A historian at the University of Exeter has been awarded a €1.5m European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant to investigate the politics of psychiatry and international humanitarianism in partition contexts across the twentieth century.
The project, Psypartitions, sits at the intersection of global history and the medical humanities, and will see Dr Chris Sandal-Wilson, of the Department of Archaeology and History, lead a team of post-doctoral researchers and international collaborators over the next five years.
By bringing together different archives from around the world, scientific publications, literature, and oral histories, the project team aims to transform how we understand the history of psychiatry and mental health during some of the most cataclysmic events of the twentieth century.
The project will focus on partitions around the world, including the Greek-Turkish population exchange, the Partition of India, and the break-up of Yugoslavia. It will explore the experiences of psychiatric patients and their families, the politicisation of responsibility for their care, and the role played by psychiatric knowledge within conflict.
The study ultimately aims to bring attention to the specific needs and dilemmas faced by people living with mental health diagnoses in partition contexts today. Dr Sandal-Wilson, who himself grew up amidst the legacies of partition on the island of Ireland, explains:
"Understanding these histories matters, not just for scholarship, but because neither the legacies nor logics of partition thinking have left us today. We still live in a world defined by partitions; a fuller understanding of this history is key to helping us navigate it."
The grant for Dr Sandal-Wilson was among the €761m funding announced by the European Research Council covering 478 early-career researchers across physical sciences and engineering, life sciences, and social sciences and humanities. These prestigious grants are designed to help researchers at the beginning of their careers launch their own projects, build research teams, and pursue their most promising ideas.
"I'm honoured to have had my project PSYPARTITIONS selected for funding by the ERC," said Dr Sandal-Wilson. "And I'm grateful to everyone at Exeter and beyond whose help and support made this possible."
