Books by Hil Aked
Verso, 2023
'Friends of Israel: the Backlash against Palestine Solidarity' provides a forensically researched... more 'Friends of Israel: the Backlash against Palestine Solidarity' provides a forensically researched account of the activities of Israel's advocates in Britain, showing how they contribute to maintaining Israeli apartheid. The book traces the history and changing fortunes of key actors within the British Zionist movement in the context of the Israeli government's contemporary efforts to repress a rising tide of solidarity with Palestinians expressed through the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Offering a nuanced and politically relevant account of pro-Israel actors' strategies, tactics, and varying levels of success in key arenas of society, it draws parallels with the similar anti-boycott campaign waged by supporters of the erstwhile apartheid regime in South Africa.
By demystifying the actors involved in the Zionist movement, the book provides an anti-racist analysis of the pro-Israel lobby which robustly rebuffs anti-Semitic conspiracies. Sensitively and accessibly written, it emphasises the complicity of British actors - both those in government and in civil society. Drawing on a range of sources including interviews with leading pro-Israel activists and Palestinian rights activists, documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests and archival material, Friends of Israel is a much-needed contribution to Israel/Palestine-related scholarship and a useful resource for the Palestine solidarity movement.
Book chapters by Hil Aked
Vulnerability: Governing the social through security politics (Manchester University Press), 2023
Enforcing Silence: Academic Freedom, Palestine and the Criticism of Israel (Zed Books), 2020
What is Islamophobia? Racism, Social Movements and the State (Pluto Press), 2017
Journal articles by Hil Aked
Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 2023
Resistance is a concept understudied in the context of health and healthcare. This is in part bec... more Resistance is a concept understudied in the context of health and healthcare. This is in part because visible forms of social protest are sometimes understood as incongruent with professional identity, leading healthcare workers to separate their visible actions from their working life. Resistance takes many forms, however, and focusing exclusively on the visible means more subtle forms of everyday resistance are likely to be missed. The overarching aim of this study was to explore how resistance was enacted within the workplace amongst a sample of 11 healthcare workers, based in the UK; exploring the forms that such action took and how this intersected with health and healthcare. In depth-interviews were conducted and results were analysed utilising Lilja’s framework (2022). Our findings suggest that resistance took a number of forms, from more direct confrontational acts, to those which sought to avoid power or which sought to create alternative or prefigurative practices or norms. These findings speak to the complexities, ambiguities and contradictions of resistance, as carried out by healthcare workers in the workplace. While many acts had clear political motives, with issues like climate change in mind for example, participants also described how the act of providing care itself could be an act of resistance. While saying something about our participants, this also said something about the healthcare systems in which they worked. These findings also raise a range of normative issues. Perhaps needless to say, there appears to be substantial scope to expand and interrogate our findings and apply the idea of resistance to health and healthcare.
Clinical Ethics, 2023
Introduction: Non-violent resistance, carried out by healthcare workers, has been a common phenom... more Introduction: Non-violent resistance, carried out by healthcare workers, has been a common phenomenon. Despite this and despite the issues this type of action raises, we know little about the healthcare workers who engage in this action and their perspectives about its justification. This exploratory study sought to address this gap, examining these fundamental questions amongst a sample of healthcare workers who have engaged in acts of resistance, exploring their understanding of non-violent resistance, its justification and the barriers they faced in engaging in such action.
Methods: Participants were recruited through Medact's member database and directed to an online survey hosted on Qualtrics. While participants were unlikely to be representative of the broader UK healthcare community, participants were in an advantageous position to comment on non-violent resistance. Descriptive quantitative analysis and a content analysis were conducted.
Results: The majority of participants felt that non-violent resistance could be justified dependent on its cause and/or the action in question. Within this, most felt that if action were non-violent, that if it didn't harm patients and that if the issue in question had to do with health being compromised, action was often justified. A number of others framed their justification as being a right or duty to engage in non-violent resistance. In relation to barriers to engaging in non-violent resistance, these fell into three categories: personal, professional and broader concerns related to society or the general culture found in healthcare. Within these, time and concerns about registration or the consequences of engaging in action were cited as the greatest barriers.
Conclusions: These results suggest that healthcare workers who regularly engage in non-violent action carefully thought through their actions, acknowledging the diversity of actions and issues that could be challenged, for many patient care remained a primary concern. There is a need for clarity from regulatory bodies and in particular the need for dialogue between healthcare bodies and healthcare workers who continue to engage in acts of non-violent resistance.
Nursing Ethics, 2022
Background: Non-violent resistance which has involved healthcare workers has been instrumental in... more Background: Non-violent resistance which has involved healthcare workers has been instrumental in securing a number of health-related gains and a force in opposing threats to health. Despite this, we know little about healthcare workers who have engaged in acts of non-violent resistance.
Research aim: Amongst a sample of healthcare workers who had engaged in acts of resistance this study sought to explore their understanding of non-violent resistance and how or whether they felt healthcare workers made a distinct contribution to such action.
