Professor Erica Burman

Profile

Erica Burman is Professor of Education at the University of Manchester, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and a United Kingdom Council of Psychotherapists registered Group Analyst (and full member of the Institute of Group Analysis). A past Chair of the Psychology of Women (now Psychology of Women and Equalities) Section of the British Psychological Society, in 2016 she was awarded an Honorary Lifetime Fellowship of the British Psychological Society in recognition of her contribution to Psychology.
Erica's research has focused on critical developmental and educational psychology, feminist and postcolonial theory, childhood studies, and on critical mental health practice (particularly around gender and cultural issues). Her recent work addresses the connections between emotions, mental health and (social as well as individual) change, in particular as anchored by representations of, and appeals to, childhood. She has co-led transnational research projects on conceptualising and challenging state and interpersonal violence in relation to minoritised women and children, on educational and mental health impacts of poverty and 'austerity', on superdiversity and ‘traditional’ Muslim healing practices, and she is a co-investigator on a crossnational project exploring postsocialist childhoods. She sees debates about children and childhood as central to current theories and practices around decolonisation.

Research

Publications

• Developments: child, image, nation (Routledge, 2020, 2nd edition)
• Fanon, education, action: child as method (Routledge, 2019)
• Deconstructing Developmental Psychology (Routledge, 3rd edition, 2017)

Expertise