EPIC Collective: Enhancing Participation and Inclusive Change

My PhD research explored the lived experiences of precarity with 10 low-income households in Aotearoa New Zealand. Investigating multifaceted insecurities experienced by the precariat across precarious employment, housing, food and so forth. This was combined with an exploration of the consequences of recent policy initiatives implemented to alleviate such insecurities. The findings illustrate how precarity is complex and relational, and as such, policy initiatives should be informed by relational understandings of precarious lifeworlds.

Supervisors: Professor Darrin Hodgetts, Dr Pita King and Associate Professor Denise Blake

Historical narratives and representations: Implications for political culture and national identity

A mixed method investigation of historical narratives and representations within and across cultural contexts: Implications for political culture and national identity

Sarah’s thesis explored how people collectively remember historical events from their nation’s past through social representations and narratives. Most interestingly, the thesis demonstrated how these meaning-making processes about the past are fluid and dynamically reactive to situations unfolding in the present context.

Supervisors: Professor James Liu, Dr Veronica Hopner, Professor Michael Belgrave

Merry-Go-Sorry is an investigation into the complexities of chronic pain and illness as a lived experience, using creative writing and arts-based methodologies to create and share embodied knowledge. This research deepens the understanding of chronic illness as a disruptive and disrupting experience, in contrast with the social narratives that seek to control and cure the uncontrollable and incurable.

Supervisors: Emeritus Professor Kerry Chamberlain, Dr Veronica Hopner

My PhD research explores the relationship between mindfulness and positive solitude using a mixed-method approach, drawing on Eastern philosophies and contemporary psychological literature. Combining both qualitative and quantitative methods, it aims to deepen our understanding of how mindfulness practices can enhance the experience of being alone in beneficial ways, promoting psychological well-being and personal growth.

Supervisors

Associate Professor Heather Kempton

Dr Nicole Lindsay

Associate Professor Rosie Gibson

Sustainable dentistry is an emerging practice that has the potential to benefit the global wellbeing regarding the environment, economy and societies. My thesis collaborates with self-transformed dental organisations to document workable options for the industry.

Supervisors:

Professor Darrin Hodgetts (Primary supervisor, Massey University)

Dr Minh Nguyen (Co-supervisor, Massey University)

Dr Shiloh Groot (Co-supervisor, University of Auckland)

Mr Heuiwon Han (Co-supervisor, Auckland University of Technology)

My study examines how survivor families experience and transmit trauma across generations, particularly how loss, absence and memory shape identity, political participation and everyday life. I use frameworks of forensic citizenship, political repression, post-memory, and transgenerational trauma to understand these dynamics. I'm combining archives, expert interviews and in-depth narratives from affected families.

Supervisors:

Dr Shine Choi

Associate Professor Sita Venkateswar

Dr Shemana Cassim

Our lives are deeply shaped by the places in which we live. Housing has however become a fundamental aspect of financialisation meaning that it is regarded as primarily a form of investment (emphasising its exchange value) rather than a home (a dwelling’s use value) or social right. A consequence of a process of deregulation, low taxation and low inflation is the significant concentration of wealth in property and the rise of housing unaffordability. House prices and social housing underinvestment have forced many, particularly impoverished households, into a private rental market characterised by unaffordability, unavailability, rental quality issues and tenant insecurity. This impacts especially low-income households, single-parent families, beneficiaries, pensioners and Māori and Pacific Peoples households.

This project aims to document, theorise and address the social practices and power relations that shape tenant-landlord relationships, including mapping their intergenerational consequences materially, socially and psychologically. It is only through a multi-faceted exploration of the realities, rhetoric, practices and political economies surrounding the landlord-tenant relationship that we might truly understand 'a renter’s life'! 

Project Salaam was set up by a community of activist women in 2018, who aimed to work with former refugee Muslim youth to grow leadership and skills in conflict resolution through a series of experiential workshops facilitated in 2 Auckland high schools. The project team invited Darrin, Veronica and Shemana to carry out an evaluation of Project Salaam in 2022. This evaluation involved working with the Muslim community in Mount Roskill to document the impacts of Project Salaam for supporting former refugee Muslim youth in strengthening their leadership abilities, self-confidence, academic engagement and achievement, and also promoting wellbeing and inclusion within educational institutions and in their community.

