Helen McCabe

Contact

• workRoom B103 Law & Social Sciences
  University Park
  Nottingham
  NG7 2RD
  UK
• Helen.McCabe@nottingham.ac.uk

Biography

I joined Nottingham in September 2017. I am currently co-leading the "(Re-)Conceptualising" strand of a new Leverhulme Centre for the Study of Slavery in War, and working as the Thematic Research Lead for Arts and Humanities in UK Parliament.

I have previously held a BA Innovation Fellowship, and led grants on forced marriage, honour-based abuse and modern slavery funded by the AHRC and ESRC. I lead the work on forced marriage in the Rights Lab, a University of Nottingham Beacon Research of Excellence (I am part of the Law and Policy Programme). You can hear me talk about my work in a podcast on The Rights Track here, with Global Partnerships here, or on the project's podcast here.

From 2019 onwards, I was also the Principal Investigator on project funded by the AHRC in collaboration with researchers, activists, and artists in Kenya and the NGO World Reader, seeking to amplify the voices of survivors of human trafficking in Kenya through ethical storytelling and participatory photography. You can see an exhibition of work produced as part of this project here. You can find out more about the project, and access our ethical remote research toolkit here.

My D.Phil thesis looked at J.S. Mill's surprising claim to be a socialist: I completed it in 2010. My book, John Stuart Mill, Socialist is published with McGill-Queens University Press (Spring 2021). You can watch me talking about it here. I am part of a team producing a new edition of On Liberty which recognises Harriet Taylor Mill's contribution to the text, forthcoming with Hackett (2026). I am also working on a book about their co-authoring relationship. My Cambridge Elements book about Harriet Taylor Mill was published in 2023. You can hear me talking about Harriet Taylor Mill here. I also have a chapter on her in "Philosopher Queens" (Unbound), and wrote the new, revised, entry on her in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Since graduating from my D.Phil, I have been teaching analytical political theory and the history of political thought at the University of Oxford (2010-2013) and the University of Warwick (2013-2017); publishing articles on Mill's socialism, his feminism and his philosophy of persuasive; and working on a project concerning his authorial relationship with Harriet Taylor Mill.

I welcome applications and expressions of interest from prospective PhD students interesting in researching forced marriage and/or modern slavery, or from those interested in further research into J.S. Mill and/or Harriet Taylor.

Expertise Summary

I lead an interdisciplinary team concerned with the meaning and experience of forced marriage globally; measuring its prevalence more-accurately; understandings its causes and consequences; developing more-effective interventions aimed at achieving the United Nations' station goal of ending it by 2030. You can read our recent evidence submission to the Women and Equalities Select Committee on these issues here.

From October 2020 to April 2022 I was working on an ESRC-funded COVID-19 rapid-response grant investigating the impact of Covid-19 and Covid-related decision making on people experiencing, or vulnerable to, forced marriage in the UK. With Dr Katarina Schwarz I co-authored a submission to the Joint Committee on Human Rights regarding the impact of the UK government's response to COVID-19, which is available here. I also talked about this issue at a Global Partners online conference about human trafficking, which you can watch here.

I also lead work on using ethical storytelling and participatory photography to help create communities with survivors of human trafficking and forced marriage in Kenya. We have learned useful tips about working remotely in a pandemic as well as substantive findings about the impact of these ethical, survivor-oriented methods, which should be of interest to NGOs as well as other academics.

My previous research mainly looked at the political philosophy of John Stuart Mill, especially his connections to pre-Marxist socialism (particularly that of Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, Victor Considerant, Henri Saint-Simon and Louis Blanc). My book came out in 2021. I was featured on a programme on Radio 4 about "Autarky" in November 2022. I also work on in the nature of his intellectual relationship with Harriet Taylor Mill (whom he credited as his co-author), and in her independent status as a political philosopher. Mill and Taylor's views on worker-owned democracies have interesting implications for thinking about resilience and "building back better" after Covid-19.

Teaching Summary

I am not currently teaching, as I am on research leave.

I continue to supervise PhDs, and am always happy to be contacted by students considering PhD applications in my area of expertise - either the history of political thought, or forced marriage.