Research design: Cross-sectional survey
Participants and research context: Healthcare workers (doctors, nurses, academics and others) from the UK and Europe who had engaged in acts of non-violent resistance.
Ethical considerations: Ethical approval for this study was granted by the University of Greenwich Human Research Ethics Committee (UREC/20.5.6.11).
Findings/results: Most participants spoke about the nature of non-violent resistance, its oppositional, didactic and symbolic functions and the role of violence or harm. While most people understood non-violent resistance as a public, oppositional and collective act, many identified more subtle everyday acts in the workplace that undermined policy or procedures they saw as harmful. When asked about distinctions in non-violent resistance carried out by healthcare workers, most participants referred to their standing in society, noting that healthcare works were a trusted and authoritative source. Some identified an ethical imperative to act while others identified the risks that came with such action, noting their accountability and responsibility they had to patients. About a quarter of participants felt that such action was no different to others carrying out non-violent resistance or dependent on the issue or nature of the action.
Conclusions: These findings speak to the complex and multifaceted nature of non-violent resistance. Additionally our findings suggest healthcare workers have a distinct role to play in leading and supporting non-violent actions.
Bioethics, 2021
The UK government's ‘Prevent’ counter-extremism policy was placed on a statutory footing in 2015,... more The UK government's ‘Prevent’ counter-extremism policy was placed on a statutory footing in 2015, requiring specified authorities including NHS providers by law to work to ‘prevent people being drawn into terrorism’, leading to calls for a boycott on ethical grounds. Since 2016, mental health professionals have been embedded within counterterrorism police units in ‘Vulnerability Support Hubs’, to assist in the management of individuals referred to Prevent perceived to have vulnerabilities related to mental health. Drawing on data obtained through Freedom of Information requests, this paper examines these hubs in the context of Prevent's racial politics. It examines the pseudo-scientific concept of radicalization through the lens of racialization theory and explores the whitewashing and colourblindness endemic to most research and practice at the nexus of counterterrorism and mental health. Four ethical issues arising from the hubs are highlighted: (a) the securitization of care, including the way counterterrorism concerns appear to influence medical treatment regimes; (b) harm, including potential criminalization; (c) the erosion of patient agency and confidentiality; and (d) the pathologization of political dissent. It is argued that due to the UK's status as a leading innovator in the field of counter-radicalization, all of these highly racialized phenomena hold wider relevance and augur a troubling direction of travel for counterterrorism's turn towards mental health.
Reports by Hil Aked
Medact, 2021
This housing insecurity leads to and compounds the socioeconomic marginalisation and severe healt... more This housing insecurity leads to and compounds the socioeconomic marginalisation and severe health inequalities experienced by GRT communities. ➤ The policing bill's measures will increase nomadic communities' precarity, exacerbating a harmful cycle of criminalisation, exclusion and poor health. They constitute an attack on GRT communities' culture and way of life. PROTEST AND PUBLIC HEALTH ➤ History provides numerous examples of vital public health advancements won through protest and social activism. ➤ As such, protest can be seen as a public health intervention, allowing communities to address and end inequalities at the root of health problems. ➤ Some evidence suggests protest can also produce positive public health outcomes such as reducing police homicides.
Medact, 2021
This report examines ‘Vulnerability Support Hubs’, also known as the Vulnerability Support Servic... more This report examines ‘Vulnerability Support Hubs’, also known as the Vulnerability Support Service, a secretive mental health-related project run by UK counter-terrorism police.
Public Interest Investigations, 2019
Public Interest Investigations, Jun 2015
Public Interest Investigations, Nov 2013
Discussion Papers by Hil Aked
University of East London, Centre for Palestine Studies (SOAS) and The Runnymede Trust, 2015
Journalism by Hil Aked
British Medical Journal, 2022
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Books by Hil Aked
By demystifying the actors involved in the Zionist movement, the book provides an anti-racist analysis of the pro-Israel lobby which robustly rebuffs anti-Semitic conspiracies. Sensitively and accessibly written, it emphasises the complicity of British actors - both those in government and in civil society. Drawing on a range of sources including interviews with leading pro-Israel activists and Palestinian rights activists, documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests and archival material, Friends of Israel is a much-needed contribution to Israel/Palestine-related scholarship and a useful resource for the Palestine solidarity movement.
Book chapters by Hil Aked
Journal articles by Hil Aked
Methods: Participants were recruited through Medact's member database and directed to an online survey hosted on Qualtrics. While participants were unlikely to be representative of the broader UK healthcare community, participants were in an advantageous position to comment on non-violent resistance. Descriptive quantitative analysis and a content analysis were conducted.
Results: The majority of participants felt that non-violent resistance could be justified dependent on its cause and/or the action in question. Within this, most felt that if action were non-violent, that if it didn't harm patients and that if the issue in question had to do with health being compromised, action was often justified. A number of others framed their justification as being a right or duty to engage in non-violent resistance. In relation to barriers to engaging in non-violent resistance, these fell into three categories: personal, professional and broader concerns related to society or the general culture found in healthcare. Within these, time and concerns about registration or the consequences of engaging in action were cited as the greatest barriers.
