Phillip L. Hammack, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor – Department of Psychology
University of California, Santa Cruz
1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 
Email: hammack@ucsc.edu

Visiting Fellow, 2010-2011 – Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
University of Notre Dame
332 Hesburgh Center, Notre Dame, IN 46556
Phone: +1 574.631.8834 
Email: Phillip.L.Hammack.3@nd.edu
Web: http://kroc.nd.edu

Phillip L. Hammack is Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He received his Ph.D. from the Committee on Human Development at the University of Chicago in 2006 and has published widely in social, cultural, developmental, and clinical psychology. He is the author of Narrative and the Politics of Identity: The Cultural Psychology of Israeli and Palestinian Youth (Oxford, 2011), co-editor of The Story of Sexual Identity: Narrative Perspectives on the Gay and Lesbian Life Course (Oxford, 2009), and co-editor of the book series on Sexuality, Identity and Society published by Oxford University Press.

Professor Hammack’s research is anchored in an analysis of identity development in social, cultural, and political context. He uses multiple methods, including ethnography, interviewing, surveys, and experimentation, to interrogate the complex relationship between person and setting. In the spirit of pioneering social psychologists like Kurt Lewin, Professor Hammack’s work is committed to research that can lead to action in the interest of social justice. 

Professor Hammack’s research highlights the way in which individual subjectivity is negotiated within a given social and political environment, revealing the multi-textured nature of culture, politics, and identity. In one line of work, he highlights the identity dynamics involved in settings of intractable political conflict, with a focus on Israeli and Palestinian youth. In another line of work, he studies the narratives of youth with same-sex desire as they navigate an ever-shifting political context for sexual identity in the United States. An underlying commitment in both of these lines of research is to move from descriptive or explanatory social science to the production of transformative knowledge—that is, toward the production of knowledge that serves the interest of those who suffer from social injustice and subordination.

Professor Hammack identifies as a “scholar-practitioner” and has thus also held a number of non-academic positions in peace organizations, including roles in group facilitation and program administration in peace education programs. From 2010-2011, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

Professor Hammack has presented his research across the globe, including in Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Israel, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Canada, and at numerous professional meetings and universities in the United States.

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Phillip L. Hammack, Ph.D. Manuscripts