Rate My Professor Christina Kenny

Dr. Christina Kenny is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of New England (UNE), Australia, in the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education. She holds a PhD in Interdisciplinary Humanities from the Australian National University, with a focus on human rights and gender. Kenny's research specializations include gender, human rights, and development, emphasizing colonial histories, gendered citizenship, gender and sexuality rights in the Global South, East African colonial and post-colonial history, women and gender issues, and postcolonial theory. She has worked for over 15 years with human rights-based organizations in research, policy development, and advocacy in Australia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Kenny joined UNE in February 2018. Her key publication is the monograph Reimagining the Gendered Nation: Human Rights and Citizenship in Post-colonial Kenya (James Currey, 2022), which explores Kenyan women’s gender and citizenship rights and critiques how human rights discourse shapes rights recipients. She authored the chapter "Myths of Sorority: Kenyan Women's Community Organisation" in this book. Recent publications include "Beyond the binary: queer inclusion and invisible labour in Samoa's fisheries value chains" (Agriculture and Human Values, 2026, co-first author with Erika Valerio). She is founder of the Gender and Rurality Research Collective and guest editor for a special issue on queer(ing) rural lives. Kenny received the Australian Academy of the Humanities Travelling Fellowship for "Post-Colonial Desires: East African Queer Identities in the Age of..." and a Freilich Foundation ECR Small Grant (collaborative) for the podcast series "Towards Hetero-optimism: Heteropessimism and Hope in Rural Australia."

At UNE, Kenny teaches units including Approaches to Gender: Theory and Practical Applications (SOCY505) and Sex, Gender and Social Change (SOCY582). She chairs the Queer Allyship Steering Committee, serves on the UNE Ally Network, Equity Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee, and Diversity Advisory Committee, and contributes to initiatives on STEM inclusivity and digital pronouns. Her work promotes queer allyship and gender equity in academic and rural communities.