Centre for Applied Human Rights
Ruth Kelly
Ruth Kelly is based at the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York. Her research looks at how storytelling can help activists in Uganda re-imagine development and human rights, in collaboration with international NGO ActionAid and Makerere University in Uganda. Since 2016, Ruth has been part of an AHRC-funded research network exploring art, archives and the political imagination with artists, activists, practitioners and academics from Bangladesh, Uganda and the UK.
Ruth is also deputy chair of the Electoral Reform Society's governing council and has previously worked with ActionAid, Oxfam, UNDP and the European Commission. She has studied at Trinity College Dublin, Sciences-Po Paris and the University of Cambridge, and held a Fox International Fellowship at Yale University (2008-9).
Ruth is supervised by Professor Paul Gready and Dr Alfred Moore at York, and supported by Dr Susan Kiguli at Makerere.
Selected publications
Emilie Flower and Ruth Kelly (2018). Arts-based research practices and alternatives: reflections on workshops in Uganda and Bangladesh. Changing the Story Working Paper.
Ruth Kelly (2018). Speculative fiction and resistance: stories from Octavia’s brood. Cultivate. Volume 1.
Ruth Kelly (2017). Translating rights and articulating alternatives: rights-based approaches in ActionAid’s work on unpaid care. The International Journal of Human Rights.
Contact details
Email: rek523@york.ac.uk