Neil Armstrong
BA (hons), MA, MSt, DPhil
Honorary Member
- Honorary Fellow
Neil is a social and medical anthropologist working on mental healthcare. His research investigates the frontier between the anthropology of bureaucracy, institutions, ethics, and personal change. He is currently conducting fieldwork on two projects: an investigation of personal transformation in addiction and a study of conflicts between bureaucratic working and relational practice in therapeutic communities.
He is Lecturer in Anthropology, Magdalen College, University of Oxford, where he teaches undergraduates taking degrees in Archaeology and Anthropology and Human Sciences. He gives university lectures in the anthropology of religion and teaches graduate classes for the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford.
http://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/member-of-staff/dr-neil-armstrong/
He is co-investigator on SMaRteN a national research network funded by UK Research and Innovation, led by King's College London, focusing on Student Mental Health in Higher Education. The network brings together researchers with a range of expertise and key stakeholders across the Higher Education sector, with the collective aim of improving our understanding of student mental health.
https://www.smarten.org.uk/
He is an Associate Editor, BJ Psychiatric Bulletin and a member, NHS Clinical Ethics Advisory Group, Oxford.
Recent publications
-
The development of a creative work rehabilitation organisation
Journal article
Leach J. et al, (2023), History of psychiatry, 34, 48 - 63
-
Innovation in mental health care: Bertram Mandelbrote, the Phoenix Unit and the therapeutic community approach.
Journal article
Millard D. et al, (2022), Hist Psychiatry
-
Silver linings: how mental health activists can help us navigate wicked problems.
Journal article
Armstrong N. and Pratt-Boyden K., (2021), BJPsych Bull, 45, 227 - 230
-
“I was at the right place at the right time“: The neglected role of happenstance in the lives of people and institutions
Journal article
Armstrong N. and Agulnik P., (2020), HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 10, 890 - 905
-
What leads to innovation in mental healthcare? Reflections on clinical expertise in a bureaucratic age.
Journal article
Armstrong N., (2018), BJPsych Bull, 42, 184 - 187