From "hero" to "traumatized victim"? Spanish refugee children and debates about refugee mental health in the mid-twentieth century, 1936-c. 1950

This project is part of a team project on health, wellbeing and the child refugees of the Spanish Civil War led by Dr Stephanie Wright at Lancaster University (more information available here: https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/fasshealthhub/phd-funding-opportunities/).

It will explore key debates amongst mental health professionals and humanitarian workers concerning the psychological impacts of the war and evacuation on Spanish refugee children. This project will recentre these debates in wider histories of mental health and young refugees in the mid twentieth century and asks to what extent the evacuation of Spanish Children was a transformative moment, when new discourses about the impact of exile and child-parent separation emerged clashed with more pragmatic views of war children as "heroes" and "political beings", able to be mobilised against the fascist threat.

By examining different understandings of the psychological impacts of war and displacement on refugee children, this project will offer historical insights onto current discussion on refugee children mental health. The successful candidate will benefit from the large and lively research community of the History Department and the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI) and will have access to the University of Manchester's innovative training programmes in the humanities.