Rate My Professor Karen Wells

Professor Karen Wells holds the position of Professor of International Development and Childhood Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, within the School of Social Sciences. She is also the Director of the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research. Wells earned her PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics in 1998, following an MSc from LSE and a BA from the School of Oriental and African Studies. With more than two decades of academic experience, her research focuses on the intersections between international development and childhood studies.

Her scholarly interests include visual cultures of childhood, child protection, the global circulation of children, biopolitics and the governance of childhood, NGO representations of children, violence in childhood contexts, and social reproduction in early childhood. Wells has authored several key books, including Childhood in a Global Perspective (Polity, 2021; 2nd edition), Childhood Studies: Making Young Subjects (Polity, 2017), The Visual Cultures of Childhood: Film and Television from the Magic Lantern to Teen Vloggers (Bristol University Press, 2020), and co-edited Childhood, Youth and Violence in Global Contexts (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Notable articles include "The strength of weak ties: the social networks of young separated asylum seekers and refugees in London" (2016) and "Narratives of liberation and narratives of innocent suffering: the rhetorical uses of images of Iraqi children in the British press" (2007). In 2023, she was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences for her contributions to international development and childhood studies. Previously a Reader at Birkbeck since 2006, Wells leads the MSc in Children, Youth and International Development and engages in international collaborative research projects.