Kris Clarke, PhD

I am Professor of Social Work in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki. I was born and raised in Fresno, California. As an immigrant to Finland over 25 years ago, my early interests were in multicultural social work because I was involved with some of the first social welfare courses with immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers and emerging organizations. I worked on the European Project AIDS & Mobility for nearly a decade. AIDS & Mobility advocated for migrants living with HIV by challenging stigmatizing xenophobic narratives and opening up dialogues about diverse sexualities and human behavior.

After returning to Fresno for twelve years, I became interested in decolonizing social work through my work with Dr. Michael Yellow Bird. We published Decolonizing Pathways towards Integrative Healing in Social Work in 2020 with Routledge (which is also available for free in open access). I currently teach courses on international and structural social work, and supervise master's theses and doctoral dissertations. I continue to research and work with themes surrounding decolonizing social work, social memory and HIV/AIDS.

This website is both a personal portfolio of my work and a site for the Social Work Routes podcast.

My goal with the podcast is to open up the richly diverse stories of people involved in social work and activism – what brought them to the field? Where does their passion in social justice work lie?  What experiences have shaped their perspectives? And what hopes and dreams do they have for the future? The podcast features conversations with people around the globe highlighting inspiring stories of fortitude and change making. 

Contact Kris for more info.