Project Salaam: Evaluation Report

This is a community based, community-led project where Shemana worked alongside Diversity Counselling New Zealand and the communities this organisation serves to co-design a series of Guidelines for practice, for counsellors working with ethnic communities. The project was conceptualised to help ensure that mental health services are accessible and effective for former refugees and migrants from ethnic communities in Aotearoa New Zealand. The Guidelines can also be used broadly by (mental)health practitioners working with ethnic migrant communities. The Guidelines and final project report can be accessed on the Diversity Counselling New Zealand website.

Culturally Respectful Guidelines for Working with Ethnic Communities

This project involves the integration of spirituality in health services, for example, psychology and social work, with an article currently being written by Heather and Julia Stewart (former master's student) on 'Spirituality and psychology: how psychologists bridge the gap', with a comparison between psychology and social work to follow involving Julia's work as well as former PhD student, Hairunissa Sedhik, co-supervisor Ksenija Napan, School of Social Work and Associate Professor Richard Egan, University of Otago, Department of Preventative and Social Medicine.

Despite years of legislative efforts, policy actions and public campaigns, family violence continues to be a harsh reality for many families, whānau and communities around New Zealand. In partnership with Gandhi Nivas, a community-oriented organisation providing early intervention support services to families in the Auckland region, I collaborate with men addressing their use of violence, to bring to the fore new possibilities for the violence prevention sector by linking theory and community practices empowering non-normative processes of change towards non-violence. Informed with the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, I provide an autoethnographic analysis of fieldwork experiences, 1:1 interviews, a weekly men’s social support group and my own experiences of violence and professional practices inherited from the health and criminal justice sectors, expanding on Rosi Braidotti’s nomadic theory to privilege affective memories of socio-cultural forces conditioning men’s every day social worlds.

With narratives a form of re-remembering sticky networks of felt experiences and embodied memories, I experiment with nomadic subjectivity as a cartographic methodology capable of weaving together a mosaic of affective connections with men and my resistance to such connections, enabling me to reflexively analyse what experiences follow me, what social processes I have articulated and what processes are left off the page.

Supervisors: Professor Mandy Morgan, Associate Professor Leigh Coombs and Dr Ann Rogerson.

This is a collaboration project between EPIC and VAP (Vietnam Association of Psychology). The project aims to explore how communities in flood-prone areas adapt to and manage the challenges posed by climate change. Through observations and interviews with local residents and authorities, we seek to understand how cultural practices and community resilience contribute to sustainable livelihoods in the face of an increasingly unpredictable environment.

The role of regional consumer ethnocentrism and social identity in shaping customer behavior

The project on regional consumer ethnocentrism, social identity, and the purchase of traditional food is part of a larger initiative exploring the lived experiences of Javanese nasi pecel vendors in Mataraman cities, East Java, Indonesia. Funded by the Ministry of Higher Education of Indonesia in 2023, this research involves Dr Minh Hieu and Dr Jony Yulianto, who analyse preliminary survey data from nasi pecel customers in 4 cities across East Java. The study examines customers’ daily experiences of purchasing nasi pecel from various vendors and investigates how regional consumer ethnocentrism and town-oriented social identity (identitas kewargakotaan) influence their intention to buy nasi pecel within their own home cities.

To realise the social wellbeing of Māori, the cultivation and continuation of Māori social practices associated with kaitiakitanga are of central importance. This is because the social wellbeing of Māori is intimately tied to our relationships with te taiao. Through participating in kiwi catching training wānanga, we both seek to re-member (practical rejoining of tradition) some of this knowledge simply through the ‘doing’, as well as indigenising the kiwi recovery space. Doing so brings a different way of conceptualising the kinds of systems at play here. For example, within this project of research, the notion of community is extended to include non-human entities, such as animals, plants and the whenua (land) itself, to reflect a more Māori way of thinking about the world we inhabit and share. In essence, this project speaks to the notion of how we might sit together as Te Aitanga-a-Tane and cultivate a sense of social well-being that emerges from these broader networks of connections. Viewing our communities as inherently interdependent with te taiao (the natural environment) and in partnership with our non-human whanaunga (relatives) highlights the importance and urgency in re-claiming, re-membering, and further developing/adapting Māori knowledge and social practices that foster our shared social wellbeing in modern times.

Comparing Self-initiated overload and organisational-initiated overload on work engagement: The mediating role of external job resources

One wonders if demands from oneself and the organisation help in work engagement. We extend the job-demands resources theory by incorporating self-initiated overload and a personal social capital perspective.

