On Tuesday 27th May 2025 we welcome Professor Kesi Mahendran and Dr. Anthony English to Politics in Pubs Manchester.

They will introduce a discussion on the term “Everyday Extremism”, a key concept to their work.

Taster

Here is a taste of what they will have to say:

When asked to consider what political extremism looks like, what ideas come to mind? An alienated young person intent on harming others? A radicalised group with a warped ideology?

Whilst it is easy to think of extremism as something ‘other people do’, is there a chance we are all unwittingly contributing to the rise of extremism?

OppAttune is a 17-partner collaboration which aims to track, attune and limit the spread of political extremism.
The project focuses on the idea of Everyday Extremism, which is when extreme narratives become a part of everyday actions and political discourse (be that online or in-person) through words and/or images. Equally, what once might have been considered an extreme idea or act becomes mundane and normalised through repetition and familiarity.

Within OppAttune, our starting point is that we all have the capacity to be everyday extremists on-line in certain situations when we become enraged over a political issue. Of course, the idea of everyday extremism has its own moral complexities and challenges – who gets to decide what everyday extremism is and how it is defined? Are acts of everyday extremism the first step towards real-world violence? Are they reflections of our inability to handle tensions within democracy and politics? Should acts of everyday extremism be prosecutable and, if so, how would this be enforced? Our discussion will explore these ideas as we reflect on this new way of thinking about extremism.

Biographies

Kesi Mahendran is a Professor of Social and Political Psychology at the Open University, whose research seeks to support dialogue between citizens and their governments on vexed political questions such as migration, sovereignty, European and Global citizenship. She is the Scientific Coordinator of the Horizon-Europe/Innovate UK OppAttune project. Kesi is the founding member of the Public Dialogue Psychology Collaboratory (PDPC), former chair of the BPS Political Psychology Section and on the board of the IMISCOE Standing Committee on Reflexive Migration Studies. She is currently writing “The Migrating Self: A new psychology of migration and its publics (Routledge, 2026).”

Dr Anthony English is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow on the OppAttune project and is based in the School of Psychology and Counselling at the Open University. Anthony’s current research explores understanding how individuals navigate polarising political discussions to sustain dialogue. Other areas of interest include exploring how dehumanising propaganda creates polarisation, the role of migration-mobility in shaping worldviews, and how moral differences influence political endorsements. Anthony is a member of the Public Dialogue Psychology Collaboratory and is affiliated with Lancaster University as a visiting research fellow.

Come and join the discussion

You are warmly invited to join us at the Welcome Inn, Bury Old Road, Whitefield, Manchester M45 6TA, for our next meeting on Tuesday 27th May 2025 at 7:30pm.  This is a free event.  All are welcome.

See here for location.

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