturer in Psychology in April 2020. She received her PhD in Social Psychology from the London School of Economics and Political Science in June 2020.
While her research is primarily set within the sub-fields of Social and Political Psychology, Amena has been invited to share her research with audiences beyond Psychology e.g., at the ‘Performance and the Body’ seminar series organised by the Cambridge Interdisciplinary Performance Network (University of Cambridge, UK) and at the ‘Cultural Diversity, Migration and Education’ lecture series at the University of Potsdam (Germany).
Amena has experience teaching social psychology, political psychology, cross-cultural psychology, applied psychology and research methods (particularly qualitative) and has taught at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Amena also has experience working in the third sector drawing connections between her academic research interests and its real-world application and impact. She has developed and facilitated workshops in schools and communities across the UK exploring issues of identity, self-expression, intersectional experiences, stereotypes, and confidence with young girls (aged 12-14), as well as designing and delivering workshops for secondary school teachers on positionality and reflexivity.
Posts previously held
- 2019-2020, MSc Dissertation Projects Officer and Graduate Teaching Assistant. Department
of Psychological and Behavioural Science, LSE (UK). Course: Qualitative Methods for Social
Psychologists (MSc) - 2018-2019, Research Assistant. Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, LSE
(UK). Project: 'Transformation of identities in organisational settings'. PI: Dr Ilka Gleibs - 2017-2019, Project Co-ordinator for Muslim Girls Fence Project. Maslaha (UK)
- 2016-201,. Graduate Teaching Assistant. Department of Psychological and Behavioural
Science, LSE (UK). Course: Social Psychology (UG) - 2014-2016, Research Assistant. Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, LSE
(UK). Project: 'Effects of the Trojan Horse Affair on identities in the affected communities'.
PI: Dr Caroline Howarth
Responsibilities within the university
- Level 4 Year Group Lead (Psychology)
Recognition
Editorial roles/Peer reviewing:
- Consulting Editor for the British Journal of Social Psychology
- Peer reviewer for a number of academic journals (both psychology and inter-disciplinary). These include Political Psychology, European Journal of Social Psychology, Qualitative Methods, Journal of Social Issues and Ethnic and Migration Studies
Committee/Board Memberships:
- Foundation Governor. Camden School for Girls
- Committee member of the Social Psychology Section (British Psychological Society; BPS)
General membership:
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK · International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP)
- European Association of Social Psychology (EASP) · British Psychological Society (BPS)
Research / Scholarly interests
Amena's research interests broadly focus on exploring experiences of identity and belonging. More specifically, she is interested in the experiences of minority and marginalised groups, examining how members of these groups manage and negotiate their identities and positions within society in relation to boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, how they are seen by others and the consequences of these experiences.
Current projects:
- ‘Navigating the academic space: Exploring identity negotiation and feelings of belonging among Muslim women in British universities.’ Funder: British Academy/Wolfson Fellowship
- ‘One journey, three stories representations of Syrian, Afghan, and Ukrainian refugees in the media’. Funder: British Psychological Society Social Psychology Section - Pump and Prime. Collaborators: Dr Nihan Albayrak-Eydemir (Open University; PI), Dr Ilka Gleibs (LSE, UK), Dr Celestin Okoroji (LSE, UK)
- ‘Who belongs? Exploring the interconnections between recognition, representation and belonging among ethnic minorities and majorities in the British context.’. Collaborator: Sandra Obradovic (Open University, UK)
- ‘Social representations of well-being and resilience among BAME university students in the UK’. Funder: Institute of Life-course Development, University of Greenwich. Awarded: July 2020. Collaborator: Dr Gisele Dias (KCL, UK)
- ‘Recognition of Belonging? Testing and expanding the Ingroup Projection Model’. Funder: EASP Collaborative Grant. Awarded: January 2020. PI: Sandra Obradovic (Open University, UK). Other collaborators: Reşit Kışlıoğlu (Middle East Technical University Northern Cyprus Campus), Mihaela Boza (Universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Romania) and Nihan Albayrak-Aydemir (Open University, UK)
Key funded projects
- Oct 2022 - Sep 2025, British Academy/Wolfson Fellowship. Year of award 2022. ‘Navigating the academic space: Exploring identity negotiation and feelings of belonging among Muslim women in British universities.’ Project duration
- British Psychological Society Social Psychology Section - Pump and Prime. Year of Award: 2022. ‘One journey, three stories: representations of Syrian, Afghan, and Ukrainian refugees in the media’
- European Association for Social Psychology - Collaborative Grant. Year of Award: 2020. ‘Recognition of Belonging? Testing and expanding the Ingroup Projection Model’
Recent publications
Article
Reddy, Geetha and , Amer, Amena (2022), Precarious engagements and the politics of knowledge production: listening to calls for reorienting hegemonic social psychology. Wiley - The British Psychological Society. In: , , , . Wiley - The British Psychological Society, British Journal of Social Psychology . pp. 1-24 ISSN: 0144-6665 (Print), 2044-8309 (Online) (doi: http://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12609).
Amer, Amena and , Obradovic, Sandra (2022), Recognising recognition: self‐other dynamics in everyday encounters and experiences. Wiley. In: , , , . Wiley, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 52 (4) . pp. 550-562 ISSN: 0021-8308 (Print), 1468-5914 (Online) (doi: http://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12356).
Amer, Amena and , (2019), Between recognition and mis/nonrecognition: strategies of negotiating and performing identities among white muslims in the United Kingdom. Wiley. In: , , , . Wiley, Political Psychology, 41 (3) . pp. 533-548 . ISBN: 14679221 0162895XISSN: 0162-895X (Print), 1467-9221 (Online) (doi: http://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12637).
Amer, Amena and , Howarth, Caroline (2017), Constructing and contesting threat: representations of white British muslims across British national and muslim newspapers. Wiley. In: , , , . Wiley, European Journal of Social Psychology, 48 (5) . pp. 614-628 . ISBN: 10990992 00462772ISSN: 0046-2772 (Print), 1099-0992 (Online) (doi: http://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2352).
Amer, Amena , Howarth, Caroline, Sen, Ragini (2015), Diasporic virginities: social representations of virginity and identity formation amongst British arab muslim women. SAGE. In: , , , . SAGE, Culture and Psychology, 21 (1) . pp. 3-19 ISSN: 1354-067X (Print), 1461-7056 (Online) (doi: http://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X14551297).