Conclusions: These results suggest that healthcare workers who regularly engage in non-violent action carefully thought through their actions, acknowledging the diversity of actions and issues that could be challenged, for many patient care remained a primary concern. There is a need for clarity from regulatory bodies and in particular the need for dialogue between healthcare bodies and healthcare workers who continue to engage in acts of non-violent resistance.
Research aim: Amongst a sample of healthcare workers who had engaged in acts of resistance this study sought to explore their understanding of non-violent resistance and how or whether they felt healthcare workers made a distinct contribution to such action.
Research design: Cross-sectional survey
Participants and research context: Healthcare workers (doctors, nurses, academics and others) from the UK and Europe who had engaged in acts of non-violent resistance.
Ethical considerations: Ethical approval for this study was granted by the University of Greenwich Human Research Ethics Committee (UREC/20.5.6.11).
Findings/results: Most participants spoke about the nature of non-violent resistance, its oppositional, didactic and symbolic functions and the role of violence or harm. While most people understood non-violent resistance as a public, oppositional and collective act, many identified more subtle everyday acts in the workplace that undermined policy or procedures they saw as harmful. When asked about distinctions in non-violent resistance carried out by healthcare workers, most participants referred to their standing in society, noting that healthcare works were a trusted and authoritative source. Some identified an ethical imperative to act while others identified the risks that came with such action, noting their accountability and responsibility they had to patients. About a quarter of participants felt that such action was no different to others carrying out non-violent resistance or dependent on the issue or nature of the action.
Conclusions: These findings speak to the complex and multifaceted nature of non-violent resistance. Additionally our findings suggest healthcare workers have a distinct role to play in leading and supporting non-violent actions.
Reports by Hil Aked
Discussion Papers by Hil Aked
Journalism by Hil Aked
By demystifying the actors involved in the Zionist movement, the book provides an anti-racist analysis of the pro-Israel lobby which robustly rebuffs anti-Semitic conspiracies. Sensitively and accessibly written, it emphasises the complicity of British actors - both those in government and in civil society. Drawing on a range of sources including interviews with leading pro-Israel activists and Palestinian rights activists, documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests and archival material, Friends of Israel is a much-needed contribution to Israel/Palestine-related scholarship and a useful resource for the Palestine solidarity movement.
Methods: Participants were recruited through Medact's member database and directed to an online survey hosted on Qualtrics. While participants were unlikely to be representative of the broader UK healthcare community, participants were in an advantageous position to comment on non-violent resistance. Descriptive quantitative analysis and a content analysis were conducted.
Results: The majority of participants felt that non-violent resistance could be justified dependent on its cause and/or the action in question. Within this, most felt that if action were non-violent, that if it didn't harm patients and that if the issue in question had to do with health being compromised, action was often justified. A number of others framed their justification as being a right or duty to engage in non-violent resistance. In relation to barriers to engaging in non-violent resistance, these fell into three categories: personal, professional and broader concerns related to society or the general culture found in healthcare. Within these, time and concerns about registration or the consequences of engaging in action were cited as the greatest barriers.
Conclusions: These results suggest that healthcare workers who regularly engage in non-violent action carefully thought through their actions, acknowledging the diversity of actions and issues that could be challenged, for many patient care remained a primary concern. There is a need for clarity from regulatory bodies and in particular the need for dialogue between healthcare bodies and healthcare workers who continue to engage in acts of non-violent resistance.
Research aim: Amongst a sample of healthcare workers who had engaged in acts of resistance this study sought to explore their understanding of non-violent resistance and how or whether they felt healthcare workers made a distinct contribution to such action.
Research design: Cross-sectional survey
Participants and research context: Healthcare workers (doctors, nurses, academics and others) from the UK and Europe who had engaged in acts of non-violent resistance.
Ethical considerations: Ethical approval for this study was granted by the University of Greenwich Human Research Ethics Committee (UREC/20.5.6.11).
Findings/results: Most participants spoke about the nature of non-violent resistance, its oppositional, didactic and symbolic functions and the role of violence or harm. While most people understood non-violent resistance as a public, oppositional and collective act, many identified more subtle everyday acts in the workplace that undermined policy or procedures they saw as harmful. When asked about distinctions in non-violent resistance carried out by healthcare workers, most participants referred to their standing in society, noting that healthcare works were a trusted and authoritative source. Some identified an ethical imperative to act while others identified the risks that came with such action, noting their accountability and responsibility they had to patients. About a quarter of participants felt that such action was no different to others carrying out non-violent resistance or dependent on the issue or nature of the action.
Conclusions: These findings speak to the complex and multifaceted nature of non-violent resistance. Additionally our findings suggest healthcare workers have a distinct role to play in leading and supporting non-violent actions.