Gauthier Marchais is a Research Fellow in the Conflict and Violence Research Cluster at IDS. He holds a PhD in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research focuses on dynamics of armed mobilisation, social transformation and armed group governance in conflict affected areas. He convenes the Conversations on Conflict and Violence Seminar Series at IDS, a multi-disciplinary seminar held on Mondays at IDS.

Gauthier’s PhD research focused on the dynamics of armed mobilisation in the province of South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, using a mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) approach. He is currently finalising two research projects on the region. The first paper seeks to provide evidence on the determinants of participation in non-state armed factions, using novel quantitative methods, and informed by qualitative research carried out in the region.

The second project also combines qualitative and quantitative approaches, to understand the conditions of emergence of indirect rule type governance arrangements between armed factions and local authorities in zones controlled by armed factions, in co-authorship with Raul Sanchez de la Sierra (UC Berkeley) and Soeren Henn (Harvard). He is also one of the directors of Marakuja Kivu Research, a non-profit association specialised in research in conflict affected settings, based in Goma, DRC.

Gauthier is currently a co-investigator two ESRC funded projects. The first, led by professor Patricia Justino (IDS) and in partnership with the Centre for Human Rights (CHRIPS) in Nairobi, and the Armed Conflict Location and Events Data Project (ACLED), seeks to ascertain the validity of different reporting sources for violent events, by comparing online crowdsourced monitoring of violent events with traditional media reporting in terms of timeliness, accuracy, and representativeness. The project outputs and papers will be available in the summer of 2018.

The second is a project that seeks to ascertain the relationship between armed group governance and environmental conservation in Mindanao, Philippines. The project is led by Professor Ana Maria Ibáñez of the Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota, and due to start in 2018. In addition, Gauthier Marchais is starting a two projects on education in conflict, in partnership with Save the Children, due to start in 2018.

Gauthier is also interested in questions of race and structural racism in the academy. He is currently writing an academic article on race in contemporary research on the African continent, and has recently completed a non-academic book on race from the perspective of a white man.