Luke Kelly

My research focuses on the modern history of humanitarian aid. While at HCRI, I have worked on the Knowledge for Development and Diplomacy (K4DD) programme, which provides policy-relevant research on humanitarianism and development issues to the UK government.

Before then, I researched a variety of historical humanitarian work from famine relief to political advocacy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. After BA in politics and modern history (2008) and an MA in cultural history (2009), I completed a PhD at Manchester in 2013 entitled 'British humanitarians and Russia, 1890-1923'. I have also worked as a research assistant on several history projects in universities and the charity sector.

I have taught history and politics at Manchester, Salford and Bangor universities. 

Most of my research has been in the history of humanitarian aid. My doctoral thesis looked at the efforts of churches, pressure groups, charities, politicians and journalists to promote religious and political liberty and to relieve the victims of famines in late-tsarist and early communist Russia. It analysed these actors' methods and motivations for helping faraway peoples, particularly highlighting the role of Christianity, liberalism and notions of civilisation in shaping their humanitarian engagements. Parts of the thesis have been published as articles and as a book.

I have also worked on research projects about child migration in the British empire, the history of the British charity Merlin, and pet-keeping in British families.

My current research on the K4D project looks at a number of topics relevant to the humanitarian sector.

Publications:

K4D Research: https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/123456789/13022/browse?authority=5e497b69-bc58-4209-b9f9-42fff7c9d853&type=author

Article: “Humanitarian sentiment and forced repatriation: the administration of Hungarians in a post-war DP camp,” Journal of Refugee Studies (2017), Vol. 30, issue 3, 387–406, doi.org/10.1093/jrs/few009

Article: “‘George Woodcock and the Doukhobors: peasant radicalism, anarchism, and the Canadian state,” Intellectual History Review (with Matthew Adams, Loughborough University), http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17496977.2017.1361189

Article: “British Humanitarianism and the Russian Famine, 1891–2.” Historical Research (2016), Vol. 89, issue 246, 824-845, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-2281.12140/abstract

Article: “Christianity and Humanitarianism in the Doukhobor Campaign, 1895-1902,” Cultural and Social History (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14780038.2016.1180234

Book: “British Humanitarian Activity in Russia, 1890-1923,” Palgrave MacMillan (2018).

In 2024-25, Iconvene the following courses:

-the Professional Experience Project (HCRI 20220)

-The History of Humanitarian Aid (HCRI 61202)

-The Triple Nexus (HCRI 70112)

-Third year dissertation

Please get in contact with me if you have questions about these courses.

[email protected]

Ellen Wilkinson C1.43

Wednesdays 11-12 and Thursdays 14-15