Prof. Dr. Gavin Sullivan

Vision Statement
I use theoretically-driven and interdisciplinary social psychological research methods and community intervention approaches that typically challenge disciplinary boundaries and mainstream research methods and frameworks to develop new perspectives on complex environmental hazards and intractable social problems. I explore top-down and bottom-up responses to social change such as political protests and disengagement as well as the co-creation of solutions  in partnership with individuals, communities and organisations in countries such as the UK, Germany, Brazil, Indonesia, Chile, and Australia. Exploring patterns of individual, group-based and collective affect and emotion in discursive practices is a recurrent theme in my theoretical and empirical work.

Biography
After completing a PhD thesis on  "Wittgenstein and Reflexivity" at the University of Canterbury of Christchurch (New Zealand), I moved to Australia and worked at the University of Western Sydney, the University of Sydney,  and Monash University in Melbourne. My interests in theoretical psychology quickly developed to include using qualitative methods in research while I also gained practical experience conducting short-term and long-term psychotherapy in clinical, forensic and private-practice settings. After being awarded a prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship in 2006, I spent several years in Berlin researching individual, group-based and collective pride at the Free University (FU) Berlin. I also developed an interest in community-oriented and social accounts of post-disaster coping and recovery, which has resulted in long-term collaborations with colleagues in Indonesia since 2009. After a period  as a guest professor with the Languages of Emotion research cluster at  the FU, I moved to the UK in 2010 and spent 4 years working in several UK psychology departments before being promoted to Reader and leading the Identity and Resilience in Communities and Organisations research group at Coventry University. I joined the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University where I still have a part-time Professorship. I have been a Professor of Social Psychology at IPU since October 2020.

Projects:

• Covid lockdown experiences study
• Black Lives Matter allies and activists
• Collective shame and the 2014 World Cup in Brazil
• Disaster preparedness and resilience
• Seismic Cities and Communities Network
• Psychology and the future
• Political reactionism
• Humour and protests
• Covid-related poverty and narratives of post-pandemic recovery
• Individual, group-based and collective pride

Related websites and social media:

ipu-berlin.academia.edu/GavinSullivan

www.researchgate.net/profile/Gavin-Sullivan-2

scholar.google.com/citations

Books (selected):

link.springer.com/book/10.1057/978-1-137-45691-5

www.routledge.com/Understanding-Collective-Pride-and-Group-Identity-New-directions-in-emotion/Sullivan/p/book/9781138702080

link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4614-9354-9

www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4261

www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01252/full

Curriculum Vitae
Publications

In my spare time, I still run in the Berlin half marathon (after completing the Berlin marathon 7 times), regularly take part in long-distance cycling events (including ascending Mt. Ventoux twice) and I occasionally act in television and movies (e.g., as an extra in Series 4 of Babylon Berlin). My first visit to the East and West of Berlin was in 1988 and my first film extra role was in Peter Jackson's "Heavenly Creatures" in 1995.