Governance, Quality Assurance and Future Direction of Higher Education in Vietnam: Towards a Sustainable Development Agenda. Editors: Giang Hoang, Van-Trao Nguyen, Minh-Hieu Thi Nguyen. https://link.springer.com/book/9789819544004

Kempton, H. (in press). Finger pointing at the moon: Mindfulness through science and verse. Routledge.

SC. Carr, V. Hopner, DJ. Hodgetts, & M. Young (Eds.) Tackling Precarious Work: Toward Sustainable Livelihoods. (pp. 1 - 26). New York, United States of America: Routledge

Terruhn, J., & Cassim, S. (2023). Transforming the Politics of Mobility and Migration in Aotearoa New Zealand. Anthem Press.

de Terte, I., (in press). Protecting Those who Protect us: The Impact of Potentially Traumatic Events on Police Officers. In J. F. Albrecht & G. den Heyer (Eds.), Special Topics in Policing: Critical Issues and Global Perspectives (pp. xx-xx).

Cassim, S. (2023). Permanent Temporariness – The current landscape of migration and work?. In Tackling Precarious Work: Toward Sustainable Livelihoods. (pp. 493 - 515).

Cassim, S., Hodgetts, D., Hopner, V., Khan-Janif, J. & Ali, N. (In press). Praxis and human rights in community engaged psychology: The role of the scribe in the case of Project Salaam. In M. MacLachlan, B. Kelly & I. Ebuenyi (Eds.), Human rights and wrongs in psychology and psychiatry. Oxford University Press.

Cassim, S., Khan-Janif, J., & Martiarini, N. (2023). Building enduring relationships for a shared sense of belonging: Culturally derived solidarities between Muslim migrants and Māori. In Transforming the Politics of Mobility and Migration in Aotearoa New Zealand. (pp. 157 - 172).

Liu, J. H. & Choi, S. Y. (in press). Collective memory and social representations of history. In A. Erll & W. Hirst (Eds.), Cognition, Culture, and Political Momentum: Breaking Down the Silos in Collective Memory Research. Oxford University Press. 

Martin, A., Hodgetts, D., Groot, S., King, P., Blake, D. (2025). Engaging Māori Precariat Households to Make a Difference: Kaupapa Māori Praxis. In: Gough, B. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Social Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-80533-2_34.

Martin, A., King, P., & Hodgetts, D. (2021). Welfare in the media: Issues of coloniality and symbolic power in the case of Metiria Turei. In S. L. Borden, The Routledge companion to media and poverty (pp. 310–320). Routledge, 2021.

van Ommen, C. (2024). Responsibility, regulation, and cost: Rentier rhetoric in New Zealand media. Housing Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2024.2439445

Azalea, A., Lim, P.K., Lin, MH. et al. Effects of career adaptability on university fresh graduates’ perceived future employability and career motivation: employed versus unemployed. Int J Educ Vocat Guidance (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10775-024-09716-0

Capizzi, R. & Kempton, H. (2023) Nature connection, mindfulness, and wellbeing: A network analysis. OBM Integrative and Complimentary Medicine, 8, 4, doi:10.21926/obm.icm.2304050.

Caringal-Go, JF., Carr, SC., Hodgetts, DJ., Intraprasert, DY., Maleka, M., McWha-Hermann, I., . . . Teng-Calleja, M. (2024). Work education and educational developments around sustainable livelihoods for sustainable career development and well-being. Australian Journal of Career Development. 33(3), 212-220

Cassim, S., & Keelan, TJ. (2023). A review of localised Māori community responses to Covid-19 lockdowns in Aotearoa New Zealand. AlterNative. 19(1), 42-50

Choi, S. Y., Zhang, R. J., Valdes, E., Xie, T., Lee, I. C., Leung, A. K. Y, Lee, M., … & You, J. (in press). A cross-cultural investigation of the effects of individual privilege, group identification, and societal perceptions on global consciousness. Asian Journal of Social Psychology.

Choi, S. Y., & Liu, J. H. (2024). Identifying stories of ‘us’: A mixed‐method analysis of the meaning, contents and associations of national narratives constructed by Americans. European Journal of Social Psychology, 54(2), 431-448.

