Contact

Room C1.47, Ellen Wilkinson Building, Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute

Tel: +44 (0)161 275 8967
alisonr.howell@manchester.ac.uk

Bio

As a Postdoctoral Fellow at the HCRI, I conduct research and teach in the areas of health and conflict, with a specific interest in the relationship between medicine and militarism. My current research examines how psychiatric practices in Western militaries have evolved in the contemporary context of 'counterinsurgency' and 'humanitarian' wars. I came to the HCRI after having been a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Postdoctoral Fellow in Politics at Manchester.

I completed my doctorate at York University in Toronto, Canada. My PhD research examined the role of psychology and psychiatry in global affairs, with a particular interest in post-conflict mental health interventions. This research was funded by SSHRC and the Canadian Consortium on Human Security, and is now being published as a sole-authored book with Routledge. Prior to my doctorate, I completed two interdisciplinary degrees: an MA in Political Economy at Carleton University, and a BA Hons in International Studies at Trent University, Canada.

Research Interests

As a post-doctoral fellow at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI), my primary scholarly interest is in mental health and conflict, with a particular interest in how medicine is now often harnessed in Western militaries and in the making of 'humanitarian' wars. I have recently completed a book on the use of psychology in the global governance of mental health which assesses the role of psychologists and psychiatrists in practices of global security. As part of this research I examined mental health interventions in a number of locations, from spaces of detention such as Guantánamo, in Western militaries, and in conflict and post-conflict situations.

I have further examined these issues in my research on mental health programming in post-invasion Iraq, which was published in Security Dialogue. In it, I trace how mental health sector reforms in Iraq have faltered in the context of ongoing conflict. I am also interested in the place of suicide and suicide-prevention programs in conflicts, and in this vein I have examined suicide in spaces of detention such as Guantánamo, resulting in a 2007 publication in the journal International Political Sociology. I have also investigated the role of suicide and suicide prevention amongst combatants, and have a number of publications that are now in progress on this topic.

I was recently awarded a Fulbright Scholar and Chair grant from the Fulbright Commission. The Fulbright is being hosted by the Watson Institute at Brown University, and by SUNY (State University of New York), in conjunction with my work at the HCRI. The Fulbright was awarded to fund my research on mental health interventions amongst soldiers and veterans. Additionally, I am in the midst of exploring how mental health has become a linchpin of the US military, and the marker of its overextension in both combat and so-called humanitarian missions, particularly in Afghanistan.

I am interested in engaging not only with scholarly audiences, but also with the public and media. For example, I am a contributor to a report on the costs of the US response to 9/11, which will be released to the media in the run-up to the tenth anniversary of 9/11. My contribution to the report, co-authored with Zoe Wool, details the shifting burden of care associated with deployments.

Publications

Authored Books

Alison Howell. Madness in International Relations: Psychology, Security and the Global Governance of Mental Health. London: Routledge, 2011. (forthcoming, in press)

Edited Books

Alison Howell, ed. Governance and Global (Dis)orders: Trends, Transformations, and Impasses. Toronto: Centre for International and Security Studies, York University, 2004. 312 pp.

Book Contributions

Alison Howell. “The Art of Governing Trauma: Treating PTSD in the Canadian Military as a Foreign Policy Practice” Canadian Foreign Policy in Critical Perspective.  J. Marshall Beier and Lana Wylie (eds.).  Oxford University Press, 2009.

Journal articles

Alison Howell. “Sovereignty, Security, Psychiatry: Liberation and the Failure of Mental Health Governance in Iraq.” Security Dialogue 41:4 (2010): 347-67.

Alison Howell. “Victims or Madmen? The Diagnostic Competition over ‘Terrorist’ Detainees at Guantánamo Bay.” International Political Sociology 1:1 (2007): 29 - 47.

Further Information

Current Teaching