Staff Profile

Dr Michael Ashworth joined Newcastle Law School in August 2023 as a Lecturer in Public Law. His expertise lies in medical regulation, with a primary emphasis on socio-legal, theoretically-informed approaches to analysing regulatory dilemmas. He received his PhD from the University of Bristol Law School in 2019, which was funded through an Economic and Social Research Council 3 + 1 studentship, including an MSc in Socio-Legal Studies. He has previously studied at University College London and the University of Sussex.

Michael has teaching experience in the fields of public law, medical law, and socio-legal studies. At Newcastle Law School, he has taught Administrative Law & Human Rights, and Medical Law and Bioethics.

Before joining Newcastle Law School, Michael worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate on a Wellcome Trust project (Investigator Award, 2017-2023) at Kent Law School, entitled “Law, knowledges and the making of ‘modern healthcare'”, led by Professor Emilie Cloatre. Outside of academia, Michael has worked with the Human Dignity Trust (London), the United Nations Development Programme (Belmopan), and the British High Commission Belize.

RESEARCH AREAS

• Healthcare regulation.
• Medical pluralism.
• Global health.
• Media, governance, and health.
• Foucault and governmentality studies.
• Science and technology studies (STS).
• Socio-legal methodologies and methods.

Michael's broad research interest lies in analysing state responses towards unproven, uncertain and/or otherwise contested knowledge, particularly in healthcare contexts. Currently, his research interrogates regulatory dilemmas and tensions surrounding the professionals, practices and products associated with medical pluralism.

DOCTORAL SUPERVISION

Michael is happy to discuss potential doctoral supervision on regulatory issues in medicine and healthcare (national, comparative, regional or global) or any issues relating to medical pluralism. He is particularly interested in supervising interdisciplinary, critical, socio-legal or otherwise theoretical projects.

For 2024/25, Michael will teach:

• Constitutional Law
• Administrative Law & Human Rights
• Medical Law & Bioethics

• Articles

  • Ashworth M, Cloatre E. Resistance, regulation, and governmentality: interrogating the defunding of homeopathy in France and England (2000 to 2022). Social Theory & Health 2024, ePub ahead of Print.
  • Ashworth M. Everyday Healthcare Regulation: British Newspapers and Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Social & Legal Studies 2024, epub ahead of print.
  • Ashworth M, Cloatre E. Enacting a depoliticised alterity: Law and traditional medicine at the World Health Organization. International Journal of Law in Context 2022, 18(4), 476-498.
  • Cloatre E, Urquiza-Haas N, Ashworth M. Legalities of Healing: Handling Alterities at the Edge of Medicine in France, 1980s–2010s. Osiris 2021, 36, 328-348.
  • Ashworth M. Affective governmentality: Governing through disgust in Uganda. Social & Legal Studies 2017, 26(2).