Choi, S. Y., Liu, J. H., Mari, S., & Garber, I. E. (2023). Content analysis of living historical memory around the world: Terrorization of the Anglosphere, and national foundations of hope in developing societies. Memory Studies, 16(2), 333-351.

Fien, S., Lawes, J., Ledger, J., de Terte, I., Drummond, M., Simon, P., Joseph, N., Daw, S., Kelly, S., Hillman, W., Stanton, R., & Best, T. (2025). Exposure to Traumatic Events and Shame in Adolescent Surf Lifesavers: An Australian Perspective. Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma, 18, 127-137. 

Finkler, K., King, P., & Hodgetts, D. (2023). The Open Arms Day Centre as a Pou Whirinaki and key space of care within the conduct of Māori homeless lifeworlds in Whangārei, Aotearoa, New Zealand. International Journal on Homelessness, 3(3), 160–181. https://doi.org/10.5206/ijoh.2023.3.15606

Ivanović, J., Vincze, O., Jevtić, M., Szabó, Z., Csertő, I., Choi, S. Y., & Liu, J. H. (2025). Between east and west, between past and future: The effects of exclusive historical victimhood on geopolitical attitudes in Hungary and Serbia. British Journal of Social Psychology.

Lee, M.C.C. (2025), "Relationship between the three dimensions of paternalistic leadership, cognitive and affective trust and organizational citizenship behavior: a multilevel mediational pathway", Baltic Journal of Management, Vol. 20 No. 6, pp. 20-38. https://doi.org/10.1108/BJM-08-2024-0428

Lawes, J., Fien, S., Ledger, J., Drummond, M., Simon, P., Joseph, N., Daw, S., Best, T., Stanton, R., & de Terte, I. (in press). Protective factors in potential trauma for adolescent surf lifesavers. Journal of Safety Research. 

Liu, J. H., Choi, S. Y., Lee, I. C., Leung, A. K. Y., Lee, M., Lin, M. H., ... & Chen, S. X. (2023). Behavioral evidence for global consciousness transcending national parochialism. Scientific Reports, 13(1), 21413.

Martin, A., Hodgetts, D., King, P., & Blake, D. (2023). Māori households assembling precarious leisure. Leisure Studies, Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/02614367.2023.2271185

Martin, A., Hodgetts, D., King, P., & Blake, D. (2024). Everyday experiences of in-work poverty and policy responses in the assemblage of situations of precarity in Aotearoa New Zealand. International Perspectives in Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1027/2157-3891/a000100

Martin, A., Hodgetts, D., King, P., & Blake, D. (2025). Māori households assembling precarious leisure. Leisure Studies, 44(1), 31-48. doi:10.1080/02614367.2023.2271185

Meach, R., Horwell, C. J., & de Terte, I. (2025). ‘All Four Engines Have Failed’: A qualitative study of the health impacts, reactions and behaviours of passengers and crew onboard flight BA009 which flew through a volcanic ash cloud in 1982. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 124, 105558.  

Nalinda D. Liyanagedera, Corinne Bareham, Sunil Lal, Heather Kempton and Hans W. Guesgen (in press), Novel Machine Learning-driven Comparative Analysis of CSP, STFT, and CSP-STFT Fusion for EEG Data Classification across Multiple Meditation and Non-meditation Sessions in BCI Pipeline Brain Informatics.

Nalinda D. Liyanagedera, Ali Abdul Hussain 1, Amardeep Singh 3, Sunil Lal 1, Heather Kempton 4 and Hans W. Guesgen (2023). Common Spatial Pattern for Classification of Loving Kindness Meditation for Single and Multiple Sessions. Brain Informatics, 10, 24.

Nelson, N., Hodgetts, D., & Chamberlain, K. (2025). Russia's@ RT_Com Twitter campaign supporting the 2022 Ukraine invasion: A rhetorical analysis. Political Psychology. DOI: 10.1111/pops.70044

Nguyen, M. H. T., Hodgetts, D., & Chamberlain, K. (2025). Cultural process considerations in a mixed methods investigation of social enterprise performance in Vietnam. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 1-25.

Nelson, N., Hodgetts, D., & Chamberlain, K. (2025). The Internet Research Agency Campaign to Influence the 2016 US Presidential Elections: A Rhetorical Analysis. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 35(5), e70163.

