Hannah Wilkinson
Assistant Professor in Criminology, Faculty of Social Sciences
Contact
Biography
I joined the School of Sociology and Social Policy as an Assistant Professor of Criminology in September 2022. My research interests lie in the areas of war, state violence and harm.
I recently guest edited a special issue of Criminological Encounters with Teresa Degenhardt, 'Towards a global, anti-colonial criminology of war, genocide and resistance', including a forum dedicated to Palestine and Gaza.
I have worked with third-sector organisations and charities to support ex-military people who have been imprisoned, and share research in accessible ways with local communities and practitioners. My colleague Dr Lauren Hall and I have been awarded £107,980 from the Forces in Mind Trust to research how criminalised ex-military personnel experience sentencing and the legal advice given to them, to better inform sentencing practices, outcomes and support for former Service personnel in the future.
My research, teaching, and wider activism are anchored to social justice.
Professional memberships include the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control, where I recently became a coordinator of the Crimes of the Powerful working group; the European Society of Criminology; the British Society of Criminology; and the University of Nottingham Centre for the Study of Post-Conflict Societies.
I am also an External Examiner for Criminology programmes at the University of Stirling, Scotland.
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-9569-4775
ResearchGate Profile
Expertise Summary
My work is broadly interested in state harm and 21st century warfare. More specifically, my doctoral research explored British veterans' experiences of the US and UK led 'war on terror', as well as military to civilian transitions amid a time of violent austerity. In addition to the theoretical lens of harm (zemiology), I use Bourdieusian 'field theory' to trace forms of capital throughout the life course. My research seeks to understand how identities and experiences are shaped through interactions with state institutions. I have recently published work on the harms of criminalisation and imprisonment for ex-military communities, the embodied traces of militarisation and colonial state violence for British ex-soldiers of the 'war on terror', and co-edited a special issue of Criminological Encounters on war, genocide and resistance with Dr Teresa Degenhardt (Queens University Belfast).
I use narrative and creative visual methods, including photo and object elicitation. After teaching the mechanics of war and atrocity since 2018, my research interests are grounded in philosophies seeking to understand the complexity of mass state violence, human suffering and resistance.
Teaching Summary
I convene the third-year Criminology module, War and State Violence (SOCI3042). In addition to criminological, sociological and philosophical theories of atrocity and resistance, the module is… read more
Research Summary
I am currently working on publications from my doctoral research, exploring military to civilian transitions and former British soldiers' experiences of delivering state violence in the 'war on… read more
Selected Publications
I convene the third-year Criminology module, War and State Violence (SOCI3042). In addition to criminological, sociological and philosophical theories of atrocity and resistance, the module is grounded in my research with ex-military personnel who delivered British state violence in the 'war on terror'.
I also contribute to the first-year module, Investigating Social Worlds and supervise undergraduate research on the third year Dissertation module.
I previously convened the core second-year Criminology module, Contemporary Theories of Crime, Justice and Society and contributed to the third-year module, Crimes and Harms of the Powerful.
I deliver research sessions on the Master's and Postgraduate Research programmes, and supervise undergraduate, postgraduate-taught, and PhD research.
I am interested in supervising PhD projects exploring areas of harm, including:
War; border violence; authoritarianism; the climate emergency; local and global conflict; abolition and transformative justice; social exclusion; and the illegalisation of protest.
Please get in touch if you would like to discuss a potential PhD project.
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I co-supervised Dr. Emma Thacker's interdisciplinary professional doctorate, with thesis title: Contract Cheating and Academic Literacies: Exploring the landscape (viva passed June, 2022). I have also been an external MRes supervisor at Birkbeck University of London.
I previously contributed to the following modules as a Lecturer in Criminology at Keele University:
Undergraduate
State Crimes and Crimes against Humanity - module author & convenor
Dissertation - supervisor
Crime and Justice in a Global Context
Research Methods in Criminology
Mental Health and Offending
Understanding Crime
Criminal Justice: Process, Policy and Practice
Psychology and Crime
Introduction to Criminology - module author & convener
Postgraduate
Contemporary Criminology: Theory and Practice (MA);
Researching Crime and Criminal Justice (MA);
Advanced Topics in Criminology and Criminal Justice (MA);
Dissertation (MA, Supervisor)
Current Research
I am currently working on publications from my doctoral research, exploring military to civilian transitions and former British soldiers' experiences of delivering state violence in the 'war on terror' (Wilkinson, 2025, 2026 forthcoming). I am in the process of writing the thesis into a book, with working title: War and Social Harm and recently co-edited a special issue of Criminological Encounters on a global, anti-colonial criminology of war, genocide and resistance (Wilkinson and Degenhardt, 2025a, 2025b).
Dr Lauren Hall and I are researching ex-military experiences of criminal sentencing to better inform sentencing practices, outcomes and support for former Service personnel in the future, funded by the Forces in Mind Trust.
Past Research
I have evaluated third-sector housing projects designed for ex-military people leaving imprisonment, and have worked with charities to support militarised communities and their families across Birmingham, Stoke and the Midlands.
In 2017 I worked as a Research Assistant with Dr Samantha Weston to evaluate the Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) prevention programme delivered by Staffordshire Police. I also worked with Sam in 2016 to evaluate early intervention and community-based prevention of solvent (ab)use in the UK, provided by the charity Re-Solv.
My PhD research explored the experiences of former military personnel leaving the armed forces and areas of conflict in the 21st century. The project used photos, objects, and narrative story telling methods to understand the embodied impact of delivering violence on behalf of the British military in the 'war on terror'. The research also offers rich insights into military to civilian transitions and experiences of (re)shaping identities after institutionalisation. You can listen to me speaking about the research, methods and what led to the project (along with how and why I became a 'criminologist') in the Locked Up Living podcast - Home as a continuation site of conflict (2022).
Alongside academic colleagues, artists, policy makers and advocates with veteran communities, I took part in the multi-disciplinary project 'Reimagine the Veteran' led by Dr Emma Murray, Liverpool John Moores University. The 2016 project included making a short video about my PhD research and theoretical concept of 'combat capital'.
I have published findings around the harms of criminalisation for military veterans, including the complex 'dance of disclosure' faced by ex-armed forces communities navigating life with a criminal record amid a time of violent austerity.
WILKINSON, H. R., 2025. Embodied Harms of Militarisation and War. In: WESTON, S. and TREBILCOCK, J., eds., Mental Health, Crime and Justice: Critical Criminological Perspectives Palgrave Macmillan. 203-229 MARZOUK, A. and WILKINSON, H. R., 2023. Rising State Violence and Politics of Hate In: EUROCRIM 2023, The Renaissance of European Criminology: 23rd Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology, Florence. WILKINSON, H. R., 2022. The harms of criminalisation for “veteran offenders” Probation Quarterly: Lived Experience in Service Delivery: Navigating responsibility and risk. 31-35 WILKINSON, H. R., 2022. Hero to Zero?: Navigating and negotiating the harms of criminalisation as a ‘veteran offender’ Probation Journal: The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice. 69(3), 318–336 WILKINSON, H. R., 2022. Trade Unionism? It’s class mate In: Keele UCU Teach Out, 'Everything you wanted to know about trade unions but were too afraid to ask'. WILKINSON, H. R., 2022. War as a continuation site of social harm In: European Society of Criminology, 22nd annual conference: Challenges and opportunities in a virtually and physically connected Europe: the need for criminology, Malaga (Spain). WILKINSON, H. R. and CORCORAN, M., 2022. Covid-corruption’ and the ‘design of mass death In: European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control 50th annual conference: Dynamics of harm and social control in the transformation of capitalism, Torino (Italy).