Kristen Cheney
Position
Status
On Leave
Contact
Credentials
PhD (UCSC)
Area of expertise
orphans/orphanhood, intercountry adoption, child institutionalization, youth with lived experience of care; humanitarianism, international child protection regimes, political economy of childhood and international development; adolescent/youth sexual and reproductive health and rights, children and assisted reproductive technologies; decolonizing and participatory research methods
Kristen Cheney
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY:
Dr. Cheney’s research deals with children’s survival strategies amidst difficult circumstances and the politics of international development and humanitarian intervention for such children, primarily in Eastern and Southern Africa. Her work takes an explicitly child-centered approach that considers how children experience and respond to the various hegemonic institutional and structural elements of global and local development practices. Dr. Cheney has participated in research, consultancy, and capacity-building projects in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, on issues from children’s rights to youth sexual and reproductive health.
Her most recent research examines the impact of the global 'Orphan Industrial Complex'—including orphan voluntourism, childcare institutions, and intercountry adoption—on child protection in developing countries. Author of two monographs, one edited volume, and many articles, she has also led several studies using youth participatory research to explore issues of young people’s sexual and reproductive health, including as Principle Investigator for the Adolescents’ Perceptions of Healthy Relationships project in Bulgaria and Tanzania (2017-2021).
From 2007-13, Dr. Cheney served as co-founder and advisory board chair for the . She is currently on the editorial boards of the journals , , and the . She was also a member of the international expert group that created the Verona Principles international.
RESEARCH INTERESTS: orphans/orphanhood, intercountry adoption, child institutionalization, youth with lived experience of care; humanitarianism, international child protection regimes, political economy of childhood and international development; adolescent/youth sexual and reproductive health and rights, children and assisted reproductive technologies; decolonizing and participatory research methods.
SAMPLE PUBLICATIONS:
Books
(2019) Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave MacMillan (ed., with A. Sinervo).
(2017) Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
(2007) Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Articles and chapters
“Overcoming the Adult Gaze in Participatory Research with Young People” in B. Percy-Smith, P. Thomas, C. O’Kane and A. Twum-Danso Imoh (eds), A New Handbook of Children and Young People’s Participation: Conversations for Transformational Change, forthcoming 2022, London: Routledge.
, Childhood, 2021, 28(4): 555-569.
In R. Grinker, S. Lubkemann, C. Steiner and E. Gonçalves (eds) , 2019, 307-322. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
In S. Spyrou, D. Cook and R. Rosen (eds) , 2018, 91-104. London: Bloomsbury Press.
“” (with K.S. Rotabi) In: T. Skelton, C. Harker, and K. Hörschelmann (eds), , 2017, 89-107. Singapore: Springer Singapore.
, Adoption & Fostering, 2016, 40(1): 6-19.
, Childhood, 2016, 23(2): 192–206.
, European Journal of Development Research, 2014, 26(2): 247–263.
, Childhood, 2011, 18(2): 166-79.
Special issues edited
“Adolescents’ Perceptions of Healthy Relationships”, , (forthcoming 2023).
, African Studies Review (2021).
, Childhood in Africa, Spring 2017, 4(1).
, Global Studies of Childhood, 5(2), June 2015.
“Deconstructing Childhood Vulnerability”, , 2(1), December 2010.