Nguyen, T. (2024). Mối quan hệ giữ tinh thần & An sinh nơi làm việc với quản lý nguồn nhân lực bền vững (Workplace spirituality and wellbeing in relation to a sustainable human capital management). Vietnamese Journal of Psychology. 7, 1-18

Nguyen, M-LT., Hodgetts, D., Nguyen, MT., Vu, DV., Vu, T-T., & Nguyen, T. (2024). Agency in sedimented situations featuring farmer experiences of climate disruptions in the Mekong Delta. Qualitative Research in Psychology.

Nguyen, MHT., Pham, VT., & Do, MN. (2024). Nexus of Workplace Spirituality, Employee Wellbeing, and Employee Commitment: A Comparison Between Social Enterprises and Other Organisations in Vietnam. Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion. 21(7), 810-832

Nguyen, MHT., Hodgetts, D., & Carr, S. (2024). Supporting Social Entrepreneurship among Vietnamese Youth A Policy Brief. International Perspectives in Psychology: Research, Practice, Consultation. 13(1), 50-53

Nguyen, MH., Nguyen, MHT., Jin, R., Nguyen, QL., La, VP., Le, TT., Vuong, QH. (2023). Preventing the Separation of Urban Humans from Nature: The Impact of Pet and Plant Diversity on Biodiversity Loss Belief. Urban Science. 7(2)

Nguyen, T. (2023). Mối Quan hệ giữa yếu tố tinh thần tại nơi làm việc và đời sống an sinh của người lao động trong mô hình doanh nghiệp xã hội (Relationship of workplace spirituality and employees' wellbeing in social enterprises). Vietnamese Journal of Psychology. 4 Retrieved from https://tapchitamlyhocvietnam.com/en/digital-magazine-4-2023

Nguyen, MH., Jin, R., Hoang, G., Nguyen, MHT., Nguyen, PL., Le, TT., Vuong, QH. (2023). Examining contributors to Vietnamese high school students’ digital creativity under the serendipity-mindsponge-3D knowledge management framework. Thinking Skills and Creativity. 49

Schimanski, I., Treharne, G., Tuffin, K., de Terte, I., Riggs, D. W., & Ellis, S. J. (2025). Testing a Suicidal Ideation-To-Action Framework Among Queer and Takatāpui People in Aotearoa New Zealand: An Examination of the Three-Step Theory. New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 54, 47–58.

Syed-Yahya, S. N. N., Idris, M. A., Lee, M. C. C., & Tuckey, M. R. (2025). The longitudinal effect of safety climate on safety behaviour: the role of extraversion and conscientiousness as moderators. Work & Stress, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678373.2024.2448943

Vuong, QH., Nguyen, QL., Jin, R., Nguyen, MHT., Nguyen, TP., La, VP., Nguyen, MH. (2023). Increasing Supply for Woody-Biomass-Based Energy through Wasted Resources: Insights from US Private Landowners. Sustainability (Switzerland). 15(11)

Winther, S., de Terte, I., Wood, W., Beable, S., Wilson, K., & Hamilton, B. (2025). It was the best of times, it was the worst of times: Understanding the relationship of hassles and depressive symptoms in New Zealand elite athletes. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology

Yulianto, J. E. & Rembulan, C.L. (2024). Home-making within and beyond the house: Lived experiences of making psychological home of urban youth in Indonesia. Vulnerable Child and Youth Studies, 19(4), 676-694. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450128.2024.2402396

Yulianto, J. E., Swastika, G. L. D., & Kiling, I. Y. (2024). How inter-ethnic relations are reproduced through everyday social practice: A perspective from the Javanese nasi pecel vendors in Mataraman cities. Heliyon, 10(10), e30843. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e30843

Yulianto, J. E. & King, P. (2024). Letter to the editor. Re: “[Indigenous dataset of Dayak, Malay, and Chinese communities in Sintang Regency, West Kalimantan, Indonesia by A. Gandasari et al, 2024, 110147]”. Data in Brief, 110422, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2024.110422

EPIC member Darrin Hodgetts recently spoke with Psychology Today about how psychology can help build housing justice.

Psychology Today

Housing Insecurity and Homelessness

EPIC member Darrin Hodgetts recently spoke with the Mindbridge Podcast about addressing housing insecurity and homelessness.

Mindbridge Podcast

Cassim, GS., Khan-Janif, J., Ali, M., Ali, N., Shah Drew, S., Slaimankhel, J., . . . Hopner, V. (2023). Project Salaam: Evaluation Report. Massey University.