Research Summary

I currently research issues around forced marriage and modern slavery, and co-lead the "(Re-)Conceptualising" strand of work in the new Leverhulme Centre for the Study of Slavery in War. I am… read more

Recent Publications

• MOHAMMED OZIGIS, 2025. Utility of Earth Observation data in mapping post-disaster impact: A case of Hurricane Dorian in The Bahamas Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment.
• HELEN MCCABE, 2023. Harriet Taylor Mill Cambridge University Press.
• HELEN MCCABE, 2023. Students’ “Literacy” and Engagement with Feedback. In: TINA BYROM and JACKIE CALDWELL, eds., The teaching and learning challenges in 21st century higher education: Prioritising Pedagogy Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• HELEN MCCABE, 2023. John Stuart Mill's "Qualified Socialism". In: MASAMOTO FUJIMOTO, JOHN VINT and TARO HISAMATSU, eds., James Mill, John Stuart Mill, and the History of Economic Thought Routledge.

• View all publications

I currently supervise four PhD students, working on projects relating to forced marriage and/or modern slavery. Three have been funded via the ESRC Doctoral Training College of which Nottingham is a part. More information about these projects is available here: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2720637 and here: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2426309.

I welcome approaches from students looking to work in this area, as well as students wanting to work on Mill, Harriet Taylor, or Helen Taylor.

Current Research

I currently research issues around forced marriage and modern slavery, and co-lead the "(Re-)Conceptualising" strand of work in the new Leverhulme Centre for the Study of Slavery in War. I am interested in questions about prevalence and risk for forced marriage in the UK, as well as the conceptual relationship between forced marriage, slavery and war.

In addition, I am working on a book about John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor's collaborative relationship. My book on Taylor Mill came out with Cambridge University Press in February 2023.

Past Research

My book, John Stuart Mill: Socialist was published by McGill-Queens University Press in 2021. I have given related papers in Frankfurt and Toronto in 2020 (online because of Covid-19) and Nottingham, Paris, York and Boston in 2018. This work stems from my doctoral research, which looked at Mill's somewhat surprising assertion of being 'under the general designation of Socialist'. I considered this in its historical context (particularly of 'utopian' socialism such as that of Robert Owen and his followers, Henri Saint-Simon and his followers the Saint-Simonians); Charles Fourier and Victor Consideration; and Louis Blanc, Philipe Buchez and other cooperative socialists in France) and found it to be a plausible claim. Mill's socialism is akin, but not identical to, many of these 'utopian' socialists. I also considered his socialism in a more conceptual fashion (particularly given John Rawls' claim that Mill was a supporter of 'property-owning democracy' rather than 'liberal socialism') and found that Mill's commitments to the free development of individuality; equality; social harmony; progress and general utility make him plausible a 'liberal socialist'.

Future Research

My future research will increasingly focus on forced marriage, and how to end it, along with other forms of modern slavery, by 2030. In particular, I will focus on prevalence, causes, consequences and means of ending it.

