Dr Marco Distinto

Professional biography

I am a Lecturer in Management at the Open University Business School (OUBS) in the Department of People and Organisations (DPO).

I have a background in psychology (BSc and MSc completed at the University of Cagliari – Italy), with a focus on critical and discursive psychology. I have completed my PhD at the Open University Business School (DPO) in 2020, with a thesis titled “Pastoral power and the integration of migrants: An exploratory study of discourses and practices of integration within Italian refugee reception centres. My doctoral research adopted a Foucauldian framework to ethnographically explore the organisation of migrant integration within Italian Refugee Reception Centres and how this is affected by cultural practices, political discourses, and socio-psychological knowledge.

After my PhD, I worked as a research consultant for different projects on the topic of migration with the Open University Business School and the University of Exeter College of Social Sciences and International Studies. From August 2021 to December 2022, I worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Aosta Valley in the Department of Human and Social Sciences for a study titled “Inclusive trajectories of migrants in the workplace: A Research in Aosta Valley”. The project was aimed at mapping and investigating the socio-material networks of organisations and more-than-human entities affecting the workplace integration of migrants and refugees in Aosta Valley.

My research approach is informed by post-structuralist theory, and it is qualitative in terms of methodology. I have knowledge and expertise of research methods such as ethnography, critical discourse analysis, and post-qualitative methods of inquiry. I am passionate about the philosophical debates underpinning social research and the ways social scientists explore and answer questions about individuals, organisations, and societies.

I do research on work and social inclusion, migrants social and workplace integration, the business of (im)migration, subjectivities in the workplace, the socio-material dimensions of management practices. I am particularly interested in post-humanist approaches to explore the socio-material dimensions of organisational processes. I am currently working on a research project that critically explores issues of precarity, inclusion, and diversity in the arts, with a focus on understanding the experiences of underrepresented groups in the museum sector.

From September 2021 to January 2023, I worked as an Associate Lecturer at the Open University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) in the School of Psychology and Counselling for the modules DE300 (qualitative research methods in psychology) and DD210 (applied psychology).

As a Lecturer in the Department of People and Organisations, I am the chair of BXY230 Developing Effective Work Relationships (Professional Practice element of the Chartered Management Degree Apprenticeship) and module team member of B100 An Introduction to Business and Management. I am co-director of REEF (Research into Employment and Equitable Futures).