• MOHAMMED OZIGIS, 2025. Utility of Earth Observation data in mapping post-disaster impact: A case of Hurricane Dorian in The Bahamas Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment.
• HELEN MCCABE, 2023. Harriet Taylor Mill Cambridge University Press.
• HELEN MCCABE, 2023. Students’ “Literacy” and Engagement with Feedback. In: TINA BYROM and JACKIE CALDWELL, eds., The teaching and learning challenges in 21st century higher education: Prioritising Pedagogy Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• HELEN MCCABE, 2023. John Stuart Mill's "Qualified Socialism". In: MASAMOTO FUJIMOTO, JOHN VINT and TARO HISAMATSU, eds., James Mill, John Stuart Mill, and the History of Economic Thought Routledge.
• CHAUHAN, VIPIN, CROWLEY, THOMAS, FISHER, ANDREW, MCCABE, HELEN and WILLIAMS, HELEN, 2022. Losing the race? Philosophy of race in U.K. philosophy departments Metaphilosophy. 53(1), 134-143
• HELEN MCCABE, 2022. John Stuart Mill’s Views of Democracy and Government in Greg Conti’s Parliament: The Mirror of the Nation’ History of European Ideas. 49(1), 163-165
• HELEN MCCABE, 2022. ‘Response to Comments – John Stuart Mill, Socialist’, History of European Ideas. 49(1), 188-191
• HELEN MCCABE and LAUREN EGLEN, 2022. '“I bought you. You are my wife”: “Modern Slavery” and Forced Marriage' Journal of Human Trafficking.
• HELEN MCCABE, WENDY STICKLE and HANNAH BAUMEISTER, 2022. Forced Marriage and Modern Slavery: Analysing Marriage as a “Choiceless Choice" Journal of Modern Slavery. 7(2), 33-57
• AISHA ALI HAJI, REHEMA BAYA, EMILY BRADY, HELEN MCCABE and YASMIN MANJI, 2022. Participatory Photography, Ethical Story-Telling and Modern Slavery Survivor Voices: Adapting to Covid-19. In: MARIA DO CARMO DOS SANTOS GONCALVES, REBECCA GUTWALD, TANJI KLEIBL, RONALD LUTZ and NDANGWA NOYOO, eds., The Coronavirus Crisis and Challenges to Social Development Springer,. 371-80
• HELEN MCCABE, 2021. John Stuart Mill, Socialist McGill-Queens University Press.
• EMILY BRADY, HELEN MCCABE, SOPHIE OTIENDE, REHEMA BAYA, YASMIN MANJI, RUTH SORBY, AISHA ALI HAJI and MUTHONI MUHUNYO, 2021. The Impact of COVID-19 on Survivors of Human Trafficking in Kenya: A Participatory Approach Journal of Modern Slavery.
• HELEN MCCABE, 2021. What is Odious in Death is not Death Itself, but the Act of Dying”: John Stuart Mill on the Political Philosophy of Death and Dying. In: ERIN A. DOLGOY and KIMBERLY HURD HALE, eds., Political Theory on Death and Dying Routledge.
• HELEN MCCABE, 2021. J.S. Mill’s Understanding of the “organic” nature of socialism. In: GABOR BIRO, ed., Humanity and Nature in Economic Thought: Searching for the Organic Origins of the Economy Routledge.
• HELEN MCCABE, 2020. Mill's ‘Modern’ Radicalism Re-Examined: Joseph Persky's The Political Economy of Progress Utilitas. 32(2), 147-164
• HELEN MCCABE, 2020. “Political … civil and domestic slavery”: Harriet Taylor Mill and Anna Doyle Wheeler on marriage, servitude, and socialism British Journal for the History of Philosophy.
• HELEN MCCABE, 2020. Harriet Taylor, and John Stuart Mill's Socialism Nineteenth-Century Prose. 47(1), 197-234
• HELEN MCCABE, 2020. John Stuart Mill on "legitimate socialism" and the 1848 revolution in Paris. Revue Philosophique de la France et de l'Etranger. 145(3), 333-351
• HELEN MCCABE, 2020. John Stuart Mill: Market Socialist? Review of Social Economy. 79(3), 506-527
• HELEN MCCABE, 2020. Harriet Taylor. In: REBECCA BUXTON and LISA WHITING, eds., The Philosopher Queens Unbound.
• VIPIN CHAUHAN, ANDY FISHER, HELEN MCCABE and HELEN WILLIAMS, 2020. Lenses of Decolonisation: Transforming Higher Education Curricula. In: TINA BYROM, ed., Meeting the Teaching and Learning Challenges in 21st Century Higher Education:: Universal Design Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• HELEN MCCABE, 2019. Navigating by the North Star: the role of the 'ideal' in J.S. Mill's View of 'utopian' schemes and the possibilities of social transformation Utilitas. 31(3), 291-309
• HELEN MCCABE, 2019. ‘There never was a time when so great a drama was being played out in one generation’: John Stuart Mill and the French Revolution of 1848 SOCIÉTÉ P.-J. PROUDHON. 5, 119-162
• HELEN MCCABE, 2019. Harriet Taylor. In: EILEEN HUNT BOTTING, SANDRINE BERGES and ALAN COFFEE, eds., The Wollstonecraftian Mind Routledge. 248-260
• HELEN MCCABE, 2018. “Good Housekeeping”? Re-Assessing John Stuart Mill’s Position on the Gendered Division of Labour History of Political Thought. 38(1), 135-155
• HELEN MCCABE, 2018. John Stuart Mill and Fourierism: ‘Association’, ‘Friendly Rivalry’ and Distributive Justice. Global Intellectual History. 4(1), 35-61
• HELEN MCCABE, 2016. Harriet Taylor Mill. In: CHRIS MACLEOD and DALE MILLER, eds., A Companion to Mill Wiley-Blackwell. 112-125
• HELEN MCCABE, 2015. John Stuart Mill, Utility and the Family: Attacking ‘the Citadel of the Enemy’ Revue Internationale de Philosophie/International Review of Philosophy. 272(2), 225-235
• HELEN MCCABE, 2015. JOHN STUART MILL’S ANALYSIS OF CAPITALISM AND THE ROAD TO SOCIALISM. In: CASEY HARRISON, ed., A New Social Question : Capitalism, Socialism and Utopia. Cambridge Scholars. 8-22
• HELEN MCCABE, 2014. John Stuart Mill's Philosophy of Persuasion Informal Logic. 34(1), 38-61
• HELEN MCCABE, 2012. Mill and Socialism: A Reply to Capaldi The Tocqueville Review. 33(1), 145-164